Saigon - Hoi An and Ho Chi Minh City

Vietnam
Hoi An is a simple, yet vibrant river town, it is a step away from the insanity that is generally Vietnam. While the marks of the war still remain they are less pronounced than other places. We spent our last morning at the My Son ruins. We woke up at 5 am, and returned by 11:30 am. This early morning thing is eating my soul.

I loved being in Hoi An. From getting my suit made and hanging with my little assistant Krista who I had cracking up the entire time with my winning American sense of humor (read: she humored me) and sunbathing on a beach that once served as an American military base, while discussing the war with locals I will carry these moments with me for a long time.

We hopped a flight to Saigon (aka Ho Chi Minh City). Throughout the flight a small asian man felt it necessary to repeatedly let out a single hacking, wheezing cough directly into my ear without covering his mouth. I am undoubtedly carrying the SARs virus.

We arrived in Saigon and made our way to our rather humble accommodations, we made the move to a much nicer hotel, with a much nicer view to get some overpriced drinks. This was like dangling cake in front of a diabetic fat kid with a sweet tooth.

It was an early night as some of us were still groggy from the 5 am wake up from My Son, compounded with the flight. We awoke the next morning to visit the Cu Chi tunnels, a network of tunnels (read: crawl space) that the VietCong had organized to use for guerrilla warfare tactics. As we walked around it became increasingly apparent why we lost the war. The combination of the brilliantly laid out tunnels, and the commitment of the soldiers that stayed underground for months on end was certainly a force to be reckoned with. As I walked through the newly laid out path through the jungle I couldn't help to imagine the mindset of the 18 year old boys who walked through with no path, young, naive, and stoned. I thought about myself at eighteen and questioned my capability to hold my own in a place like this. Gunshots began to sound, I thought it was my imagination, but as it turned out there was a gun range on the site. Tourists were able to shoot guns from the war for a small fee - being the pacifist that I am I jumped at the opportunity. I mean honestly, when am I ever going to shoot a gun again? The closest I had ever been to a gun before was when I cop pulled me over for using my cellphone. The guns were locked into place, I suspect this is because they still don't trust Americans with guns, but it took a bit away from the authenticity of my gun experience, the upside is that it took away a good chunk of the recoil, which was still powerful. Lets just say that the idea of shooting a gun, is far better than the actual act of doing it. My ears were ringing my, hands were shaking, and I felt both a power and a weakness that seems entirely unique to shooting a gun.

The most interesting part of our tour was our guide, a Vietnamese man named Hai who had served as an interpreter for the Americans during the war. He spoke of Vietnam with more honesty and candor than I had yet seen in this country. When he found out I was American he gave me a hug, and told me of his deep sentiment towards the American soldiers. "We laughed together, we starved together, I was the designated driver sometimes". He referred to a film on the tunnel network as "typical Vietnam war propaganda" and described the communism as "in name only". Hai served almost four years in a "re-education camp" and an additional year in confinement for his assistance to the Americans.

We returned from the tunnels and made our way to the War Remnants Museum, formerly called the American War Crimes Museum. The grounds of the museum are littered with American war machines, tanks, plans, guns etc. There was a side room filled with pictures of American soldiers that proved to be one of the least biased exhibitions I had seen since I had been in the country. The main exhibition featured pictures on victims of napalm and Agent Orange, even deformed fetuses stored in formaldehyde. Truth be told however it is not difficult to see the effects of these poisons by simply walking the streets of Vietnam. Everywhere are men and women in their forties with handicaps, clearly a direct result of American actions.

I was a bit annoyed to see a quote used below one of the pictures as though it was a piece of journalism. The reality was the quote had been taken from Jack Kerouacs 'On The Road'. The war crimes are bad enough that manipulation isn't necessary, but once gain I found myself in the position of defending an indefensible war.

If you ever end up at the museum listen to Masters of War by Bob Dylan as you are walking around. In fact if you end up at any war museum put it on. In fact just listen to it now, and then try to figure out what the hell is going on in Iraq.

Vietnam has become a constant reminder of a war I am not responsible for but still carry a burden for as an American tourist. While the Iraq war is different in many ways the parallels exist. It is a war that lacks true reason, based simply on principles that lack any real foundation, and it is a war that my generation let happen. As one walks through the streets of Vietnam it begs the questions "How?" and "Why?", it is within those questions that we find common ground between these two battles.

We walked over to the reunification palace where where northern battle tanks crashed through the gates at the end of the war. The architecture and design was pure 1970's bliss complete with plush carpeting, and a room straight out of Shaft. To finish off the day we saw a church, a Hindu temple and grabbed some dinner and then some drinks. At about 1:30 in the morning a four year old boy jumped on the pool table and began dancing with skills that could out do most professional dancers. I was too tired to realize that this qualifies as abuse on about a million different levels - at least Ritchie and Jenny had the good sense to call me out when I started video taping it.

Some people left the group, some joined.