The Adventures of Laura Drumm

Dear Family and Friends,

On our first morning, a little jet-lagged but eager to be in Saigon, we stepped from inside our hotel’s drier, cooled air outside into thick, hot air. I responded to the heat + humidity as I usually do: I breathed deeply and pulled a long drink from my water bottle while my body metamorphosed into something akin to a fancy garden fountain. The only thing that keeps me looking like an actual spouting cherub fountain in high humidity environments is my clothing. Instead of spouting streams into a basin, my body simply empties water into my clothing. For me and my body, traveling in 90 degree weather with 62% humidity (today, Seattle’s humidity is 45%) means a fight to contain sweat: I pack colors and styles that do not show sweat, fashioned in fabrics that “breath.” Also, I carry a handkerchief to regularly dab my hairline to prevent sweat from trickling into my eyes. When I travel in places similar to Vietnam, I spend entire days anticipating a shower.

Anyway, back in Saigon we climbed into a tour bus. I sat, and turned my head left to read a sign across the street, HaGang Restaurant (Korean food!) and right to watch my classmates climb on behind me, smiling at their first whiff of air con. The bus rumbled fully to life and began to drive us through the streets of Saigon.

One hears that modern Saigon is a mix of nineteenth century French architecture and modern Asian buildings. I can confirm this: at 8 am, the sidewalks of Saigon are filled men on knee-high red plastic stools, gathered around a low table with iced coffee at hand. We drove past a white French-styled hotel, with graceful balconies under framed arches and individual sign lettering across its first story roofline spelling Hotel Continental.

“Ah! The hotel that was owned by a Corsican gangster and where Graham Greene wrote The Quiet American,” I thought as we whizzed by. Then we came upon Saigon’s Basilica of Our Lady of The Immaculate Conception and its statue of the Virgin Mary that was rumored to have shed tears in 2005, attracting crowds of thousands even after church officials pooh-poohed that notion. The Virgin hadn’t shed any tears here in 2012 – as far as I could tell – but a bride in a puffy white dress posed for pictures with the Cathedral as backdrop provided an adequate spectacle. We drove on and I lost my ability to place proper names and history to places, instead the streets broadened into four lanes lined with thin, tallish buildings painted in pastel greens, blues, whites, pinks and yellows. There was also a large Buddhist temple strung with lanterns. I asked about the temple and discovered that the holiday is known as “Quốc ngữ” – Buddha’s Birthday – will be celebrated sometime in May although neither our guide nor Google provided me with an exact date.

At home, even with “fresh eyes” traveling on a bus feels mundane but here, as we drove, there were so, so many details to catch and marvel at. Polished wooden doors, metal street carts heaped with baguettes and hard-boiled eggs, a motorcycle rider with about 30 plastic bags filled with goldfish tied to a rack, a (presumably) military cemetery with uniform white half-moon tombstones with a gold-star on their tips, airplanes noses tipped down for landing at the airport, green trees and grass growing thicker and closer together, a gleaming brown cow, without rope, resting under a tree, corrugated metal shacks, rows of rubber trees, wrapped in colored ribbon and spouting sap through plastic taps, ceramic German Sheppard statues guarding from high gateposts. These details flashed, flashed, and flashed, flashed, mostly eluding my attempts to write them.

Eventually we arrived at the tunnels of Củ Chi, tunnels that were built in 1945 and enlarged both at this site and across the country in the 1960s by the Viet Cong (“VC”) guerrillas and their sympathizers during “The American War.” Geographically, the tunnels are not far from Saigon nor the border with Cambodia. They were dug into hard ground, sheltered by forests, and kept relatively secret by the local population. Apparently, the tunnels are best known as the VC’s point of operations for the famous 1968 Tet Offensive, but they were used during combat for living quarters, booby traps, weapons caches, communication, strategizing, and hospitals.

With due respect to those that lived through the war, I was born after that dreadful war and distantly remember learning that one of the reasons that the Americans were not able to effectively fight in Vietnam was because the VC had a real sense of the landscape and were able to use every bit of their knowledge to their advantage. A visit to the Củ Chi confirmed that idea. Nearby the tunnels, forest greenery draws together; plants are thick, green and drop a carpet of crunchy brown leaves. Tunnel air holes were constructed to look like termite hills and during the fight, a cooking fire ventilation system was especially utilized during morning mists.

Our guide walked us to a “trap door,” a wood-lined hole disguised beneath a pile of leaves perhaps twenty-four inches by twelve inches in size – just big enough to slide in, feet first. Our teacher, who must exceed six feet slid himself in and was instructed to hold the trapdoor top above his shoulders in order to cover himself and the hole. Many of us, including me, did the same. When it came my turn, I sat next to the hole with my feet dangling, then braced my hands on either side and slid down, searching for foot’s purchase. I found it and crouched to examine the inside. The hole was tiny, confined and offered two choices up and down. If one continued to crouch or crawl there were stone stairs leading down and down. Most of the tunnels were like that. According to both our tour guide and Wikipedia, “Most of the time, guerrillas spent days in the tunnels and came out only at night.” I didn’t have the courage to go further than trapdoor and wiggled back up (up was much harder than down due to my ample rear!)

Later we were lead underground into a tunnel. Walking through the tunnel necessitated doubling-over. The Vietnamese government strung electric lights through the tunnel and I chose to crouch-walk a mere twenty meters in one single minute or perhaps two, but that was enough to feel trapped, closed, desperate, and eager to return to the surface.

Can you imagine what life must've been like for the soldiers who fought in those tunnels?

A cliché “desperate times call for desperate means” came to mind.

A visit to the Củ Chi Tunnels was interesting, to be sure. However, what was nearly as interesting for me was the arrangement of the park. The tunnels, of course, played their part in the North Vietnamese victory over the US – and the park that they built to commemorate this history was not shy in portraying its victory. We were first escorted to two long rows of AK47s and their like before we entered the tunnels. Our guide took special pains to explain to us the ingenuity of the tunnels while in the backdrop real-sounding gunshots boomed. There was a stretch of homemade weaponry: a booby trap spiked with pointed bamboo sticks, a folding chair trap, large balls with hooked spikes, a double-hinged door trap designed to get the whole body or merely half of it. A man in green Vietnamese military fatigues demonstrated the traps between answering texts from his buzzing cell phone. Statues of men sawed at bombs and rows of rubber sandals shaped so that the heel resembled toes and toes resembled the heel (to obscure footprints) were displayed. I missed it but apparently there was a 1960s propaganda, kill the enemy kind-of video that was played. This video was notable because it was advocating and showing the killing of Americans (which my classmates found understandable but deeply disturbing.)

I bring this up because I’m contemplating the ethics of travel – and the site at Củ Chi raises the specter of propaganda (ideas, rumors, deliberately spread widely to help or harm person group movement institution nation, etc. – thank you www.Dictionary.com.) Later, I did some basic research into the tunnels and found that malaria was the second largest cause of death in the tunnels (after battle wounds) and that most of the soldiers suffered from parasites. Not to mention that food, water, and air were scarce, and the tunnels were infested with harmful insects and vermin. None of these downsides, or others, were either implied or mentioned – either in the signage or by the tour guide. And while in some ways I feel that that this is their (in this case, the Vietnamese’s) country and they should be able to tell whatever story they wish, I also have a strong preference for “truth,” and during visits to places such as the Củ Chi tunnels, I couldn't help but wonder if truth is being deliberately twisted in order to further a certain story line. Hmm… well, I suppose we all form our own version of the “truth” – so perhaps my objection comes from intent? I cannot yet say. I’d welcome any of your thoughts, of course.

Anyway, after our visit to the tunnels, we brushed jungle dirt from our pants before we climbed onto the bus, each of us hot, sad, horrified, soaked in sweat, already anticipating the night’s shower. And definitely eager to see more of Vietnam.

Wishing you all well, always,

Laura