Madonna, Marijuana, and Misery,
Saigon After the Fall, Part II

*****

The Mekong River is one of the world's great rivers, one whose relationship with human civilization is as old and as intimate as that of the Nile. 2600 miles long, its course takes it through terrain as diverse as the civilizations that have risen and fallen along its banks. It rises in the Tibetan highlands of the Chinese province of Tsinghai, flows southward through eastern Tibet and the western part of the Chinese province of Yunnan, then down between Burma and Thailand on the west and Laos on the east, across Kampuchea and through southern Vietnam where its wide muddy delta finally spills it out into the South China Sea. That delta was once one of the largest rice-growing areas in the world and still remains Vietnam's agricultural mainstay. Always close to the ravages and fury of the guerrilla war in southern Vietnam, the Mekong, like Da Nang and Khe Sanh, has entered the vocabulary of the West as one synonomous with horror. And death.
But, like Da Nang which boasts perhaps the most beautiful beaches and the most unusual rock formations in Southeast Asia, the reality of the Mekong reflects none of this. Although its upper reaches are dominated by swift-flowing rapids and sheer canyons, by the time the Mekong reaches Vietnam it is slow, broad, and indolent. Rusting barges chug up and down the delta in fits and starts. Ancient junks, their timbers bleached and rotten, list forlornly against the jungle-shrouded banks. Dart-like family sampans, laden with fresh fish, their thatched roofs making them look like roofed kayaks, shear through the placid current carried only by the indefatigable muscle-power of the wizened men and women who paddle them. Tiny children play noisily in the mudflats while monkeys cheerfully chase coconuts in the trees. And the river flows, as it has always flowed, gently and inexhorably towards the sea.
On our third day in Vietnam, we went down the Mekong. We felt like Martin Sheen as Willard in Apocalpyse Now, setting off in search of the mysterious Colonel Kurtz, embarking on a danger-fraught journey of self-discovery. We stared at the dense foliage lining the banks, searching for tigers, gun emplacements, danger. But our cruise was just a cruise. The sun beat down on our heads. The muddy water glittered like gold. The boat chugged steadily through the water, its wake churning behind us, its engine grinding. We ate coconuts. We waved at passing sampans. We took pictures. We sniffed the breeze and smiled at the glaring white-blue sky. We watched the horizon broaden as the river widened into the sea.
After about 45 minutes, we tied up at a small jetty. Half a dozen children squatted there, black shadows against the brilliant sun. They watched us disembark, unmoving, their faces more serious than curious. We were led along a wooden walkway through a kind of fruit plantation to a roofed, open-walled structure. There we were to have tea. The children followed, quiet and discreet.
After tea, we were taken back to the boat. Again the children lined up on the jetty, solemn and silent. They didn't return the friendly waves of the tourists, they ignored the snapping cameras. They just sat there and watched, heads resting on their knees, like miniature meditating monks.
We returned the way we had come. In the port, we went to the local hotel. It was under renovation. Mr Nyuk told us that SaigonTourist hoped to open it to tourists the following year. For now, it was a restaurant. We had lunch there. It may have been the best meal I have ever had in my life. Fresh grilled fish, greens, onions, tomatoes, and the ubiquitous mint leaf. Wrapped in wafer-thin rice paper and dipped in spicy fish sauce. Washed down with cold Saigon Export beer. Mr. Nyuk showed us how to eat the food. We offered him some. He declined. Since he was not a tourist, he was supposed to eat soup at a separate table with the employees.

*****

Replete, we returned to Saigon. Then rendezvoused with the cyclo drivers.
"You wanna see the slum today?", Thac asked.
I looked around. At the cripples and beggars. The drawn and shriveled faces. The tattered clothes. The boarded-up windows. The blackened concrete. I smelled the garbage. The urine. The diesel fuel. The rotten fish. The tar sweating from the macadam.
"It gets worse?"
"Oh yes."
I didn't really want to go. I have a problem with Third World slums. I feel as awkward as a visiting Martian. And I don't know what to to do. Should I hand out money? It won't go far. Should I refuse to use wooden chopsticks? Should I become a foster parent? Or a political activist? Should I go home and try to forget about it?
We went to the slum. It wasn't a shantytown. The people live in sampans. Thousands of sampans crowded under a bridge that crosses the Saigon River. Lined from one end to the other with tiny stalls, spread cloths, and haggard merchants selling dried fish, cheap toys, and junk, the bridge serves as the business district. Walking on that bridge, I felt like Jesus must have felt when he entered Jerusalem. Men, women, children gathered around, smiling, touching, laughing, waving. As if by being close to us, by touching us, our fortune might rub off on them. Others ducked their heads, looked away, as if we were there only to mock them. Rich tourists enjoying a vicarious slice of misery.
The children gathered to pose for pictures. Older people smiled shyly. We walked off the bridge like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, with an army of shouting children trailing us.

*****

On our last day in Vietnam, we had to stay hidden in our hotel until late afternoon when the car came to take us to the airport. We probably weren't in any real danger - after all, we were tourists. our presence officially sanctioned and registered - but it didn't seem worth the risk. Our paranoia may have been unjustified, but in Ho Chi Minh City paranoia is infectious and constant - whether it is the quick nervous glance of the official guide as he palms a pack of American cigarettes or the deep reluctance of the unofficial guides to comment on how they think things have been going since the revolution. Any conversation is always prefaced with the strict injunction that it not be repeated.
Here, in the waning days of the Cold War, the Soviet Empire already starting to fracture in Eastern Europe, we all, tourists and residents alike, still clung to the myth of the totalitarian Communist dictatorship, whose suffocating embrace encompassed all and everything within its domain, whose secret police lurked behind every sideways glance, whose informers stole confidences even as they passed you a joint, and whose ministers' piercing gazes penetrated even the squalid backrooms of the flimsy junks that floated in the sluggish Mekong.
But it was just that - a myth. Hanoi's poverty and isolation had long since weakened its hold on the once vibrant South, and Ho Chi Minh City, though as decayed and decrepit as any abandoned ruin, held concealed behind its crumbling facade the same energy and spirit that had once made her the queen of France's southeast Asian empire, the Pearl of the Orient.
The sharp-faced man who waited impatiently on the sidewalk across from our hotel, his face all slashes and ridges, did not care that he lived in a land where crime did not exist and where profits were a form of oppression. All he cared about was selling us a bundle of phony U.S. one hundred dollar bills. Failing that he would be satisfied with the Canon T-90 35mm camera that Kelly wore slung around her neck.
He was scary. His eyes were cold and hard. Our cyclo drivers fell silent as he approached. Kelly, always amiable, chatted with him about America, Vietnam, and the superior quality of Japanese electronics. Sure, we could break a hundred dollar bill for him. But we'd have to go back to our hotel to get the cash.
"Your wife talks too much," muttered Thac. "She get you killed."
The man didn't want us to go. "How about camera?" he snapped. "I give you five hundred American dollar."
A legless boy, or man - he could have been 15, he could have been 40 - scooted by on a wheeled board, hissing, "Bad boy. Very bad boy. You stay away from him. Bad boy."
We fled to our hotel, vaguely promising to meet the guy later at the Saigon Tourist Bar.
Back at the hotel, we slouched in the faded elegance of the hotel bar, drinking iced beer with a fat, redfaced German TV cameraman who kept telling us how much worse things were in the North.
We couldn't imagine.


We saw her again at the airport in the line at the X-ray machine. She was crying. We asked her what was wrong. She told us she was Vietnamese. She had gone to Paris with her parents in 1975. Now she was 22. She had come to Vietnam to visit her relatives. She was appalled. Unable to endure the conditions her family lived under, she had moved into the hotel, going out to visit them when she could bear it.
She kept crying. In both French and English, she cursed the skinny, hard-faced soldiers who lounged casually around the airport cradling their automatic rifles.
"My God," she said, her face damp with tears. " What have they done? If this is what they have done to my country in ten years, in another ten years there'll be nothing left."

She was still crying as the plane lifted into the air and Vietnam fell away beneath us.

*****



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