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Adventures In Indo-China!
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Dear Valued Client,
Top of the New Year to you all - I hope you had a restful and safe Christmas break. As regular clients know I was overseas on one of my traditional end of year "Safaris" to weird and unusual places, and was away from the office from December 17th to January 9th. I apologise in advance if any orders posted, faxed, or emailed during that period have not been processed
This trip visited Vietnam, Laos and Thailand. First a stop in Thailand, and next day to Ho Chi Minh City, known to everyone else in the world as SAIGON. This was my second visit to Vietnam, and things have changed noticeably since that visit of only a few years ago. Saigon is a 24 hour a day continuous hustle and bustle, much more frenetic than the more conservative "North" in Hanoi. Some decent standard hotels have now opened in both centres ... quite a welcome change! Since the Americans have only recently removed Vietnam off the "trading with the enemy" blacklist, US investment is pouring in, and I predict quite vast changes will now occur in the next 5 years.
Saigon is like a huge army of human ants (7 million of them) running about rapidly - everyone alive, from the age of 5 upwards seems to be making a dollar doing something, and its goatee bearded namesake, Uncle Ho Chi Minh must be turning in his socialist grave at this rampant capitalism! The place reminded me very much of how Hong Kong was 25 years ago, before high wages, skyscrapers, McDonalds and westernisation moved in. So, travel and see Vietnam NOW unless you happen for some reason to enjoy visiting places like Hong Kong!
Vietnam is of course still a terribly poor country, but one with gigantic potential to become yet another Asian "Tiger". The population is around 80 million, already the 12th biggest on earth, yet has with no government population planning policy. A phenomenal percentage of the population is aged under 30 due to the War, and national literacy rate is a reported 89%, terribly high for a "developing" country. The "work ethic" due to their Chinese ancestry is far more pronounced than in other populous places like India, Mexico, Thailand, Brazil or Indonesia, and remember Vietnam is still a very definitely Communistgoverned country, not an alleged democracy like those 5 places.
There must be more motor cycles in Saigon than any other place on earth - seeing is believing! Also a few million bicycles thrown in for good measure. There are few if any pedestrian crossings, and the tooting solid mass of 2 wheel transport NEVER stops. Not one helmet among the lot. Pedestrian technique is to pick a moment when no car is coming, (they never swerve) close your eyes and walk briskly into the mass, and remarkably they (mostly) swerve and don't hit you. A bloody terrifying way to cross a road I can assure you, but it works!
Vietnam's currency, the oddly named DONG was 12,250 to $US1 with a street "Black Market" rate of about 10% more .... this "black" rate is published daily in the newspaper! Credit card acceptance across the country is virtually nil, and when it is, 5% is added, and billing is in $US anyway, at the "official" exchange rate so you lose 15% or so using a card versus foreign cash. The highest banknote is 50,000 Dong, or around $US4. I changed a £50 note and got way over a million Dong! Food & drink are so incredibly cheap you can survive nicely for two weeks on this sum. Vietnamese food is superb and a great meal, washed down with a couple of excellent Bier Hanoi costs only a dollar or 2.
| One interesting side trip from Saigon was to the Cu Chi Tunnels a few hours drive away. This intricate mud tunnel network extended for some 250 Km, and were often 3 levels deep. They even tunneled and lived right under a US Army base! Hospitals, kitchens and living quarters for 1000's of Viet Cong were all way underground, with clever hidden air vents and entrances. There were also terrifying booby trap pits of sharpened bamboo stakes I was shown, which quickly deterred the Americans from getting too inquisitive up close. They just dropped a few million tons of bombs on the area instead. I crawled and squirmed and wriggled through sections of all 3 levels, and even braving a few 100 metres is scary, incredibly hot, pitch black, bat and spider infested and most places are barely as wide as your body. Little wonder this determined lot won the "David & Goliath" war! An adjoining rifle range allows you to fire live rounds from captured USA M-16 rifles or Viet Cong AK-47s for a small fee. The lack of "kick" and the accuracy of a Russian AK-47 was quite exciting to experience first hand. |  Stevo the terrorist tourist with a Russian AK #47 assault rifle near the Cu Chi Tunnels in Vietnam. Click here to enlarge |
Another day took in a cruise on a sampan among the lush Mekong Delta region near Tien Giang, where seemingly everything grows well. From Saigon, a flight to Da Nang and Hue in central Vietnam, where the bulk of the US troops were stationed, just south of the "D.M.Z.". (The Aussies were based mostly around Nui Dat in the South.) A war museum is quite a sobering place to visit and see real photos of what phosphorous and napalm bombs did to those unlucky enough to be vaguely in their path (often civilians), and photos of all sorts of other atrocities. The quite phenomenal quantity of carcinogenic, mutagenic, Dioxin defoliant dropped on Vietnam is given, and even today growth has not returned to large areas. Dioxin ("Agent Orange") is the most toxic chemical on earth. There are 2 sides to every story of course.
To this day in the markets you can freely buy rusted and authentic USA "Zippo" lighters for $20 engraved with battalion and squadron details and name etc, G.I. 'dog tags', and all sorts of other war related material scavenged from corpses presumably. This month marks the 30th Anniversary of the "TET" (New Year) offensive that turned the tide of the conflict in Vietnam. The resultant heavy US casualties, the "body bags" returning en masse, and their arrival being graphically captured on American TV news, heralded the beginning of the end.
The Vietnamese people are very warm, smiling and friendly and amazingly, seem to harbour no animosity to westerners, even Americans. They seem simply to want to get on with life, and improve their living standards. A great percentage of the population have been born since the Paris Agreement cease-fire in Jan 1973. The communist North later over-ran the South, and who can forget that dramatic footage of the last helicopter departing from the Saigon US Embassy roof in 1975. (That Embassy is still closed - no-one has lived there since 1975.)
The ancient city of Hue has some quite wonderful historical buildings & imperial palaces that I cycled to! Nearby Hoi An is the arts & cultural centre of Vietnam, and visiting there is like going back 100 years in a time machine. There is no tourist development (yet) in this region. Even the nearby famous CHINA BEACH is unspoiled by even one hotel or resort built upon it, but one has now gone up close by, and in 10 years it will possibly be ruined like Phuket, Guam, Honolulu or Bali. I spent Christmas in Hoi An, and it was quite a hoot, with a bunch of other western travellers. Vietnam is largely Buddhist but they realise Christmas means something to tourists, and if there is a buck in it, they will do their darndest to participate. The restaurant owner on Christmas Eve (it cost $2 a head to eat and drink all night) seriously asked me: "who and what was Jesus Christ". Try answering that in a few sentences after a few beers, to someone who barely speaks English!
Hoi An is also the tailoring capital of Vietnam, again like Hong Kong was 20 years ago. They whipped me up a custom made cashmere suit overnight - it cost $45! I lost count of how many pure silk shirts I bought ... a few dollars each, you pick the style and colours etc. Also ordered a silk Kimono as well, and asked if I could have my name embroidered on it in Chinese characters. "No problem mister - you write you name down please English". It arrived with the letters GLEN three inches high! Looked like a prison uniform. They took it away, unpicked it all, and hand re-embroidered it all in Chinese over the top of mistake area within 15 minutes literally ... these people work like machines!
Another flight, this time up the capital HANOI, and a very different place to central Vietnam, and to Saigon. Much more conservative, less frenetic, and even less cars, if that is possible. Being right on the Chinese border, the people are far more obviously "Chinese" featured than their southern cousins. (This is a very "long" country, some 1600 km from North to South, with many indigenous "native" groups hence the ethnic differences.) The young women in their wonderful flowing ao dai white silk trouser suits are by far the most beautiful and elegant in all Asia. No wonder they broke so many troop hearts! Teenage girls wear them to school with the ever present wide conical straw hats and they're a stunning sight especially in a group. Countryside is very "backward" by western standards. Rice is by far the major crop (Vietnam is now a nett exporter) but it is all planted and harvested by hand. Water buffaloes do the ploughing and hauling, and humans do the rest. Labour is so cheap a tractor costs about 30 years of a farm hand's wages ....... the average income across Vietnam is only $US200 p.a.
Hanoi, like Havana in Cuba appears not to have had a coat of paint or much maintenance done in 40 years. Was once a very elegant city with the French inspired wide tree lined boulevards, and French style Villas etc. The city centre is a large lake ... very pretty. It is a very long 6 hour drive each way on pretty terrible roads (being upgraded) to the legendary Halong Bay, up near the Chinese border. This is dotted with about 3000 tall, unpopulated limestone "islands", many with caves and grottos, and was the location of the "IndoChine" movie. You cruise among these islands for hours on a junk, and in the early morning mist it really is a spooky and eerie experience. This bay is the No#1 tourism icon for Vietnam. The locals live on decrepit wooden boats, and fish by hand the same way they have for centuries.
From Hanoi, boarded a Lao Aviation flight to Vientiane, the capital of LAOS. Actually, the correct name of the country is People's Democratic Republic Lao (PDR Lao) as all their stamps are inscribed. Why it is that clearly communist countries give themselves the "Democratic" monicker in their name I have never figured out, but they are only fooling themselves. If Laos is an example of communism, it is a sensational reason to stay capitalist! This place (like Cuba and Romania) is an economic basket case. It has only 5 million people, who have about the same per capita income (few $US100) as their Vietnamese neighbors. There the similarity stops - the people look visually very, very, different to the Vietnamese, and the spoken and written language is totally different. The Laotians look, write, sound and build and cook very much like the Thais. The work ethic is similar too ... nothing remotely like the sharp, industrious Vietnamese.
The currency of Laos is the Kip. Upon arrival I changed a $US50 note and got given a wad of Kip literally an inch thick. I asked for "some high denominations please" so I didn't have to lug all this small change around, and found out the "brick" of 1000 Kip notes were literally the LARGEST value they print! (Each is worth about 40˘!) There are 8 legal tender notes, that go down to 1 Kip value, and then below that there are coins denominated in aat! Imagine how infinitesimal a sum 1 or 5 or even 10 Kip notes are worth! True story - in a rural bank I saw staff milling about a table stacked 2 feet high with bundled 1000 Kip notes, all double checking the count. Someone local was trying to pay cash for a second hand tractor. Credit cards are totally useless in Laos even for airline tickets on the national carrier, so a business transaction of say equal to $US10,000 in tightly bundled Kip would literally fill the back seat of your car. Keep your Communism!
Vientiane is a dusty, run down dump, and is not a good introduction to Laos. I made a point of visiting the "Friendship Bridge" just outside the city, that links Laos and Thailand over the Mekong. Australian taxes for some reason paid for most of its $A42 million cost, and it is of course featured on the 1994 Aussie 95˘ stamp issue. Happy to wave Vientiane good-bye, I flew Lao Aviation to Phonsavan in the central highlands. Lao Aviation fly ancient Russian built Antanov 24's prop jets, or worse still, Chinese copies of them called a "Y-7". I was honoured to fly in both, low over rugged mountain ranges (over 50% of Laos is heavily forested) with canvas showing through on the tyres, no seat belts or seat belt checks, no safely drills, emergency notices in Russian or Chinese etc.
Being communist, they still love their paperwork. For all internal flights you need to be at airport a "few hours" early so the desk staffed by three surly "Immigration" Military can each very slowly sight, stamp and check passports and tickets then pass it to the adjoining guy - no exceptions. Another bunch slowly collect the 300 Kip (10˘!) "departure tax". Another bunch takes away this 10˘ ticket and cancels it. When you arrive domestically, this whole stupid slow Passport stamping circus and delays takes place again ... true! The planes never, ever, run anything like on time, and are frequently cancelled (often to fly opium to the Golden Triangle it is said) so a full day can nearly pass by, waiting to take a 30 minute domestic flight.
Phonsavan used to be called Xieng Kuang. Between 1964 and 1973 the Americans literally bombed that off the map, so it was relocated nearby and re-named. The countryside is pockmarked with bomb craters, seen clearly from the air. I never realised neutral Laos was so heavily bombed in the conflict especially here so far inland from Vietnam, but you live and learn. Unexploded ordinance is still a massive problem in the countryside, killing and maiming hundreds each year. The hill tribe villagers use the huge unexploded bombs as sturdy pillars for wooden house foundations, for fence posts around their opium poppy fields, and all sorts of things that I photographed - they are very resourceful! Big piles of bomb casings and portions of downed planes etc were piled up near my tiny "hotel" for sale as scrap metal.
The one (and only!) reason to visit Phonsavan is to visit the PLAIN OF JARS. There are a couple of sites, with these huge stone jars lying about. Their origin and purpose is unknown, but my guess is that they were sarcophagi of rulers or nobles as a few stone "lids" are still lying about. They are up to 12 feet high, and weigh up to 6 tons each with very thick walls and are supposedly 4,000 years old. There are 100's strewn about in remote valleys miles from anywhere and lots more have been souveniered or taken to Museums. The work to create each one from a block of solid rock, without metal tools beggars belief. The stone used isnot local to the area. One of the great archeological sites of Asia, and due to its remoteness, one very few westerners visit. Huge American bomb craters are only metres from the largest Jars.
I spent New Year's Eve in dusty, tiny, remote Phonsavan with a great bunch of Dutch tourists, who all spoke better English than most people reading this newsletter! (Not to mention the other 4 or more languages most Dutchmen manage well.) A great hoot with lethal fireworks flying everywhere, and some disgusting Chinese "champagne" they had thoughtfully packed, which was topped by the Vietnam and Russian bubbly I'd bought in Hanoi. The "best hotel" in town was a bit of a misnomer ... they forgot to mention it only had electricity each day between 5pm and 11pm. Trying to have a sobering hot shower the morning after a boozy NYE and "Laotian Disco" that we somehow discovered, was not much fun with ice cold water! "Maybe you take hot shower in night time" the staff very helpfully suggested.
From Phonsavan a hair raising flight passing metres from rock ledges, down mist filled mountain valleys to LUANG PRABANG the old capital of Laos. A beautiful, elegant city, filled with centuries old palaces, French era mansions, temples and historic buildings. It is cool and verdant, at the confluence of the Mekong and Nam Kham Rivers. Sited around a large central mountain called Phu Si, from where the view of the sun setting on the Mekong (after walking up 400 stairs!) is truly awesome. A lovely city, with no high rise development at all, and why you would move a capital from here to dusty, dry, Vientiane is one of life's mysteries. Visiting Luang Prabang is like going back in a time machine to half a century ago, and there are now very few elegant cities in the world these days where that is still possible.
Back home via Vientiane to Bangkok and a longer than scheduled stopover for some shopping, as I'd heard the value of the Thai Baht had recently collapsed. Had it what - it was under HALF its value even against the $A from 6 months earlier! (17 Baht in mid June, v/s 35 now) Better still, as I was staying in the shopping area of Sukhumvit Road, the traditional early January genuine half price sales were on in the big stores. So, things were costing a QUARTER what they did 6 months back, in a place where they genuinely are dirt cheap anyway! Never have I bought so many clothes and shoes in so short a time. Leather men's fashion shoes at $A20 a pair, even snakeskin or similar, those kind of price deals! Even the very nice hotel I was in cost under $A30 a night, taxes and breakfast included, as tariff was in Baht.
Flew out of Bangkok home via Jakarta, and if the Baht had collapsed, the poor old Indonesian Rupiah had disintegrated. In one day alone in early January it dropped 22% against the $US! The airport Duty Free stores were cunning - every item was priced in strong $US with huge signs saying: "Sale! Sale! Deduct 30%-50% Off Every Item". Naturally the tourists were buying like mad at those prices, but in reality, even with 30% off, the store was getting MORE in Rupiah for each item that they did the week before, when NO discounts were offered! The goods had long been paid for in Rupiah, so the store was well in front, in Rupiah, based on his true cost, and the tourist saved 30-50% on top brand name booze, perfume, watches, jewellery etc. (Wait until stock needs replacing though!) The vagaries of world currencies fluctuations.
Back home now to the grind, and have enclosed my brand new list number "F - 4" : please spend recklessly, and absolutely no payments in Kip, Dong, Baht or Rupiah will be accepted!! I bought from a long term client in Bangkok a large 30 volume collection. The owner had written to me about these in November, telling me the price he was looking for ... in Baht, as he was worried the $A might sink lower!! He costed it in November when $A1 bought 25 Baht and today $A buys 35 Baht, so the material cost me 40% less than it should have, yet he still was getting his full asking price. Naturally I bought it, and the first dribbles of it are in this list, the balance next month. There are some GREAT bargains among it ... early ordering advised as some lots will attract numerous enquiries, and as always: "first in, first served"!
Cheers, Glen. January 1998.
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