Phnom Penh to Siem Reap (days 22 and 23)

The drive to Siem Reap was broken by an overnight stop in a small town called Kampong Thom.  We saw a number of things on the way, but nothing of great interest.  I've included a few pictures, just for the record.

First, there's the oldest temple in Cambodia, dating from the 7th century.  It's Hindu and is not in too good a state of repair.  The pictures show the entrance and the Linga (male organ), which is used in various  ceremonies.

We also stopped at a fish and crocodile farm on the Mekong river.

You see some pretty funny things carried on motorbikes and scooters, including live pigs (carried upside down), buffalo and, in this case, live chicken.  The next day was a large Buddhist festival and the needed a lot of chickens in town for their version of KFC.

It's often interesting to stop at the roadside stalls to see what they are selling.  Where we stopped the food included fried tarantulas and, as here, deep-fried crickets.  The Cambodians think they're lovely, but I didn't bother to try them.

Somewhere along the way, we passed the oldest bridge in Cambodia, 7th century, I think.

One of our stops was at a silk farm, run by an old American Vietnam war veteran.  I'm not sure whether it was out of guilt or what, but after the war he came back to Vietnam and started working for an organisation that was helping victims of landmines who had lost limbs and were on the streets begging.  After a while, he became disallusioned, as he kept seeing people begging on the street whom they had provided with prosthetic limbs.  It turned out that they could make better money by begging, so they hid their artificial limbs.  He therefor decided to move to Cambodia, where he set up this small silk farm and weaving operation, employing war victims.  They produce some lovely silk items, although they have to buy in most of the silk they use.

Phnom Penh (days 20 and 21)

Yesterday we said goodbye to Vietnam and took a speedboat, right from our hotel in Chau Doc to Phnom Penh.  It was about a four-hour trip, first on a distributary of the Mekong and then on the Mekong itself.  It really is a huge river and I'd guess it must be nearly a mile wide at some points.  It was a pretty uneventful trip and there's not really much to say about it, other than it was very warm (high 30s in Phnom Penh).

Our tour leader is an early riser and we left Chau Doc at 7am.  This worked out well, as it meant we had time for a trip round the town in a cycle-drawn carriage before lunch.  The city is not as hectic as Hanoi or Saigon, which came as something of a relief.  It has a rather pleasant atmosphere, especially round the Royal Palace and the French Quarter.

In the evening we went out to a typical Cambodian restaurant and had some very tasty food.  I was beginning to tire a little of Vietnamese fare and, although not substantially different, I found the subtleties of the Cambodian food much to my liking.

Today was our first introduction to Cambodian history and I haven't yet absorbed all we saw.  We started with a trip round the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda.  The palace consists of a number of very attractive buildings, but they are not very old, having been built in the late 19th and early 20th century.  The Silver Pagoda is so called because the floor is covered in silver tiles.  These were made by the French and even sport Fleur de Lis as the motif.  According to our guide, Cambodia sent twelve tons of silver to France, but the French ripped them off, returning tiles only weighing six tons.

We then went to the museum and had a potted history of the country. Although Cambodia ruled most of Indo China back in the days of the Khmer Empire (up to 14th century), today it holds much less territory and has a population of only fourteen million. In the early days of the Khmer Empire, the country was predominantly Hindu, but over the years, it turned more and more to Buddhism.  It's history is complicated, to say the least, and I can't guarantee to reflect it at all accurately.  Suffice it to say that it has frequently been invaded by the Vietnamese, Chinese, Thais and the French. In the museum, there was a map that compared the boundaries of Cambodia under the Khmer regime with that of today's Cambodia.  It reminded me of maps I used to see in Lisbon in 1971, when the Portuguese were embroiled in their African wars. The maps would show Europe, with Portugal highlighted, together with outlines of all their colonies (Angola, Mozambique, Macau, Timor) superimposed over Europe, the point being, of course, to show that really Portugal was a huge country.

Our guide was very sweet, but quite melancholic when talking about her country's history.  The way she put it, whether by the duplicity of her neighbours or by the incompetent decision-making of her leaders, Cambodia has been made to suffer time and time again and is still suffering.  Undoubtedly, Cambodia has been through very hard times, especially under Pol Pot, but I can't yet decide whether some of the things she said are really true or stem from some sort of paranoia.  More of this later.

Going back to the 19th century, Vietnam and Thailand were both fighting over Cambodia and, in the end, the king decided to invite France to come in to establish peace.  A deal was struck whereby the French would have some influence, but not overall control over the country.  It seems that the French were not exactly true to their word and, once they had arrived, declared that Cambodia was now a colony.

After the second world war, Ho Chi Minh wanted to control the whole of Indo China and to remove the French entirely.  In the latter objective, at least, he was successful, but this is where it gets complicated.  There had for some time been a Cambodian independence movement (Independent Khmer) which later morphed into the Khmer Viet Minh under the influence of Ho and the Viet Ming.  When the USA joined the fray in Vietnam, King Sihanouk declared Cambodian's neutrality, despite pressure from North Vietnam to support their fight against the South. However, he did allow the Viet Cong to send weapons through Cambodia, down the Ho Chi Minh trail.  As the VC came through, they raped, robbed and killed the Cambodians.
 
The USA started clandestine bombing in Cambodia in 1969, despite denials to the contrary.  Many Cambodians were killed, the people became very dissatisfied with the king and started demonstrating in the streets.  Many Cambodians joined the VC, in order to fight the US, and the king was forced to flee.  The Khmer Republic was formed in 1975.  The Vietnamese entered into a treaty with the republic, but broke the treaty and didn't leave the country.

Meanwhile, the king wanted to return and he sought help from both China and Russia.  China said that he should support the communists, his previous enemy, and, desparate to return, he agreed.  Pol Pot was already leading the Cambodian communists and now, with the king's support, the infamous Khmer Rouge was formed.  In fact, the king was just a figurehead and all the power was vested in Pol Pot.

The people now thought that five years of war would end and they welcomed Pol Pot with open arms.  His regime lasted from 1975 to 1979, during which time he killed millions of Cambodians.  Soon after coming to power, he told the people that the US was about to bomb Phnom Penh and that they had to leave within three days.  On the way out of the city, they stopped everyone and asked them what jobs they had.  I don't yet understand this, but it seems that Pol Pot planned to kill everyone from the city, but starting with the educated people.

Our guide was telling us all this as we arrived at one of the 'killing fields', a little way outside Phnom Penh.  This is where people were summarily executed and put into mass graves.  Some of their skulls are now on display in cases. The standard method of killing the victims was to blindfold them, tie their hands behind their backs, and make them kneel on the edge of a ready-dug mass grave.  They then hit them across the back of the neck with a bamboo club and pushed them into the pit.  They were then buried alive!  This was all very gruesome and even though the mass graves have long since been exhumed, you can still see bones and pieces of clothing poking through the soil.

After the killing field, we were taken to S-21, a concentration camp that Pol Pot converted from a secondary school.  The camp covered an area of some 600 x 400 metres.  One building was for senior Khmer Rouge officers, accused of plotting against Pol Pot.  They were actually housed in quite large rooms, with a single bed, to which they were shackled and where they were tortured.  Blood was still clearly visible on some of the ceilings.  The other areas were for less important people, including women and children.  Systematic torture was common, but everyone ended up being executed. 

Pol Pot's motives in killing so many people are not at all clear to me and I have bought a book that I hope with give some explanation, in which case I may update this blog later.  [Bill, you probably have some thoughts]

Throughout the day, it became pretty clear that there is a lot of emnity between the Cambodians and the Vietnamese and Thais as a result of the way Cambodia had been treated.  This I could understand, but what was disturbing is that there are lots of hidden undercurrents and people in high places pulling the strings.  We're told that two or three ministers in the current goverment are ex-Khmer Rouge, but that they are only there because they are pro-Vietnam.  Those Khmer Rouge who were pro-China are now out of favour.  It's all very complicated and I wish I understood it better.

As for the political situation, there is supposedly democracy, but it does sound as though it's little more than a sham and that corruption is pretty widespread.  Economically, Cambodia is still a very poor country.  It does export rice and a few other agricultural products, together with some woven fabrics.  It has virtually no industry other than tourism and what there is is foreign-owned, mostly by the Vietnamese, Chinese or French.  It's hard to see what the country is going to do to move forward.  Maybe the sort of communism they have in China or Vietnam provides a better basis for kick-starting this kind of economy?

Down to the Delta (Days 18 and 19)

This was yet another very interesting day. 

We left Saigon first thing in the morning and headed south, to the Mekong Delta.  We went via the new motorway, which opened just a few weeks ago and is the only road in Vietnam where you are allowed to drive at 100 kilometres per hour, but that's the limit.  This highway is raised off the ground, as the Vietnamese want to protect against global warming.  Already, rising sea levels are taking out more and more of the delta.

The Mekong river rises in Tibet, then runs through China, Burma and Thailand, before reaching Vietnam.  As it reaches the sea, it flows into a huge delta, where they call it the Nine Dragons, one for each of the main distributaries of the river.  Actually, there are only eight rivers, but they also count one of the canals, since nine is their lucky number.

The delta is home to some 22 million people, a quarter of the population of Vietnam.  It is the breadbasket of the nation, producing, particularly, rice, a wide range of tropical fruits, corn and fish.  Many of the people live in houses built on stilts overhanging the river.  They look pretty precarious and I can't imagine what they must be like in the middle of a cyclone.

On the way to the delta, we stopped at a wholesale market (reasonably interesting) and yet another temple, this time of the Cao Dai sect.  In Vietnam, it has about 2.5 million adherents, with significant numbers in other countries, including the USA.  The religion is interesting in that the worshippers pray to  Buddah, Confucius, Jesus Christ, Shakespeare, Victor Hugo and Jane Fonda, a fairly eclectic mix!  Their temple is actually rather beautiful and extrememly colourful.

Talking of strange religions, the delta boasts one of the world's more obscure religions, for followers of the Coconut Monk.  This ex-engineer's only food is coconut and all he drinks is coconut milk.  Since the Vietnam war, he has been striving for peace, but generally seems to have been ignored by world leaders, although he did boast some thousands of followers until his recent death.  According to our guide, he died weighting only 47k.  I'm not sure that that speaks too highly for the coconut diet!

When we arrived in the delta proper, we were taken by boat round a floating market, then on to lunch at a pleasant place on one of the islands.  That's where I came across this large python!

After lunch we drove into Can Tho, where we stayed the night in a pleasant riverside hotel.  I hadn't realised there were very large towns in the delta and I don't know the population of Can Tho, but it certainly seems quite large.

The following day we drove to the second largest town in the delta, Chao Doc, for our last night in Vietnam.  I'm currently in the hotel, which is right on the river Mekong.  Tomorrow morning we leave by boat right from the hotel, at 7am in the morning, a bit early for my liking.

Unfortunately, our drive was somewhat longer than it would normally be as part of the main road had collapsed and we had to take a 40k detour on a rather minor road.  This led to some interesting traffic incidents, to say the least.  One of my favourite pastimes has become sitting in the coach watching the antics of the traffic.  I am just fascinated by it, but so glad I didn't do the cycling trip I had planned.  I must say I am very impressed with the level of skill exhibited by the bikers and cyclists and even more impressed by their cool demeanour.  They seem to be inches from certain death time and time again, but show no emotion and just carry on as if nothing has happened.  It doesn't matter whether there are two, three, four or even five on the motor-bike, if there are babies squeezed between the adults, if they're on the mobile phone or if they're riding two or three abreast, whatever happens, they just carry on quite unperturbed.  It's quite astonishing.

The trick seems to be to just aim where you want to go with confidence and expect the other drivers to make the necessary adjustments.  Somehow it seems to work, most of the time.  Time and again, our coach would overtake some other vehicle, heading straight towards a bunch of oncoming bikers.  They would just calmy move across, often off the road completely, to let the bus through.  But they didn't seem at all bothered.  Or we'd be overtaking a motor-bike and another motor-bike would be coming towards us, on our side of the road (i.e. completely on the wrong side).  Again, somehow the two bikes would sort themselves out and no one would be hurt.  Uncanny.

We didn't do much on the way to the hotel, other than to soak up the delta and watch the traffic.  At one point we came across one of the many wedding ceremonies they have in Vietnam.  In this case, they'd just decided to extend the party area right across one side of the main road through the village and so the traffic from both directions suddenly all converged onto the narrow strip of road that was left.  Incidentally, it's considered bad luck to see a wedding before a funeral, but good luck to see a funeral before a wedding.  So if someone sees a funeral on the way to work, they are happy as it means they'll have a good day.  They are so superstitious.

We had a good lunch in a rickety floating restaurant on the Mekong, near to where the film Apocalypse Now was shot.  I ate a local fish called basa, cooked with vegetables in a hot pot.  After we'd arrived at the hotel, we took a trip on a boat up the river and visited a fish farm, where they produce the basa.  The farms are rather small and look like floating houses.  There are some 20,000 such farms on the Mekong, each producing about two tons of fish per year.  We watched the fish being fed and what a frenzy that caused.

The ubiquitous water hyacinth was much in abundance on the river.  Although it grows wild, the locals use every part of it.  The stems are used to produce a kind of straw that they use for making some kind of basket, which is highly sought after in Russia.  The foliage is used for animal feed and the roots for fertilizer, so nothing is wasted.

As our last outing in Vietnam, we went to the top of a local 'mountain', partly by bus, partly by foot and looked out over the delta.  It was the first time I'd seen it as I'd imagined it, that is, acres and acres of flat rice paddies.  Unfortunately, it was a bit hazy as they'd been burning off the waste from some of the paddies.  In the distance, to the north-west we could see Cambodia, where we're off to tomorrow.

Cu Chi tunnels

On our second day in Saigon we went to the Cu Chi tunnels, some 75k to the north west.  On the way, we stopped at an animal rescue park, where they take animals that have been caught in traps or found for sale in shops (as food or for medicine).  Really, it was like a small zoo.  The animals we saw didn't look in bad condition, but there wasn't a great variety.  We saw gibbons, otters, cobras, turtles and a few different types of bear.  It was reasonably interesting and they are doing good work, but I shan't be rushing back for a return visit.

The Cu Chi tunnels were in a different league and, for me, utterly absorbing.  I haven't got time to describe the whole complex in detail or its history, so here is a brain dump of some of the salient facts.

• The Ch Chi area covers some 160 square kilometres and is situated about 75k north west of Saigon.
• It is only 25k from the village where the picture of the burning girl was taken.
• The US wanted to establish a base there, as it would have been a good site for protecting Saigon.
• The tunnels themselves were built by the VC as a way of hiding from the Americans and run for some 250k, right down to the Saigon river, branching out in many directions.
• The VC included both men and women and very many gave up their lives for the cause.
• The entrances to the tunnels were very well hidden.
• The tunnels were very narrow, so most Americans would not be able to get in.  If they did, they would likely as not fall into traps built within the tunnels themselves.
• The subsoil is heavy clay, which meant they could, with difficulty, dig with small spades.  It also meant that there were few tunnel collapses.
• The tunnels were on three levels (see diagram).  The first were largish rooms, just underground.  These were used for things such as cooking and first aid.  The second and third provided better levels of protection.
• As they dug, they had to get rid of the soil, else the US would see where they were.  They either filled in the bomb craters with the extracted soil or put it in the river.
• Some people lived in the tunnels for up to 18 years.  Many were born there.
• The VC were incredibly ingenious in the ways they found to deceive and fight the Americans.
• Other villagers, mostly women and children, lived above ground, but were totally supportive of the VC below ground.
• Below ground, mostly they slept during the day, coming out at night to tend to their limited crops or to attack the Americans.
• The wore black uniforms, providing maximum camouflage.
• The US did everything they could to clear out the area, bombing it frequently, with high explosives, Napalm and Agent Orange, and sending in masses of ground troops, but they never managed to clear out the VC.
• We saw a demonstration of how they disguised the holes and could quickly retreat into one, should an American come close.
• The VC laid many traps in the jungle, of many different types, to catch the Americans.  These were quite horrific, but mostly resulted in the soldier falling into a hole that was full of bamboo spikes, or, occasionally, iron spikes.
• The VC did not put poison on the spikes, as they wanted to inflict as much suffering as possible.
• They could not use kerosene or candles underground as these burnt too much oxygen.  They therefore used lamps filled with cashew or peanut oil.  I'm not sure I believe the reason.  Maybe it was that they used what was available (Vietnam is now the world's largest producer of cashews).
• They cooked underground, but couldn't afford to be given away by the smoke.  Their solution was to build smoke tunnels exiting 200 metres or more from the kitchen.  The outlet was covered with fresh leaves each day, the old leaves being taken back to the tunnels as fuel.
• Clearly, the tunnels needed venting, but the VC could not afford to have the vents discovered since the Americans would pump in chemicals or drop grenades into any vents they found.
• The VC's way of hiding the vents was to exit each in a termite's nest, of which there were many.  They also built imitation nests, which looked identical to the real thing, and exited some vents in these, as well.
• The Americans started using dogs to smell out the vents, having trained them to smell Vietnamese.  The dogs would bark when they found a vent.
• The VC retaliated by putting chilli and pepper round the vent.  This irritated the dogs and made them sneeze, so they didn't bark and the Americans didn't find any vents for some months.
• When they realised that the dogs didn't sneeze when they got back to base, they realised what was happening and so they then looked for dogs that sneezed.  This gave them the upper hand again and they cleared out more tunnels.
• The VC retaliated by hiding captured American uniforms near the vent, which confused the dogs so they didn't go near the vent.  And so it went on, a right old arms race, but on a very different level.
• There were no toilet facilities underground and so the VC trained themselves only to go at night.  Then they went down to the river.
• The conditions inside the tunnels were, of course, atrocious.  They were infested with rats and insects and many VC died of malaria and other diseases.
• When they found unexploded bombs, the VC would saw them in half to extract the explosive.  This was very dangerous and in about half the cases resulted in setting off the bomb.
• They made sandals from old tyres.
• Although the jungle foliage has recovered to a great extent, it is nowhere near as thick as it was originally.  The Napalm and Agent Orange virtually cleared it completely.

There’s a YouTube video that includes a view of the tunnels.  It can be found at: http:\\www.youtube.com/watch?v=azxnc1nDkos

Here’s website about the war in general:

http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-conflicts-periods/vietnam/tunnels.htm

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

Until we arrived in Saigon, we had pretty comfortable weather, but it all changed when we landed at the airport.  The temperature then, late in the evening, was approaching 30C, but in the morning it quickly rose to 35C, with high humidity.  Fortunately, my stomach had pretty much settled down by then and I had no real problems with the heat.

Saigon has a population of 8.3m and 3.7m motorbikes!  As with Hanoi, the roads are just packed with motor bikes and the driving just as chaotic.  The city is much more modern though, with wider roads and better quality building.

Did I mention that, by law, two adults are allowed to ride on a motor bike, together with up to five children?  That is, provided the children are not more than 1.2 metres tall.  It used to be that their ages had to be under eight and the driver had to carry the children’s birth certificates.  Now, if he stops them, the policeman has to measure their heights!  They’re also allowed to carry luggage up to one cubic metre, but it’s not clear if this has to be so that no dimension is greater than one metre.  If so, some are totally illegal.  One was carrying a metal beam that must have been about six metres long.  God knows how he managed to corner.

The first visit was to the Reunification Palace, renamed after the fall of Saigon.  Previously it had been the president’s palace.  After the original French building was partially destroyed in 1962 by two rebelling pilots of the Vietnam air force, work on a replacement palace was commenced and inaugurated in 1966.  To me, there is nothing especially appealing about the palace, although some of the rooms are pleasant enough.
 

The most interesting aspect was that it was here in 1975 that the government finally fell.  The Viet Minh drove their tanks through the gates of the palace (the actual tank that broke through is in the picture), only to find the president, Minh, sitting in the cabinet room, waiting for them.  Minh had only been president for three days!  He told them that his government surrendered totally and, suddenly, the war was all over.  The communists made him speak to the people on the radio to tell them of the surrender and then put him in gaol.  He was subsequently sent on a re-education program.

The War Remnants museum was, in many ways, the most interesting visit.  It consists almost entirely of war photographs, together with a few quotations and one or two artefacts (medals, uniforms, etc.).   As is often said, history is written by the victors, but the sole objective of this museum seems to have been to show how brutal were the Americans.  So there were lots of horrific pictures of dead and injured Vietnamese (always implied to be innocent, rather than Viet Cong). 

The pictures included the famous shot that many will remember of the nine-year old girl (Phan Thị Kim Phúc) covered in flames, having been hit by Napalm (a devastating chemical fire-bomb) in 1972.  Apparently, she survived and was sent to Cuba for treatment.  The final irony, so far as the communists are concerned, is that she eventually moved to Canada (Toronto, I believe).

As well as the on-the-spot war pictures, there was also a section showing photos of grotesquely malformed people, supposedly (and very likely) the result of so-called ‘agent orange’.  This was a defoliant used by the Americans in South Vietnam, both to clear jungle areas to make it easier to find the Viet Cong and also (approximately 40%) to kill crops, in an attempt to starve the combatants.  There are many gross images in the museum, just one of which is included here.  I'm afraid it is shocking, but so was the war.

Incidentally, the Viet Minh were the North Vietnamese army and the Viet Cong were the South Vietnamese citizens who supported the north.  Most of the fighting was done in the South and, surprisingly to me, there was a greater tonnage of US bombs dropped in the South than in the North.  The VC were the most difficult for the Americans to deal with, since they wore no uniforms and could just fade away into the background.  Most likely, in many of the villages in the South. the whole population would have supported the communists, but perhaps not by actively fighting for them.  Could this justify wiping out vast swathes of people, for example, as occurred in the My Lai massacre in 1968.  According to Wikipedia:

“On March 16, 1968 of 347 to 504 unarmed citizens in South Vietnam, all of whom were civilians and a majority of whom were women, children (including babies) and elderly people.   Many of the victims were sexually abused, beaten and tortured, and some of the bodies were found mutilated.  While 26 U.S. soldiers were initially charged with criminal offenses for their actions at My Lai, only William Calley was convicted. He served only three years of an original life sentence, while on house arrest.”

With these rather disturbing images in our mind, we moved on to view three French buildings, the Notre Dame cathedral (brick-built and rather uninteresting), the Opera House (reasonably attractive) and the Post Office.  This was by far the most interesting building and I only wish our queues were as short.  The pictures show the interior of the building, together with detail of the floor tiles.






The eighty-year old man in the picture has been coming to the Post Office every day it is open for the last 27 years.  He is paid by no one, but took it on himself to help people who can't read or write or who needs to translate letters into French or English.  Such dedication.







We finally moved on to lunch, which happened to be the first I’d eaten in several days.  We went to a place called Pho 2000, so called because Clinton and daughter Chelsea ate lunch there in 2000.  I’d expected a rather fancy place, but it was just a simple noodle bar, albeit with good, cheap food.  I actually sat in the same seat as Clinton (see picture, with his picture behind me), but when we were there, the restaurant was crowded.  When he came, they closed the entire street from the restaurant to his hotel, 300 metres away.  Of course, he had the restaurant to himself and his entourage.

Here are a few more odd or interesting facts:

• Our guide is a Chelsea fan.  He even called his daughter Chelsea, which must be a pretty uanusual name in Vietnam.  She’s not the only one, Charles.
• There are four sacred animals in Vietnam: Dragon, Unicorn, Pheonix and Turtle (the only real one).
• The Vietnamese Unicorn is half dragon and half lion.  It doesn’t have a horn, except when in a temple.
• The Vietnamese culture is very much Chinese.  However, there are differences.  For example, their lucky number is 9, not 8.
• Vietnam has quite a lot of oil, mostly in the south of the country.  It exports the crude and imports refined oil.
• Some years ago, China occupied a few islands in the south and, although the UN has declared that they belong to the Chinese, the Chinese won’t move.  Guess what?  There’s oil in them there islands.  No wonder they don’t like the Chinese any more.

More on Hue (Day 15)

The day we left Hue, we had time to visit a couple of tombs and the royal palace at Hue.  They were all interesting, in their own ways.


First, we visited the Royal Palace and Citadel, on the banks of the Perfumed River.  This covers a large area and includes the Forbidden City.  Unfortunately, 80% of this was destroyed in the wars by the French and the Americans.  The pictures show a model of what it used to look like and what still remains.  The Vietnamese are now undertaking a renovation project and eventually hope to rebuild some 40% of the initial complex.

After a short drive, we arrived at the tomb of Tu Doc, the 4th emperor of the Nguyen dynasty, who died in 1883 .  This was in a lovely parkland setting, constructed by the emperor first as his summer palace, then as his final resting place.  I don’t have a picture of his tomb, as no photos were allowed.  However, it doesn’t really matter, as they say he would never have been interred in the tomb itself, because of the risk of grave robbers.  Instead, he was buried secretly somewhere in the grounds.

Finally, we went to the tomb of Khai Dinh, the 12th emperor of the Nguyen dynasty.  He died in 1925, aged 40.  He had 104 concubines, but, unfortunately, never sired any children.  It’s not that he was gay, but the poor guy suffered from mumps when he was a child and that left him impotent.  All those blanks he must have fired! 

His tomb is truly impressive and was built with the help of the French.  It’s hard to convey it properly in photos, but it’s on three levels, with lots of interesting things at each level.  The tomb itself is right at the top and is magnificent.  The walls of the room are completely covered in ceramics, all imported, mostly from China, France and Japan.  From Japan they included soup spoons (see picture).  He is buried beneath the tomb at the top, but some eighty metres below.  Apparently, they used French engineers to help with the design and are supposed to have implemented a scheme that made it thief-proof.  From what I could gather, it involves a sloping tunnel, dug in from the side, and some mechanism that is supposed to make tons of concrete fall on anyone who breaks through the sealed off tunnel.  It sounds a lot like the Egyptian pyramids to me and they weren’t exactly foolproof, but this tomb does seem to have survived intact.

Da Nang, Hoi An and Hue (Days 11 to 14)

We disembarked from our overnight train from Hanoi at Da Nang.  This is the capital of central Vietnam area, previously part of South Vietnam, and has a population of some 40,000.  In the war, there were many thousands of American troops here and this is where they came for their R&R.  The well-known China Beach, as it was known by the Yanks, is now being developed for tourists and there are currently twenty eight luxury beach-side resorts.  I can’t see how these will all be filled, especially given the prices that have been quoted.  According to our guide, one resort is planning to charge $5,000 per night for a single apartment.  But this does include a private butler.

We arrived at the train station at about 10:30 and met our new guide.  It soon became apparent that he is not quite so enamoured with the Government as the guide in the north.  He is from Hue, in what was South Vietnam, and he’s not at all happy with the level of corruption.  He reckons that it will only be ten years or so before they have to introduce democracy.

We left Da Nang for Hoi An and got there in time for lunch.  It has a very pretty old town, with lots of interesting restaurants.  The town is far less hectic than Hanoi, which was a relief.  Unfortunately for me, I’ve not been able to take full advantage of Hoi An and I’ve been in bed all day, with a terrible bout of the squats.  I only hope it clears overnight, as we have to leave for a fairly long coach trip at 9am tomorrow.

I did manage to go out to dinner last night, to a place called Mango Mango.  This is supposed to be one of the best restaurants in the country and boasts that Mick Jagger has been there twice.  The food was excellent and only cost £20, including wine.  Even Mick could afford that!

In two days time, it will be 35 years since the Vietcong ‘liberated’ Hoi An and so the town was decorated with hundreds of the lanterns and it really does look pretty at night.  There’s an old bridge in the centre of town that is very famous and features on one of the banknotes.  We have a lovely hotel just out of town and I wouldn’t mind spending more time here sometime in the future.

The following day we took the coastal route to Hue.  Before we got to the hills, we saw a ship that had been blown ashore in the cyclone they had two years ago.  This was force 14, much stronger than was forecast, and some 250 people were killed.  So far, they have been unable to re-float the ship and are now trying to dig it out!

Although the driving on the coastal road was horrendous, the views were spectacular and, we were told, National Geographic rates it one of the top ten coastal drives.  In the photo, looking down at the beach, you can just about see a leper colony, one of the few remaining in Vietnam.  The government wants to displace the lepers and build a luxury resort there, but it seems they are meeting some opposition.

Tallking of driving, I really never have seen anything like it.  The other day, we were driving along a busy road by China Beach.  There were two lanes each way, with a double-white line down the middle.  On many occasions, streams of cars, buses, lorries, etc. would cross the double line and force any on-coming traffic into the other lane, or, in the case of motor-bikes and cycles, right off the road.  Our guide said that the double line was just for decoration.  For some reason, the cyclists love to ride two or three abreast, despite the fact that other traffic misses them by inches when overtaking.  They just don't seem to care at all.  And of course, overtaking on blind hairpin bends seems to be pretty standard. In the towns, there are zebra crossings, but they are totally ignored and offer no protection whatsover.

I haven’t really seen anything of Hue as I’ve stayed in the hotel all the time. 

Tonight we’re off to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).