Visit to Vietnam brings home reality of war

Editor's note: Ann Ostendorf of Cape Girardeau has been traveling to England, Pakistan and the East on a journey around the world. This is a story about her travels.

By Ann Ostendorf

The air-conditioned tourist bus honked its way into the flow of traffic from its parking spot outside Saigon Tourism. The passengers, mostly Western but some Japanese, were readying themselves for a day of touring Vietnam. Some smeared on sunscreen and bug repellent, while others zipped on or off their travel trousers. A last-minute check of backpacks was conducted: camera, film, extra film, water, extra water, hat, sunglasses, guidebook ... all check. Let the tour begin!

Such organized enterprises were not typically the way I traveled in Asia. It felt a little too much like watching a documentary, with the tour guide as the commentator and the bus windows as the TV screen, than physically being in a place. Up until now I usually did things the hard way. The benefit was not only saving money, but mainly getting a closer look at the daily lives of local people, without feeling that a show was being staged. It was a rewarding, if sometimes tiring, approach.

But being on this bus I got the feeling that most of these people weren't up to it and secretly wished they had rented the video. The reports I heard from other travelers leaving Vietnam made these organized tours seem so cheap and convenient (they usually picked you up from your hotel!) that it was silly not to take advantage of them.

Plus, it saved the cost and hassle of the local transportation racket that charged foreigners five or 10 times the local price and were known to leave people stranded if they refused requests to cough up extra cash halfway there. Thus, on Feb. 12, I was officially initiated as I joined a tour in Vietnam. And just in case I forgot the name of my new club, it was painted on the side of the bus to remind me.

Temple tour

The tour began a few hours northeast of Saigon (officially now Ho Chi Minh City) near the Cambodian border at the Holy See of the Cao Dai religion. Caodism is a uniquely Vietnamese religion less than 100 years old. It incorporates aspects of all the world's major religions as well as other spiritual beliefs and practices. For instance, seances are held to contact people from the spirit world (Victor Hugo, Joan of Arc and Shakespeare are popular choices) to help make important decisions.

All Cao Dai faithful are required to attend one of the four services held daily at 6 a.m., noon, 6 p.m. and midnight. Our tour was to arrive in time for the noon ceremony. My main interest with Caodism came less from their beliefs and more from the pictures of temples I had seen. On arrival, though, I realized no photograph could do this place justice. The outside shone intensely as the colorful ceramic tiles covering its entirety reflected the fierce midday sun. All colors were represented here. The columns were pastel with bright green bas-relief dragons spiraling around them. The flags flying from the roof were vibrantly red, green and yellow. Above the door hung the symbol of the religion, the all-seeing eye -- which was an eye inside a triangle, strangely similar to the one on the dollar bill.

The faithful were beginning to gather in their long, white robes followed by the priests in red, blue and yellow ones, each color signifying a major world religion. Tourists were allowed on the balcony to watch the ceremony below. As I ascended, ghostlike music echoed through the temple from stringed instruments and a few female voices. Then the followers entered, women from the door on the left and men the one on the right. Once all were seated in perfectly straight rows and columns, they began chanting. The solemn worshippers were juxtaposed against the inside of the temple. It brought to mind thoughts of a massive, but tacky, funhouse or something found at Disneyland. The ceiling was painted like the night sky with stars and planets and clouds floating around. Brightly painted statues of important figures like Jesus and Victor Hugo lined the back wall. Rows of huge pink columns supported more dragons as they slid from the sky to the worshippers down below. Stained glass all-seeing-eyes bathed the faithful and the intricately tiled floors in a light display beyond description. All of the tourists ringing the ceiling just below the night sky snapped pictures with relish. That such a place was used for worship didn't seem comprehensible in the Western mind. Although Caodism hasn't found much success outside Vietnam, it is considered a very legitimate religion here, with some 3 million members.

Unique tour guider

As the service wound down I headed back to the bus. It was time to resume touring. Our guide had to be careful not to leave anyone behind. It seemed possible that a Westerner not used to such visual effects could suffer sensory overload in that place. So after a head count we were back on tour. On the way to the next destination our tour guide began to tell us about himself. He looked to me more like an Italian hitman from a bad action movie than a Vietnamese tour guide should. His medium-length black hair was slicked back. The texture and lines of his face made him look older than his 52 years, like an insomniac chain-smoker. He dressed well in a freshly pressed shirt and trousers and wore a gold chain around his neck. It was from his story that I first came to realize how foreign interest in the Vietnam War has become a major tourist drawing card and how the tourist industry in Vietnam is doing all it can to exploit this.

Since his name was hard for us to pronounce he said we should call him Law. His story is this: Law was drafted into the South Vietnamese army in his early 20s, only a few years before the war would end. After training, he was a foot soldier for a while until it was discovered he spoke some English. He was given an honorary promotion from lieutenant so he could act as a translator for American officers in the Saigon area. Once the war ended, anyone who had served in the South Vietnamese army above the rank of lieutenant was sent to re-education camps. Because of his honorary promotion, Law was included. The former soldiers were taken blindfolded into the jungle so they wouldn't know where they were. Then they had to clear away jungle for farmland so they could support themselves while being re-educated. They built their own shelters and planted crops. During the week they would work and on the weekends they read or were lectured on the principles of communism. They learned the philosophies of Marx, Hegel, Lenin, Stalin and Ho Chi Minh (or Uncle Ho as he is affectionately called by Vietnamese). After two years here Law was told he could leave. He was the first group to go. Other were kept for up to 12 more years. Law was given a small knife and map to help him get out of the jungle and after two weeks on foot he reached his mother's house in Saigon. His mother, imagining her son long dead, couldn't even recognize the gaunt face at her door. Law had to tell his mother who he was.

But now, as he stood before the transfixed audience, Law considered himself one of the lucky ones. He was married to a wonderful wife and had two young children. Because of his ability to speak English, even though he went 20 years without uttering one word of it, he found work in the tourism industry. Plus, it was thought that foreign war veterans on tour would find it more comfortable with a guide from the same side they had fought on. But other war veterans from the South Vietnamese Army were not so lucky. Because of their former allegiance most can't get the paperwork necessary to get a job or a house or start a business, hence most can't have a family, the ultimate measure of success to a Vietnamese. Some are able to find low-paying work such as driving a rickshaw, but many are homeless and live on the streets.

Law's story made the bus ride go by quickly. We had arrived at the CuChi tunnels. The tunnels are an intricate underground network created by the Viet Cong in the area around the town of CuChi not far from Saigon. They allowed soldiers to travel great distances underground (there are over 75 miles of tunnels) and to maximize the effectiveness of small surprise attacks. After the ambush the Viet Cong could literally disappear under the trap doors into the tunnels below. These tunnels also provided shelter for civilians during bombing raids. Since the area around CuChi was labeled a "free fire zone" by the South Vietnamese government, all American and South Vietnamese bombers with ammunition left were encouraged to fly over the area and empty their loads before returning. These tunnels saw a lot of action. There were three layers of tunnels and they included rooms for hospitals, sleeping quarters, dining rooms, kitchens and even wells. The smoke from the kitchens was funneled 50 meters away from the tunnels and ingeniously ventilated by slowly seeping it from the ground through a pile of wet leaves. This fire could not be detected from the air.

These tunnels have now been turned into a major tourist attraction, drawing hundreds if not thousands of visitors each day. The entrances to some of the original tunnels remain. People entered through these holes less than a foot square, head first into total darkness, when the air raid began or the enemy was near. Today, some of the tunnels have been widened so fat foreign tourists can crawl through without getting stuck. Fans and lights have been installed in the dirt dining room (as have a table and chairs) where you can sample the fare of the underground refugees: watery tea and pieces of tapioca dipped into ground peanuts. It tasted like eating a raw potato and evidently had even less nutritional value.

Bomb crater snapshots

After snacks we were shown actual bomb craters and some abandoned American tanks. Then there was a demonstration of 101 ways the Viet Cong could catch you in a hole in the ground using nothing but bamboo. Each trap was sprung by the victim differently but all operated on the same basic principle. As the victim stepped on the trap, bamboo spikes snapped shut on you, or folded up on you from the ground, or sprung into you from behind, or rolled your body between cylinders of them. The end result was always the same -- a person full of holes stuck in a hole. It was not a nice was to go, but it made for an popular display. We then saw the hilltop where an American base had been unknowingly built over some tunnels. It remained unknown only until men were found shot dead in their beds.

The finale, for anyone left unfulfilled, or possible inspired by the violence recently brought to their attention, was a firing range. To fire an AK-47 cost a dollar a bullet and a hand grenade a whopping five! As I followed my tour guide across the CuChi complex something about the irony of it all just did not sit right with me. Law was walking around lecturing like a history professor in the exact place where he fought as a soldier only 30 years ago. The situation seemed fit for a dark sarcastic comedy, yet it was this man's life. Tourists were buying T-shirts and having their photos taken inside bomb craters while men missing arms and legs begged outside. Land in the area still won't produce crops because of the amount of chemicals in it and babies born after the war are living with unbelievable birth defects hardly a grenade's throw from the drink stand. People lucky enough not to know war come here to experience what they think it might feel like for a moment, and fire away. There is a chasm between the lifestyles of the tourists and local Vietnamese separating the two, and it's a difficult and perilous act to see the other side.

War tourism rising

On the way home we were given the option of being dropped off at one of the many museums in Saigon dedicated to teaching the tourists about the war, but I had had enough for the day. It was both physically and emotionally draining being on tour. I couldn't handle any more war tourism for a while, though in Vietnam there is no shortage of sites. The DMZ is a popular place to go now, as are beaches where troops landed or piles of rocks where battles had been fought. One has to have quite an imagination or have had a personal experience there to get much out of most of the places. Usually around these sites it was life as usual. Farmers were working in the rice paddies, scooping in water or pulling out weeds. Women were bicycling to market in their pointy hats. Children were driving cattle or goats along the road with flimsy sticks. Time didn't stop in Vietnam when the Americans left. Life continued for those still alive. Work had to be done, food had to be found, children had to be raised, all the same as ever. Time went on today -- over half of all Vietnamese were born after the war and it seems most would just as well forget it ever happened. They know more about motorbikes than the military. Their material aims in life are more than their parents could ever have imagined. With the money brought in by foreign investors and tourists, the Vietnamese economy is moving closer toward what the U.S. government wanted it to be. Foreign business in Vietnam is no longer a threat, but an opportunity. As a tourist, I can only hope that the tours of today are more beneficial to the Vietnamese than the tours of the war.