vietnam Archives - Page 2 of 2

On January 30, 1968, just a little more than three weeks after my birth, large numbers of Viet-Cong soldiers, South Vietnamese loyal to the North, with well placed support form the North Vietnamese Regular Army, orchestrated a sweeping series of fierce attacks upon the unsuspecting South Vietnamese and American troops. The reason they were caught unawares was that the attack took place during the most important of all Vietnamese festivals, the lunar new year holiday, Tet. Thus, was the name of the surprise attack dubbed the Tet Offensive. The attacks took place all over South Vietnam under the cover of darkness in the waxing moments of the year of the monkey. The Tet Offensive is one of the watershed moments of the Vietnam War and because of this, the festival and the war will be indelibly tied. As the year of the monkey once again approached I found myself having dinner in a restaurant on Bach Dang Street in Da Nang where 48 years earlier a hail of rocket fire rained down from the skies on the suddenly besieged city, initiating days of intense fighting. This time the only explosions will be the sound of fireworks.

Tet Festival — The decorations at Love Bridge. Dragon Bridge in the background. Da Nang, Vietnam

As I finished my dinner, the stroke of midnight was but a few scant minutes away so I left the restaurant and walked to the edge of the Han River to await the fireworks show. I began my evening on the opposite bank. The open plaza that sits on the edge of the river there is called the Love Bridge, and it lies adjacent to one of Da Nang’s most recognizable monuments, the Dragon Bridge. For the Tet festival, the Love Bridge was tastefully decorated in flowered displays and greetings wishing one and all the best in the coming year. A great many people were gathering there and the festive feeling of the event grew exponentially as a band began to play. And all under the watchful gaze of the Dragon.

One of the features of the Dragon Bridge is the nightly water display. The bridge was first opened in March 2013, and every night since then at 9 p.m. the dragon emits several jets of water from it’s gaping maw. The bridge had just opened when I visited there in the summer of 2013, so I knew this which is part of the reason I was there so early. What I didn’t know, and to my great surprise and delight, is that on special occasions the Dragon breaths fire! It was quite a spectacle to see long flues of flame belching from the dragon head that adorns the eastern end of the bridge. After the display was completed I wandered around soaking in the sights and sounds of my first Tet. A while later hunger grabbed hold so off I went to Bach Dang Street to get some dinner.

Given that is was Tet Eve and the evening was growing a little long in the tooth, a lot of places were closed and getting a decent meal was a little more difficult than I had considered. Nevertheless, it wasn’t too much later that I decided on a western style place along the main drag and settled down to a feed of delicious cheeseburger and fries with a nacho starter. This may not seem like a big deal to a lot of you, but where I live in China it all but impossible to get a good western style meal. About the only thing western that exists in my neighborhood is a KFC and a MacDonald’s. These are foods I am loathe to eat, but a desperate man can cave even if his will should be ironclad. So like Simon and Garfunkel did with the whores on 7th Avenue, there are times when I took some comfort there. But on this night I would not need lower myself to such vileness as fast food. I was eating real food! Da Nang has a great selection of foods from all over the world to tempt your taste buds, especially food from the west. So while I was there I took every opportunity to get as much delicious legitimate western style food as I could. Goodness knows when I will get more. Anyway, with the meal over and digestion under way, I headed to the river side.

Tet fireworks explode above the tail of the Dragon Bridge, Da Nang, Vietnam — Tet fireworks explode above the Dragon Bridge, Da Nang, Vietnam

I was under the impression that the fireworks display was to take place near the Love Bridge where I had started my evening and thus I believed that my current perch directly across the river was an ideal location to get a look at the fire works display. Apparently I was far from alone in that expectation, because when the fireworks began at the stroke of midnight to augur in the dawn of the year of the monkey, there was a great many others looking in the wrong direction as I was. The actual location was further from my spot than I anticipated and every photo I took has the Dragon Bridge dissecting it. Despite these minor inconveniences it was still a very enjoyable show. The fireworks display itself was very good, but hardly spectacular. But I found that to me this wasn’t really of all that much importance. I didn’t require a top of the charts light show to enjoy the moment or to make it special. I didn’t need the flashes and booms to seem endless. What was important for me was just being there, in a place that long before I ever visited there for the first time, had a firm, undeniable, and unbreakable grip on my imagination.

Tet is more than just a single day of celebration, however. Like it’s more well known cousin, Chinese New Year, it is a week long festival where families and friends regularly unite for celebrations. Several days later, at the end of the fourth day of my bike tour, I was fortunate enough to be a guest at just such an occasion in the town of Khe Sanh. And I wasn’t alone. I was drawn to the scene by the sound of music and singing. With a cry of Chuc Mung Nam Moi (Happy New Year) I was dragged from the street and given a chair at a table with a group of super friendly locals and some other foreigners who had likewise been pulled from the streets by the merry revelers and placed smack dab into an awesome street-side karaoke party.

Before my ass had a chance to feel the seat beneath it there was a glass with an ice cube on the table in front of me and beer being poured into it. After a hearty “cheers”, and at the urging/insistence of our hosts, we emptied our glasses… at which point they were immediately refilled. This set the stage for the remainder of the evening. I quickly made the acquaintance of John, Curt, and Sam from Seattle that were in the midst of a motorbike tour from Ho Chi Minh City in the south to Hanoi in the north. They were friendly fellows and we soon fell into easy conversations, no doubt partly aided by the constant requests for “cheers” and the glasses of beer, quickly emptied and refilled by our gracious and wonderful hosts. For as much beer as they pushed at us for the evening they wouldn’t accept a penny. We would have been happy to sing a song but there was no western music available. The only price was to have a good time, enjoy yourself, and occasionally, dance. A small price to pay. An easy price to pay. A price I was more than happy to pay to have the honor to enjoy Tet with the great people whose heritage it belongs to, and to have the great opportunity to share with them their joy for life, their love for family, and the blessing of new friends.
Cheers!

After the first day of my bike tour, I found myself 110 kilometers down the highway from Da Nang in Vietnam’s old imperial capital city of Hue. Hue is a lovely city situated about 15 kilometers inland from the South China Sea along the banks of the Perfume River. And while there are several interesting things to see within the city, I was interested in doing something a little off the beaten track. So, on the suggestion of a blogging friend’s blogging friend I contacted Mr. Lam about taking a countryside motorbike tour.

1 Day in Hue: A Motorbike Tour Story — Seeding a rice field the traditional way. Hue, Vietnam

I called Lam shortly after dinner time and was pleased to discover that he was available for the next morning. We discussed a start time and the price and we were set. It was obvious, even from our brief conversation, that he was an engaging, easygoing, and friendly fellow.

The next morning, I awoke early, washed, and headed off in search of breakfast under the glorious glow of an early morning sun. At 9 a.m. sharp I met Lam in front of the glorious hotel that housed my $6 room with no exterior window. I had asked for a private room but there were several guests hanging out in the bathroom when I checked in. I was a little concerned that the small lizard and the three long, squiggly, many-legged millipedes in the sink would cost me extra, but nobody mentioned anything about having extra guests in the room, so I thought it best not to breach the matter with my less than doting hosts. Meh, what do you expect for 6 bucks, I guess.

After a warm hello and a brief discussion of the itinerary for the day, Lam and I were set to go. He asked if there were anything in particular I had in mind that I wanted to see? In response I inquired of what the typical tour consisted? He laid it out for me, it sounded exactly like what I was looking for, I hopped on the back of the bike and away we went.

By this time, I had been in Vietnam for a week, but any sign of the sun had been only a passing fancy. To be riding out into the beautiful Vietnamese countryside, under pristine skies, and brilliant morning sun felt like heaven. As we slipped by, watching the men seed their rice fields by hand in the traditional way, I could feel my batteries recharging, soaking in as much of the blessed rays as they were capable. At some point in every trip I take I have a moment where I get a cold shiver and feel a little emotional at the realization of the great fortune that I enjoy to be able to take journey’s such as these. Usually it happens when I am on the bike, but in this case it happened while riding on back of a motorbike through endless seas of rice fields that seemed to stretch to the edges of the wide flat earth, racing with the skies to far off horizons.

Our first stop on the tour was at a little village called Than Toan. Here at Than Toan, the local people are doing their part to keep alive the history of the farming traditions that have been in use here for many an age. There is a small museum that contains many old-fashioned farming implements, including the long flat boats that farmers use to slip through flooded rice fields. Also in the small museum is a smiling and endearing 76-year-old woman who will take you through the process of making rice flour. Outside the museum you can watch people play the centuries old game of Bai Choi. Bai Choi is a game with cards stuck on short bamboo sticks. Women dressed in quintessential Vietnamese costume passed out cards to 10 players sitting in small bamboo huts. After cards were passed out there was much animated talking and even some singing until someone’s card was called and they reacted with great joy at their victory. Prizes are small, traditionally a lantern. The real joy is found in the winning itself as opposed to the prize. From the game you can cross the small river via an old-style bridge to the town market where the women are selling all manner of fish and fowl, meat, and fruits and vegetables. After this it was back to the road and off to the Tomb of Tu Duc.

Tu Doc was the longest reigning emperor of the Nguyen dynasty that ruled from Hue. It is said that he had as many as 100 wives and concubines but was unable to father a son for an heir. It is believed that he became sterile after suffering an attack of small pox. He may have had no luck in producing an heir but he sure did know how to build a legacy. The tomb is an extensive array of beautiful buildings, monuments, and temples, each more lovely than the last, with a silken lake fronting the landscape from just inside the front gate. Across the lake you can see Xung Khiem Pavillion, where the Emperor would sit with his concubines composing or reciting poetry. After finishing my rounds at the tomb it was time for a bite of lunch and then a trip to Bunker Hill.

Bunker Hill is a site on the banks of the Perfume River containing several eponymous U.S. bunkers left over from the Vietnam War, or as the Vietnamese call it, the American War. This place was once the scene of intense fighting but now it is a peaceful and idyllic place over-looking the gentle river through the stalks of tall trees that cast refreshing shadows over the meadows that thrive there. It is a place where people go to enjoy some tranquility on a relaxing stroll, families go to picnic, and young lovers seek to sneak away for a moment of solitude… and shyly race off on their motorbike when the hulking foreigner with the camera invades their neck of the woods disturbing any hoped for tryst. Oops. “Sorry about that!”

From that little moment of awkwardness, we were off to a little shop where the women working there made incense and the traditional Vietnamese conical hats. I tried my hand at making a couple of sticks of the pungent mixture of cinnamon powder and paste and purchased a sample before heading off to the final stop on our tour, the Thien Mu Pagoda. Thien Mu is consider to be the unofficial symbol of the former imperial capital. Although the imperial capital is long gone the pagoda is still home to many monks and is an important holy site visited by many people everyday.

Thien Mu brought us to the end of our tour. From there it was a short ride back to my palace where despite the visitors in the bathroom and lack of a window I decided to stay a second night. I can’t say enough good about Lam. He was engaging and informative every step of the way. I went to him based on the suggestion of others and I was not disappointed. He gave me everything I had hoped for on the tour and more. If you are ever in Hue and looking to do something off the usual backpacker trail, call Lam. You will be happy you did. (Lam does not have a website but you can call him locally at 0939062892)