Vietnam, Vidi, Vici: From Ha Noi to the Hai Van Pass
Often, they carried each other, the wounded or weak. They carried infections. They carried chess sets, basketballs, Vietnamese-English dictionaries, insignia of rank, Bronze Stars and Purple Hearts….. They carried diseases, among them malaria and dysentery……… By daylight they took sniper fire, at night they were mortared, but it was not battle, it was just the endless march, village to village, without purpose, nothing won or lost.“
– Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried
‘The Things They Carried’ is one of the pre-eminent books about the Vietnam War. It is haunting and visceral in equal measure while affording the reader as comprehensive an understanding of war as can be gleaned from print. Particularly to my generation, it also serves as an education as to just how toxic the war had rendered public life in the United States. It is difficult to conceive of another country which, for exclusively egregious reasons, dominated western headlines and seared itself into public consciousness as comprehensively as Vietnam did. The My Lai Massacre. The napalm attack on Tráng Báng. The Tet Offensive. The self-immolation of Buddhist Monk Thich Quang Duc. Shocking and brutal. Avoidable and futile.
Unfortunately, the league table of tragedy is particularly competitive and many places have had to transition from gunshots to vodka shots. However, in the case of Vietnam we have an entire country which was no more than a crucible of chaos for almost two decades, from which the last US soldiers only left in 1975 and within which a shocking level of human suffering was wrought for reasons unknown to many at the time and even more today.
The Vietnam War left up to 2 million Vietnamese civilians, and almost 1.5 million Vietnamese soldiers, dead. A further 4 million Vietnamese were left horrifically mutilated having been exposed to ‘Agent Orange’ as part of the USA’s chemical warfare campaign in the 1970s, to say nothing of the vast swathes of land left uninhabitable as a result.
Mercifully, today’s Vietnam is an entirely different proposition. In 2018 Vietnam welcomed over 15 million tourists to kayak Ha Long Bay, explore the quirky backstreets of Hoi An and visit the very Cu Chi tunnels from which the Viet Cong waged war. It is a remarkable transformation.
My initial 3 weeks in this narrow corridor of South East Asia was spent volunteering as an English teacher in Hai Phong, a city equidistant between Ha Noi and Ha Long Bay. I can’t say that I have exact figures on this, but of the aforementioned 15 million tourists, I would be surprised if more than 100 graced Hai Phong. It’s a very authentic experience as a result. Teaching was challenging and varied encompassing irregular verbs with large classes of teenagers, house calls to give ill prepared lessons in Irish Nationalism to 10 year olds (all of whom are now staunchly ‘Pro-Treaty’) and cross city motorbike commutes to explain to 3 year olds, and often their parents, how to pronounce ‘cat’ and ‘mat’, ‘bug’ and ‘jug’. It was a wonderful experience, although being forced to have lunch in the eyeline of parents every day was a bit disconcerting. Parading the fact that a Westerner worked at the school was good for business apparently. I’d imagine the parents that actually sat in on my classes were less impressed.
My last weekend as a disheveled English teacher was actually spent in Ha Long Bay, kayaing around the limestone islets that have made it world famous. Prodigious amounts of alcohol, in the form of the infamous Castaways tours, make it a destination of choice for thousands every year but misplaced tourist snobbery kept me away from that particular extravaganza. I say misplaced because while I usually think that going somewhere spectacular while blitzed on alcohol robs you of a more profound experience, I certainly see the appeal in Ha Long Bay. There are almost 2,000 limestone islets in this corner of Vietnam but you need only see a handful to get the idea. They are large and beautiful en masse but I wouldn’t get carried away and I’d absolutely take a drink. They weren’t hand crafted by Michelangelo. They aren’t decadently designed with pagan imagery. They don’t even harness sunlight on the Summer Solstice thanks to the incomprehensible insights of a lost civilization. They look nice. Pass me a beer and pack me off to Hanoi.
It was in Hanoi that I was introduced to Ho Chi Minh and his communist credentials, specifically at the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. Impeccably maintained, it is an impressive testament to a man that has done so much to shape Vietnam and it’s one of the more tranquil areas of a vibrant and hectic city. My abiding memories of Ha Noi are motorcycles and bargain basement beer, despite the best efforts of the latter to dull my recollections. Oh, and Australians. Drunken, loutish men from the land Down Under. Fair play to them.
Moving South my next stop was Hué, a city almost entirely robbed of its past splendor but within which the Citadel has mercifully been left standing. Here was the seat of power in Vietnam until the arrival of French imperialists in the 1880s and in 1968 it bore witness to one of the most intense battles of the entire Vietnam War. The terrifying Guerilla warfare of forests and jungles are synonymous with Vietnam but the Citadel is a chastening reminder of how brutal the hand to hand urban combat could be. It was chilling how often I could trace a line of machine gun fire and it was obvious that the Citadel, as is often the case, is a much richer and worthwhile experience precisely because it hasn’t been fully restored rather than in spite of the fact.
I make that last statement with one glaring caveat, the abandoned waterpark at Thuy Thien lake. Anyone I’ve spoken to that has been to Hué is quick to assure me that it’s worth a visit. Just like the staff at my hostel, they usually insist that it’s ‘spooky’ and ‘creepy’ and so ‘mysterious’ given that it was abandoned for no obvious reason. Truth is, it isn’t any of those things. It’s an abandoned waterpark. It’s shit.
No more than a graffiti laden series of filthy pools intertwined with slides festooned in jungle overgrowth, it may indeed be ‘spooky’ to children but the only thing ‘mysterious’ about it is the fact that tourists insist on visiting. I will concede that the dragon which towers over it is worth a picture, and it offers a lovely view of the presumably cholera infested pools that emanate from its base, but it is thoroughly unremarkable beyond that. As for why it closed down, I don’t know and most importantly, I don’t care.
Hoi An was my next stop but first, the Hai Van Pass.
The Hai Van Pass is the achingly beautiful coastal road linking Hué and Hoi An. It’s a jaunt that takes far longer than Google would suggest because you can’t help but stop so regularly to take in the remarkable and ubiquitous vistas. Dotted with quaint cafés snugly nestled in the roadside shrubbery, I had to stop at every one, despite the coffee being so bad that even a man with taste buds as blunt as mine found it revolting. Never has the ‘best view of my life’ been re-assessed as often in a single day and never have I enjoyed driving as much. The later assertion is certainly helped by the fact that, driving a motorbike, there was no passenger squirming beside me as I wrestled with the gears, jiggled the handlebars or had my gaze drawn off the road and across the sweeping forests and stunning valleys of this remarkable petrol head paradise. I loathe F1 and am entirely ignorant as to its appeal, but if it was held in places like this instead of circuits that look like glorified industrial estates, they would have another fan in yours truly.
The Pass ends in Hoi An, a tourist laden but beautiful coastal town. A new suit and a drawn Dublin v Mayo showdown would await me there. However, much like deciding that year’s All Ireland champions, a conclusion as to my thoughts on Vietnam will have to wait till another day.
