Motorbike Sir?

Or, to our western tounges, the Mekong Delta. So much . . . water.

I left Saigon with two Germans I had met in Mui Ne determined not to see the Mekong Delta how most tourists see it – on an organized tour. I have had my fair share of tours in Vietnam, and most of them have been OK at best. Travelling doesn’t seem like much of an adventure when you are sitting in the back of a bus looking out the window at the ‘natives’ as you roll through town. Everything is arranged for you, from your meals (which are usually not that good) to your accomadation.

We took a local bus to Can Tho, the largest city in the Delta, though you wouldn’t know it by the local nightlife. We walked around town for a few hours looking for some sort of drinking establishment, but only found a sketchy pool hall with overpriced beers. I wasn’t too disappointed, as we had to get up at 5 am to go check out some local floating markets. We chartered a small boat with driver who took us to two of the markets, both of which were moderately interesting. A floating market is basically a bunch of boats with people hawking various food items. There are even small boats cruising around selling food and coffee. It is a great place to take photos, though my batteries died a short ways into the trip. On our way back to town we motored through some small canals and got to see a bit of how life functions in the Delta.

After our boat trip, I parted ways with the Germans and headed to Chau Doc, a small town near the Cambodian border. I am staying in the Mekong Guesthouse, a nice joint about 5 km from town on the side of Sam Mountain. The place is pretty quiet and there is a large selection of DVDs for guests’ enjoyment. As I havn’t seen a good movie in a while, I eagerly perused the selection, finneally selecting Platoon. The movie was much more interesting this time around, as the scenery in the film matched what I saw looking out of the window. I also caught a few things that Oliver Stone did in the movie (the American tank near the end of the movie is flying a Nazi flag).

Today I woke up eager to do a bit of exploring. I asked at the front desk about renting a motorbike. For some reason this was a very strange proposition for them. After talking with 4 different workers at the guesthouse, I finally had a motorbike with helmet for the day. With mediocre directions and a hastily drawn map in hand, I took off down the road past endless rice fields. My first destination was Tuc Dup Hill, also known as the Two Million Dollar Hill. Between 1968 and 1976, Vietnamese soldiers withstood repeated attacks by the US military forces even though they were outnumbered 3-to-20. The US reportedly spent two million dollars on firepower.

The hill is covered in huge boulders, which form natural tunnels and caves where the Vietnamese hid. I followed the clearly marked but poorly lit trail (sometimes having to crawl and squeeze through passages) around the place. There were plaques that described certain areas, though they were all in Vietnamese. I could figure out what a few of the areas were, though for the most part I had no clue. I had quite a good time climbing around the rocks and even managed to see a few monkeys.

My next stop was Ba Chuc, a town just 7 km from the Cambodian border. I got directions from the ticket seller at Tuc Dup, though they were a bit inadequate as I missed my turn twice. On the way I stopped for some food at a roadside restaurant. No one spoke English, so I tried out some Vietnamese.
“Mi muan com bo” (I want rice beef), I said.
The lady understood that I wanted rice, but she didn’t understand with what. At last I pointed to the sign out front which said “bo” (beef); she said “oh, bo” (in a slightly different tone). Vietnamese pronunciation is impossible.

The meal was good, and four fellows enjoying a meal/drinking session were very friendly, asking me my name about 10 times. Because Asians have a hard time pronouncing the “L” sound, I usually say that my name is “Neo” (as in the Matrix). After repeating my name a few times, one of the gentlemen sauntered over with a full shot glass of whiskey (at least I assumed it was whiskey), shook my hand, and handed me the shot glass. I raised it high, said “YO!” (The Vietnamese word for cheers) and downed it. I feared that they would insist on feeding me more booze as I was a good 50 km from my hotel and still wanted to do some sightseeing, but they kept to themselves for the rest of my meal (though occasionally asking my name again).

With my stomach satisfied I hopped back on my motorbike and took off towards Ba Chuc. A few wrong turns and failed attempts at communication later I was on the right track. I was motoring along, admiring the endless rice fields when my moto died. I quickly exausted my motobike repair knowledge and began pushing the bike down the road when a man pulled over and pulled out his repair kit. After checking the spark plug and most of the wiring, he determined that I needed some sort of electrical component that would be found at the nearest mechanic shop.

In Vietnam, it is hard to drive more than a kilometer without seeing a sign for a Honda repairman. Everyone drives essentially the same motorbike – a Honda Dream which means that most people have a basic knowledge of how to repair them and spare parts are easy to find. To get my bike there, we employed a common tecnique seen all over the roads. I sat on my bike and steered while he drove alongside me pushing me with his outstreatched foot. A mechanic was only a short ways down the road and, $2 later, I was back in business.

I gathered that it was rice harvest time in the area, as people were loading bales of rice onto tractors, motorbikes, and ox-drawn carts. Though my journey to Ba Chuc was a bit delayed, it was one of the more interesting sights I had seen in a while. In 1978 the Khmer Rouge (the Cambodian government at the time) invaded the village of Ba Chuc and killed 3157 out of the 3159 residents. I pulled into town and soon found the memorial commemorating this atrocity. A large glass case houses the bones of all of the victims, with the skulls organized by sex and age facing outwards. I was completely blown away by this, as many of the skulls had bullet holes or were broken in two. Next to the memorial is a small museum that contains gruesome pictures taken after the event as well as some of the insturments of carnage, including pikes that were used to impale female victims.

Behind the museum was Philai Pagoda, locally known as Blood Pagoda, as many people were killed inside the building and there are still portions of the wall stained with human blood. I wandered inside followed by an old man who seemed eager to show me around. Through his gestures and some broken English spoken by a few kids that were following me, I gathered that he was one of the two people to survive the massacre. He said that he was struck in the head while in the Pagoda but did not die. He then showed me a small crawlspace where he hid from the Khmer Rouge. Afterwards I joined him (he is now a monk) and a few other monks for some tea.

While I was walking around, a few eager children were pointing things out to me. The entire time they had huge smiles on their faces and didn’t seem phased by the memorial like I was. I guess they had seen it so many times that they were not bothered by it. Even the surviving monk seemed more or less happy and was glad to share his tale with me. If you are in the area, I strongly recommend a visit to Ba Chuc. It is a bit off the tourist trail but that made it all the more better. During my entire day of driving around, I didn’t see one white face. I can’t remember the last time in SE Asia (if there was one) where I didn’t run into another tourist.

Tomorrow I hop on the boat bound for Phnom Pehn and make my way into Cambodia. I can’t wait.

Neil

Tags: Vietnam

This entry was posted on Friday, September 10th, 2004 at 9:23 am and is filed under Vietnam. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.