Last Images Of Asia

Watching the pottery work on a day trip to Ko Kret























A favourite pastime in South East Asia is the traditional game of "Stuff Livestock With Precious Metals". Dan and I got into this in a big way. So far 30 cows have kicked the bucket with silver, 79 geese had their fill of bronze and we managed a staggering 288 Cadmium Yaks. YUSS !
















Edible flowers at the market in Ko Kret - the blue ones had a very odd, sweet and greasy taste.













Dan gave them a bit more of a chance than I did. That's right Son, get 'em down yer throat !



















I hate melodicas, more so than any other instrument. Who made these bastard things popular again ? I have a strong suspicion it was Damon Albarn. Anyway, this is Bangkok's Melodica Army - behind bars. Where they belong.












Detail of the Golden Temple












Our mate Kung, who kindly allowed me to take a picture while she was praying at Wat Su That.

















Rambutan - a sort of lychee, often hospitably served up to us, often very unsubtley left uneaten (after making a big show of eating one each).















What a photogenic chap, how thoughtful looking ... oh no ! Look who's blundered into frame - get out, get out !




















A view over Bangkok, from the Golden Mount



















The flag over the Golden Mount.

Mekong Misadventures

Hello again, blog-vultures ! Dan and I skidded into Sydney last Saturday, marking the end of Chapter One of our travels. Asia has certainly left a lasting impression on us both, at once vibrant and ambiguous, in parts bustling and exploited, in others enigmatic and serene. It's difficult to articulate the sheer variety of the continent, and the many apparant contradictions in the cultures we encountered - cutting edge technology and infrastructure in one area, juxtaposed with agonizing poverty and dilapidation in the next. The rural psyche of Cambodia and the noise of Mumbai versus the sterile (and in my opinion, characterless) polish of Singapore.

Here's the first of a couple of small posts, just to stick up some photos while I think about it :

The Mekong River - over 4,000 km long, running through Tibet, China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam - acting both as divider and provider for the lands that it splits. The scene for most of the aforementioned Apocalypse Now, and a continual source of irrigation for "Asia's Rice Bowl". I went to have a look, and ended up having a cycle around Tan Thach Village in the Chan Thanh district.






Bees ! Our intrepid tour guide wasted no time in thrusting my hand towards this boiling nest of stingers, insisting it was safe. I wasted no time in squawking my firm reservations ... I should have told him the story about this bloke I know. He got stung by a bee once, and one of his testicles began to swell up to a colossal size! Why the hell did that happen? I don't know, but it's one of my favourite anecdotes; it's got a bit of everything - mystery, drama, comedy ... still, the pecan and ginger honey sweets were delicious.










The village string group go through a quick set - and rope in what seemed like most of the rest of the village for the vocals.






































Monsoon season over the Mekong Delta ...








... doesn't stop the locals navigating during the often torrential cloudbursts.


















This is one of my favourite images from Vietnam, the village was so peaceful and idyllic - pretty far away from the madness and murder of the past of the country.






























Despite the abundance of food produced in the surrounding lands, this is still one of the region's poorest areas.




















On the Cambodia-Vietnam border : It's easy to see why there's a concern about Avian Influenza around these parts ...

The Vietnam War

The Cold War is a period of history that absoloutely fascinates and appals me. The complete madness and paranoia of two nuclear armed superpowers eyeballing each other, drumming impatient fingers next to "The Button" over the space of Forty years. The course of U.S. foreign policy, shaped extensively by the perceived threat of the spread of Communism steered a good deal of the more jaw-dropping military and political events of the 20th century - such as The Bay Of Pigs, The Cuban Missile Crisis and The Vietnam War. Aside from military activities there were some other pretty mindblowing stories running paralell to it all - e.g. Project Orion, the launch of Sputnik thus kick starting the space race, and the Kennedy assassination. Of course, we have the benefit of hindsight and a handful of decades since, but the opening of files on both sides proves just how close at times we came to near complete destruction of the civilized world (web searching using various combinations of 'cold war' 'accidental' and 'missile launches' is a brilliant way of preventing excess sleep). 'Conventional' warfare was in no short supply either, with The Vietnam War sitting right in the middle of it all - a war which has been described variously as senseless, horrific and immoral. There is of course more to Vietnam than the war, though this is possibly the most immediate thing that most people think of when Vietnam is mentioned. I was keen to find out more about the background to it all, and to see first hand some of the conditions and environments that those involved had to cope with.

Much has been written about the Vietnam War, and I think trying to give a massively detailed account of it here is both outside the scope of this blog, and probably unfeasible given some of the uncertainty and subjectivity of certain events (e.g. The Gulf Of Tonkin Incident). I had only a rudimentary understanding of what lead to half a million combat troops being deployed in a country thousands of miles away from the U.S. that, to all intents, provided no direct threat. Dimly aware of the belief at the time in the "Domino Effect" i.e. if one country in S.E. Asia converted to a Communist system (e.g. Laos, Vietnam), others in the region were likely to follow and so the perceived threat would multiply. In an attempt to find out, I got hold of a copy of In Retrospect, by Bob McNamara (Secretary of Defence for the Kennedy and Johnson administrations) - perhaps not the most unbiased of viewpoints (the war sometimes being referred to as 'McNamara's War') - but it doesn't shy from self-criticism of the complete misunderstanding of the exact situation they were heading into. A continuing theme is one of seeing the changes in S.E. Asia as part of a global Communist movement, rather than a series of separate, national occurences that were closer to what was actually happening. One aspect that surprised me is that there were allegedly no expert advisors on S.E. Asia in the employ of the Pentagon - ironically some of the most useful people in this field had been purged during the McCarthy inquiries. And that the Kennedy administration had some serious doubts at the time about Diem's policies and abilities.

For those of us who were not around to witness accounts of the war at the time, opinions are inevitably shaped by interpretations in popular culture and media - leading sometimes to some wildly wrong assumptions about who was 'right' or 'wrong' - a pretty bogus concept in a lot of places. Apocalypse Now is one of a number of films made since that pull no punches, graphically portray the madness and horror of it all. It also probably wins some sort of prize for the quickest use of an expletive in the history of cinema, with it's opening line of "Saigon ... Shit". While most don't glorify the war, there can sometimes be a distinct lack of sympathy for the perspective of the Vietnamese people (indeed in some depictions, not limited to a couple of pretty dumb computer games, the VC are portrayed as basically savages).

Vietnam is also a very well photo-documented conflict, and I think most people would recognize the look of terror on Kim Phuc's face after an ARVN napalm strike, or the image of Thich Quang Duc committing self-immolation in protest at Ngo Dinh Diem's oppression of Buddhism. The photographs on display at the War Remnants museum especially stuck in my mind - each monochrome still shows a single moment in time, where the expressions of fear and panic on the people involved are frozen, starkly relating their reality and leaving the viewer anxious as to what happened immediately afterwards. It occurred to me that this is probably one of the most dangerous jobs possible - effectively the same situation as the GIs, but without the benefit of a firearm for defence. Indeed there were a number of photographs that were captioned as taken a week or so before the journalist died, or even as the last photo they had taken. This was in a time before the conveniences of automatic cameras with aperture or shutter priorities, the photographers involved would have had to know their craft intimately - no time to mess around and experiment, and certainly no opportunity for re-shooting. It was also in a time long before the advent of digital photography - 'The Camera Never Lies' still having a certain ring of truth to it. Unlike today, where any sixteen year old stoner can get a bent copy of Photoshop off the internet, search for random images on Google and construct any situation imaginable with results that are indistinguishable from reality (in my day we had 30 day trials of Paint Shop Pro and were happy for it). Notable images from the museum include one of an American soldier, roughly stubbled and wide eyed from sleep deprivation desperately clinging to a hand rolled cigarette and looking close to collapse. Or the depiction of an officer facing the camera, the line between anger and fear completely blurred while pointing and shouting - a warning, order or threat ? Another is the shot of a USAF plane being shot down - captured perfectly, yet it was near impossible to tell which direction it's momentum would take it.

The other thing which affected me was the accounts and footage of victims of Agent Orange - one of a number of dioxins and defoliants deployed by the USAF. I knew previously that it had been deployed extensively during the war, and had an idea that it had an effect on the people in the region, but no idea of the extent of it. A short film showed the limb and facial disfigurements suffered by those born in areas exposed to the dioxins - and the unimaginable physical and emotional pain that results. I was particularly disturbed by the display of two foetuses, preserved in formaldehyde bell jars, whose heads were brutally disfigured by the defoliant. You run out of adjectives in trying to describe things like this, suffice to say there is no excuse in my mind for deploying chemicals like this (I understand the tactical importance of mass vegetation clearance, I also understand that effects at the time may not have been fully understood - though it is still a herbicide, deployed over large populated areas and as such inexcusable).

A key part to Viet Cong activity in the South was the Cu Chi Tunnels, an elaborate and far reaching network of tunnels, trap doors and bunkers. These were constructed at first in an ad hoc fashion, to provide the means of moving around and communicating unseen - they eventually expanded to the point where they covered much of the area around Saigon and were a key part of the Tet Offensive. There were many other similar tunnel systems throughout the country, but the ones at Cu Chi were the ones we chose to visit. In this district alone there were around 250km of underground tunnels, including living areas, munitions storage, underground hospitals and kitchens. Air vents were installed so to exit several metres away from where they originated.

Innumerable surprise attacks were lauched, often right under the noses of South Vietnamese / U.S. forces - concealed trapdoors making the entrances and exits completely invisible, and laden with booby traps for the unwitting. The sheer level of invention is mind boggling, and fighting this kind of guerrilla war gave U.S. forces a major headache. Indeed, the only 'effective' response seemed to be large scale aerial bombardment - turning the area into one of the most bombed, shelled and defoliated area of the war, if not ever. The area around Cu Chi became known as the Iron Triangle, thousands of troops were sent in to try to flush out VC combatants, but none had any degree of success. Those sent in to the tunnels to try to engage directly were known as Tunnel Rats, and were involved in underground hand to hand and firefights - often with terrible casualty rates. Tactics changed to include sending dogs into the tunnels, but the VC adapted but washing with American soap, so the dogs identified them as friendly - U.S. uniforms left out confused things further. Handlers eventually refused any more activity of this kind as so many were maimed or lost to the tunnels by booby traps. Carpet bombing seemed the only option, but by this time it was a next to worthless gesture given that the tunnels had served their purpose. The VC had no easier time in the tunnels either, despite their apparant tenacity. Of 16,000 cadres serving in the tunnels only 6,000 survived.

A map of the tunnel network.


















Inhumane and brutal tactics were not exclusive to either side - this is one of the many horrific inventions deployed by the VC to trap intruders. The victim stands on the suspended platform, which pulls on cables, forcing some vicious looking spikes into the leg.













A swing door trap - when this is closed you would have no idea that it's there ...
















One of the guides emerging from the ridiculously small hole - again, once the cover is on you would have absoloutely no clue that there was anything there.

Heart Of Dorkness

Saigon - from the mosquitos in the air, to the swarms of motorbikes on the roads or the neon lights that short out in the rain, this place buzzes. Time for a quick introduction before I get onto some of the more recent stuff - Vietnam is a country that has nearly always been in a state of repelling foreign invasions or occupiers, twelve centuries of Chinese rule, followed by repeated and unsuccesful attempts by Mongol forces, eventually leading to French colonialism and then war with the US. Interest in Vietnam by French forces commenced around 1847 and for four decades commenced in a fairly disorganized manner. It turned a corner in 1872 when merchant Jean Dupuis seized Hanoi in the north - another, Captain Francis Garnier was sent out to curb his activities but instead began his own conquests in the region. In 1883, Hue was attacked and the Treaty Of Protectorate initiated following the death of Emporer Tu Duc, thus beginning the colonial period properly. Vietnam has a fiercely independant streak, and sustained resistance followed - intensified by disproportionate taxes, appalling working conditions and wages of Vietnamese workers. This layed the foundations for the support of the Vietnam Revolutionary Youth League, formed in 1925 by Nguyen Tat Thanh, or Ho Chi Minh ("Bringer Of Light"). The story of Ho Chi Minh's own life and political course is intextricably linked with the story of Vietnam itself. In 1930 the Revolutionary Youth League was superceded by the Vietnamese Communist Party, and in turn The League For The Indedpendance Of Vietnam (better known as the Viet Minh) was formed in 1941.

France came under German control in 1940, and the Vichy France administration agreed to Japanese military occupation (a useful base for launching other offensives in the region), giving the Viet Minh a new focus for resistance. 1945 brought famine in Tonkin, killing 2 million people - the Viet Minh won many supporters during this time with relief efforts, further increasing their influence in the North. The August Revolution was called by Ho Chi Minh on August 19th and Emporer Bao Dai abdicated on the 25th (though he was made 'Supreme Advisor' to the Viet Minh by Ho). Independence was declared on September 2nd, and North Vietnam declared the Democratic Republic Of Vietnam. Meanwhile, during the Potsdam Conference (July 17 - Aug 2, 1945) one of the items discussed was the dismantling of Japanese occupation in Vietnam - the consensus being that China would accept surrender north of the 16th paralell. British forces took responsibility for the south, and on entering Saigon found it in a state of chaos. Japanese and French troops were released from prisons to assist in bringing order but promptly engaged in hideously violent activity, beating and clubbing men and women and breaking into properties. By this time the Viet Minh had large amounts of influence throughout the country, particularly in the North and a general strike was called and a guerilla war against the French launched. French forces returned to Vietnam and within a few months the Viet Minh were forced to flee Hanoi for the mountains.

Then began the First Indochina War, a resistance led by the Viet Minh against French colonial forces and lasting from 1946 to 1954. This proved to be yet another bloody chapter in Vietnam's history - around 400,000 people were killed and 600,000 wounded. It reached a head in May 1954 at Dien Bien Phu where French forces suffered a crushing defeated by the Viet Minh under Vo Nguyen Giap. The Geneva Conference of 1954 declared an end to hostilities and the re-partioning of the country at the 17th paralell and leading to mass migration (mostly Catholic from North to South). Ngo Dinh Diem was installed by the US in the South (the fact that he was vehemently anti-communist probably helped matters), with Bao Dai as constitutional monarch ... Diem's rule proved to be a controversial and often criticized one. This sets the background for the runup to the American War in Vietnam, which I'll save for the next blog entry.

Our own journey to Vietnam necessitated a gruelling peregrination through Cambodia once more - I am collecting Kampuchean visas like the beads of sweat on my forehead. Our steed this time was a "VIP Taxi" as there was some sort of cock-up on the part of the people that sold us the bus ticket - translating to a dusty Toyota Camry with a non-working fuel guage. Our soundtrack was the Cambodian equivalent of R.E.O. Speedwagon - maybe some middle of the road rock was appropriate as that's where we happened to drive most of the time. Companions were a top Aussie chap called Simon and an amiably kinetic French bloke who's name I didn't catch. When I asked what he thought about French Pop (for which I have a certain grinning fondness), he attempted to strangle himself and rolled his eyes wildly. I say again, I have never met a French person that I didn't take an immediate liking to (though the number this is based on is small enough to make a statistics professor draw the Normal Distribution on a board, then put their fist through it in anger).

Saigon itself is very much a city that could be described as 'alive' - or perhaps 'raw' might be a better description. I'm not really sure what I was expecting - while technically a communist state, there were still a number of posho bars and five star hotels - though 2 minutes walk down the road there seems to be things like power and telephone lines just thrown up in improvised places, hanging crazily or stretched nearly to breaking around corners where a car hit the pole and it was never repaired. I was having a drink with a new found friend outside a cafe when she suddenly started screaming and freaking out (I could make some unnecessary self-deprecating joke here, but I'll leave it to you). Concerned, I asked what was up - boredom ? Disagreement on musical tastes or politics ? Freeform interpretive dance ? No, mild electrocution apparantly, from one of the broken fairy lights adorning the entrance - shrugged off by the waiters as "wet hair, eh ?". Fortunately she seemed unharmed, but I'm none too sure about the health and safety rules around here.

In any case, there seemed to be a thriving street market going - no shortage of people trying to make a quick buck out of copied books or chewing gum (USD is the currency of preference - the Dong is certainly the most devalued money we've encountered so far at 29,000 to the quid). You've got to feel a bit sorry for them, even if it is an annoyance at times - though there is no shortage of potential customers even if no more than 1% are completely indifferent. Vietnam has established itself as a near-essential stop on the backpacker trail - quite impressive given that it only re-established diplomatic communications to the US in 1995. It's only when you visit places like this that you realise the effect tourism and the huge influx of dough has on them (Ko Phi Phi was another obvious example). I only hope that much of it doesn't get ruined in the same way that some of the Thai islands have (in a place where there's not a lot of spare cash going around of course people are going to set up shop and take the readies). I got talking to a bloke who works in the Vietnamese tourist industry and he said that it's definately gearing itself up for it, China and Thailand apparantly being the role models. It's strange though, everyone I talked to who was visiting Vietnam seemed to be in a rush to get through it - I don't mean like the awful sort of 'Checkbox Tourism' of just being able to say you've been somewhere - more like just running out of time and not being able to take it in at leisure. I was no exception - I too mismanaged my time in South East Asia and only really got to see a small part of what it has to offer, and I think it's a great shame that so many people choose burn through the country like this. I certainly intend to return sometime in the next few years, places such as Hoi An or Hue fire the imagination just by reading about them.

Here are some of the scenes from around Saigon :


We made a visit to the Reunification Palace, preserved as it was in April 1975 as the Republic Of Vietnam (South Vietnam) crumbled and came under the influence of the North - in a moment relayed around the world, tanks came crashing through the front gates on 30th April. The Norodom Palace originally sat at the site, completed in 1868 for the French governer of Cochinchina - later to become Diem's place of operation. So hated was he that his own air force bombed the palace in 1962, though it failed to kill him. A new place was built on the site, but Diem was murdered in 1963 and did not see it's completion in '66. It was named the Independance Palace, and South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu resided here until 1975.












Architect Ngo Viet Thu incorporated a number of characters into the facade to represent different hopes and aspirations for the nation. For example, the character Trung relates to consistancy, Tam for "knowing others, oneself, the art of fighting", Chu for power and Hung for prosperity. See the diagram, left - presented to you in glorious Crap-O-Vision, dodgy drawing by me and blurry JPEG artifacts courtesy of MS Paint. Don't blame me in any way shape or form if this is even slightly wrong - I know even less about Chinese script than I do about Vietnamese architecture (i.e. enough to be completely wrong).














The insides were just as grand - huge open hallways, clearly showing a very strong Chinese influence in the decorations, chandaliered meeting and dining rooms and, er, a movie theatre. I was more interested in what was in the basement, however - a warren of tunnels and bunkers still stocked with a very retro line of typewriters and radio equipment. Old maps still adorned the walls - quite a spooky air to it, I tried imagining what it would have been like down there when everything was kicking off.


I bet it was a barrel of laughs down here.



















"Uncle Ho" - founder of the Viet Minh, Prime Minister from 1946-55 and President from 1955-69 of North Vietnam.












Notre Dame cathedral - built between 1877 and 1883.


















Inside the Jade Emporer Pagoda, Cholon district - built in 1909, one of the most striking and atmospheric temples I've been in, full of Buddhist and Tao figures.







Intricate woodcarvings depict scenes of torment in the afterlife in the Hall Of The Ten Hells. A judge of the Ten Regions reads from a book detailing the accused's life of crimes.















Incense smoke fills the air












A driver asleep in his cyclo - despite the slight annoyance of these guys persistantly asking if you want a lift, I think they work pretty hard. Many of them were apparantly doctors or teachers before the war, but those who sided with American forces were stripped of citizenship and as such cannot return to their former jobs and lives.













The traffic in the city is complete madness, rivalling Mumbai in terms of density - though motorbike seems to be the standard way of getting around. It's not particularly quick, but it's quick and dense enough to make crossing the road a real test of nerves ...





... and at night you've got no chance.