8: Leaving Nam
22 Apr 2002
After the war museum we turned to Beer Saigon to drown our sorrows and take the edge off my sunburn agony. I also managed to locate a chemist who gave me cream for second- and third-degree burns, after she had me stripped off in the front shop area with a magnifying glass up against my skin. I think she lingered too long over the freckles, and I tried to explain that she needn’t worry, that those were normal. Ben’s laughter didn’t help any.
We treated ourselves to some Indian food (par for the course when keeping company with a pom), and it was by far the best Chicken Korma I have had to date. We then woke the family we are staying with, when we came back a tad too late and crashed in our stiflingly hot and humid room with the broken fan and nylon sheets – eeeugggh!
Today we went to the Cu Chi tunnels and crammed ourselves down little holes that the Vietnamese guerillas used for years as their homes during both the French and US wars. I honestly do not know how they did it. The tunnels are tiny, and the feeling of claustrophobia was overwhelming. I came out the other side soaking wet with perspiration – I think we got only the tiniest of clues as to the atrociousness of this type of existence, and we weren’t even being bombed.
I also decided to fire a gun for the very first time. I fired 2 shots on an AK-47 (Russian) and nearly hit the target, but my game had clearly improved by the time I moved on to the (American) M-16 as I hit the target. Quite chuffed with myself as this opens new avenues in the career department – how much are snipers making these days? This got the adrenaline pumping, but if I thought I had trouble hearing before…
We spent our last days in Nam meandering the Mekong Delta. It’s an intricate web of little waterways, with people living on houseboats or right on the river’s edge.
This will be the last of our ‘no brainer schooltrips’, described as such because that’s how tourism is in Vietnam with very little way around it. Someone tells you where to go, when to eat and even where to eat. You stick to tight schedules and there’s no room for flexibility.
The delta was beautiful, but very dry owing to the season. Ben and I managed to get totally confused and got off to a great start by missing our stop to get off the bus. So we ended up killing time on our own in Can Tho at a cafe on the roadside. The ballsup turned out really well. There’s not a lot of tourism in this town; tour groups simply stay there for the night and don’t tend to wander around after dark, so we were a rare sighting and had crowds of locals gathering around and smiling.
The next day we joined the group and found ourselves at a rice mill, rice paper making factory and a sighting of storks coming to roost, or whatever it is they do. In other words – a typical Vietnamese tour whereby little things become main attractions and main attractions become creative activities for the imagination. But these little waterways eventually took us down and out of Vietnam and right on in to Kampuchea (Cambodia) – the diamond in the rough.
Cambodia, Why No Bitterness?
Cambodia touches the soul. The people win your heart and their courage is astounding.
Where was the rest of the world when the horrors of the Khmer Rouge were taking place? How could we in such recent times let so many people die senselessly at the hands of a megalomaniac like Pol Pot? And how, after all that happened, can a people just pick up and carry on without bitterness, like the Kampucheans? Ex-Khmer Rouge soldiers and officials still live happily in Cambodia, without having to pay for the crimes they committed, which is astounding. In the short time I was in Cambodia I got more of a feel for this place than any other country in Indochina.
Phnom Penh is a marvellous grid of dusty potholed roads scattered with hundreds of people going about their work or lack of it. The heat renders most people to oozing lifeless scarecrows, but nothing is too tragic not to crack a smile. They’re lovely, easy-to-read people with a lot more grasp on the word ‘No’ than the Vietnamese. To ask once is generally enough for them; I hardly knew how to deal with this new tactical sales strategy.
As unsafe as we were led to feel prior to our arrival in this dusty drug-running town of thugs, thieves and mafia – I felt completely at ease. But coming from the crime capital of the world, Johannesburg, may have been good grounding.
So a must-eat is the Happy Pizza here, if you can afford the exorbitant prices. Cambodia is not cheap – everything is priced in US dollars and you needn’t even exchange any currency. In Cambodia they accept Thai baht, Cambodian riel, US dollar and even the Vietnamese dong – not too fussy.
In this little city we saw the start of the Khmer New Year. My second new year in 5 months – how many people can say that? But unlike us in the Western world, new year spans 4 days officially and is further stretched out to a week with all the throwing of powder and waterbombs. In a daze from the heat we went to see Wat Phnom and found a party in full swing. Hundreds of people were walking around eating, drinking, playing games and powdering each other. This is how New Year is celebrated. It’s particularly interesting to target some unsuspecting foreigner, and almost addictive. By the time we clawed our way out of the area we were talcum-powdered from head to toe, and this really brings a smile to Cambodian faces – so glad to be of assistance in uplifting the nation.
