Historical Treasures

August 22, 2001-Off To Hue

(Photos:

Hai

Palace/Tomb of Tu Duc

Sampan on Perfume River)

Learned yesterday the Gulf of Tonkin was a French mispronunciation of the Vietnamese name of Don Kihn. Also learned that our guide has Jingle Bells on his cell phone instead of a ringing sound. Our impression of the dirt in the cities seems to need modification. People clean the main streets, government buildings, and some sites, but the millions of side streets are neglected.

Hai

Hai, our guide in Hue met us at the airport. He’s fifty-three and fought as a lieutenant for the South in the war.

He’s from the DMZ (demilitarized zone) and has an older brother who fought for the North. It’s a classic story

about a family divided by civil war with a Vietnamese twist. Hai said that the U.S. should have realized that in

Viet Nam family is more important than politics. When fighting in the same area, he and his brother secretly left

extra food for each other’s troops. At the end of the war, Hai was sent to a re-education camp. His brother was

a captain for the winning side and used some pull to get Hai released. His brother is married now and has eight

children. Hai, with only three mouths to feed, laughed. He said in the long run, his brother lost.

After his release from the camp, Hai worked repairing bikes. Then he drove a rickshaw, which he said was a lot

of fun. He‘d driven a jeep in the army, so he became a driver for tour companies. He drove during the day and

learned English at night. He practiced speaking to tourists and returning GI’s. Since he had a university education

before the war, his brother got him a job teaching at a middle school. That’s where he met his wife, also a teacher.

His mother, one of his father’s six wives, had arranged a marriage for him, but he said he wanted an educated

woman. His mother finally accepted his wife when they invited her to live with them. At the school he worked his

way up to principal. He preferred the freedom of working with tourists, so, once his English was better, he

became a tour guide. He personifies the recent history of Viet Nam.

He took us to the three-star Saigon Morin Hotel built by the French in 1901. It was a university when Hai was a

student here. Rooms are huge; the size of a small classroom. Although there are some rough edges, the charm

offsets them. Fortunately, the baths were recently renovated.

We had lunch at the hotel because Hai wanted to start touring at 3 P.M. The restaurant is called the Dollar

Restaurant because each dish is $1. The food was very average so we ate dinner elsewhere. One thing I’ve

learned to like here is the free use of toothpicks. I don’t have to wait for my dining partner to point out the

spinach in my teeth, I just pick away.

Way To Go

We saw the tomb of a king Tu Duc, from the Nguyen Dynasty. There’s a custom here that fit his mindset. Often,

the elderly buy their coffin and put it in their house so they can become comfortable with their future-resting place.

He seemed to have the right idea about life and death. He built his burial place to include his tomb, a palace,

theater, and pavilion. While he was alive, he enjoyed the complex with his 100 concubines. No reason to waste

all that good real estate.

Hai told us the meaning of Bonsai arrangements. He said man feels small compared to the grandeur of mountains

and sea. When a man creates a Bonsai with a rock for mountains, water for sea, and a small tree, he feels he’s

created his own world. Hai loves to work on his Bonsai, but it’s his wife who tells him where he can put it in the

house. Due to one thousand years of occupation by China, Vietnamese art and architecture have no distinct style

of their own, but the Vietnamese did develop their own literature.

We had a drink on the hotel patio before dinner. David ordered Huda, a beer made in Hue. On the label it said,

“ Brewed By Danish Technology.”

After dinner we stopped at an Internet Café. The woman at the next computer was speaking into a mike and a

man’s voice was coming out of the speakers. There was a lot of moaning going on: phone sex.

August 23, 2001-The American War

The heat is getting to me more than David. I never cooled off until this morning. Restaurants and Internet Cafes

aren’t air-conditioned and electricity in hotel rooms goes off when you leave. It takes a long time to cool off again.

This morning we were picked up at 8A.M. It was in the high 80’s. By noon it was 97. Luckily we only had a

half-day touring. This afternoon we’ll nap, email, and maybe swim. We keep drinking water, but it seems to go in

but not out. I stopped wearing any rings a long time ago. They became tight and it’s harder to keep my hands

clean with them on. Hand washing is something else we do a lot of…that and use Purell.

We’ve learned to say “hello” and “thank you” in Vietnamese. Hello is “seen chow.” Today Hai told us we need

only say “chow.” The whole phrase is for the young to say as a sign of respect to the old. It makes life simpler for

us, but it also makes us feel old instead of respected.

Hai’s a veritable fountain of parables and anecdotes. He refers to the war as the American War. He told us about

the oval table in Paris. When Kissinger wanted an oval shape, there were three parties at the table: US, North

Viet Nam, and South Viet Nam. When the Liberation Army wanted a seat, Kissinger said “yes, but you have no

land.” The leader of the Liberation Army responded by saying that “anywhere the Americans bombed is our land.

” They got a place at the table. Another story is that the leader of the North was worried he would be at a

disadvantage because Kissinger was taller than he. But, he was told, “ You have 4000 years of culture to stand

on.” Hai told us that he refers to the North as Viet Cong, but not in front of the driver who is from the North and

is a communist. Cong is used as a pejorative for communist.

We visited the Citadel that was built in the early 1800’s. What’s still standing after the Viet Cong bombing is

lovely. Buildings are decorated with broken porcelain pieces that glisten like jewels in the sun. It was the home of

the royal family when Hue was the capital. There’s a UNESCO Foundation grant and they’re rebuilding what

was destroyed. Hai phoned ahead to our driver, as they do here, and the car was waiting for us with the A/C

running when we emerged from the site.

We drove across the Perfume River on a French built bridge and returned over an American built bridge. We

took a ride on the river in a sampan that was a family house/tour boat ending up at a pagoda for followers of

Confucius with a Buddhist Temple behind it. Hai told about the two statues guarding an entrance. One was

Good and one was Evil. He said each person has both inside and has to choose which to follow. The pagoda was

on a hill overlooking the river. What a spot! Hai now knows about the three important requirements of real estate:

location, location, location.

There are tourists from all over. The guides are multilingual. The ones who speak Spanish learned it in Cuba. The influence of the U.S. is strong. At lunch, there was an Italian tour group next to us. Their leader was handing out

$10 U.S.bills for the exit tax. No matter what your nationality, you pay that tax in American dollars..

Lunch was at a place selected by Hai. We had Vietnamese veggie spring rolls, which are as tiny as the distance

from one knuckle to another on a finger. We also had an order of cellophane noodles with beef and garlic beef

with celery. I love their garlic dishes with lots of whole cloves. We downed a large bottle of water and managed

to reach an all time low in meal cost…$7.20.

Toby