Security Prison 21, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

S-21, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

After the Killing Fields at Choeung Ek, DJ Camera drove me across the city to an extremely dense section of sprawl. Faded buildings stood looking at the remnants of a school. The school was fenced and largely walled off and topped with razor wire. Care had been taken to provide some division between the school and the houses behind. The compound consisted of five or so buildings that looked like a plain old school because it was once just that. At an opening in the wall, next to another ticket booth, milled the standard group of tuk-tuk drivers and amputees.

Again, I was not bothered. The sun was strong and the shade beneath the fruit trees, while not cool, was a little more bearable. At most, the beggars and drivers made half assed efforts to solicit, but it wasn’t anything more than shallow obligation.

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, formerly called Security Prison 21 (S-21), formerly called Chao Ponhea Yat High School. It marks the decent into madness, panic, hysteria and cruelty. Even in the middle of the day, walking the grounds and the halls of this place makes you feel uneasy; claustrophobia and panic aren’t ever far away.

The history of this place is everywhere. It was once a school. Fruit trees dot the grounds and if it weren’t for the obvious modifications that can turn a school into a place of hell, it simply looks like a school. There weren’t many people there so it was often hard to believe it was even a museum.

Inside a cell.

After the Khmer Rouge took over, the school was turned into a center for imprisonment, interrogation, extreme torture and murder. For a handful of years in the mid to late 1970’s, somewhere around 17,000 people, most innocent, came here to answer for their crimes against Pol Pot’s regime.

The place has this unchanged feeling that makes you uneasy. Rows of connected classrooms now host miniscule holding cells made of decaying brown wood, inches thick. In the middle of the floor there are rusted shackles and stains of a hasty paint job. The paint is red and in whatever light that comes through barred windows makes it look like blood.

To step into one of these cells and close the door is to feel that sense of hopelessness and doom. There is not enough room to move and there is no breeze; humid, oppressive air becomes stagnant and suffocating.

What’s more are little relics of S-21’s past life that weren’t removed seem to serve as a taunt to those who were imprisoned there. At the end of the hall an ancient chalk board still clung to the wall, its faded green contrasting with stone and reinforced wood and metal latches.

A classroom turned cell-block.

The open-air hallway of the second floor of the prison is sealed by a net of barbed wire. This “net” I was told was not so much to keep somebody from escaping, but to keep a person from being able to commit suicide by jumping from the railing.

The whole place was terrible. On the grounds were a handful of graves, whose occupants were so badly decayed and mutilated that their identity is unknown. They were the last to die S-21 before the Vietnamese overtook the Khmer Rouge.

The methods of torture in this place were creative as they were cruel. In an effort to extort a confession or get more names, guards would electrocute, suffocate, drown, half-hang, stab, beat, rape. If names were given, guards would repeat the process on people who probably had no idea what they had done. There are stories of victims who were tortured so badly that they confessed to outlandish things like joining the CIA at the age of 12.

A line of Cells.

Infront of one of the buildings is a set of uneven bars that adorn every playground. Guards punished their victims by tossing a rope over, tying their captives arms behind their back and hoisting them into the air.

Throughout the classrooms that weren’t full of prison cells or methods of torture, there were photographs of mutilated people, some alive and some dead, who had spent time at the prison. Their stories were painful to read as their spirits were as broken as their lives when they left that place, if they lived.

For a time in the beginning, prisoners were executed at the prison and buried nearby, but soon the sheer numbers made that impossible. After a time they were carted over to that other cheery place, Choeung Ek, the Killing Fields, where they were killed with whatever could be found.

After I left, I thanked a still hungover DJ Camera for bringing me to these places, had a drink in my room, woke up and got the hell out of Phnom Penh.

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The Killing Fields of Cambodia

The next morning when I met DJ Camera in the restaurant downstairs he was not so chipper. He greeted me with a genuine hotel, but his eyes were vacant and he looked uneasy. I thought for a moment and wondered if our destinations for the day had him uneasy and morose.


No.

It was the booze. DJ Camera was royally hungover. I wondered if maybe he was still drunk.

I was greeted by the manager, smiling just as much as the night before.

“Hello, Thomas!” He said. “DJ has lived through the night, I think.”

I ate a quick turkey sandwich and was soon in the back of a silent DJ Camera’s tuk-tuk, flying through the dust of Phnom Penh.

The Memorial Stupa contains thousands
of skulls.

We drove through the cluster of hotels and guest houses that populated the area next to the Chan Chhaya pavilion. I bounced in the back as DJ Camera picked up speed, mumbled something I didn’t catch, and launched us across a couple of lanes and into the frenetic every-way traffic fiasco that is every country in Asia.

Tuk-tuk is a good way to see a country. I used to think buses were the best means of efficient transport to see a country but tuk-tuks have this way of putting you directly into the action. For example, my eyes were constantly watering from the dust that was kicked up by the traffic. Also, as DJ Camera cut-off, squared-off, and otherwise basically played an extended game of Chicken with every driver in Phnom Penh, I felt a very real fear of death; something like a bus might have denied me this great cultural experience.

After a time the traffic thinned and the buildings on either side of the road descended in structural integrity until they were nothing more than shacks made of salvaged aluminum. The presence of shoes became rare.

We passed vehicles full to the tipping point with wood, goods, junk or people. Every so often we would pass green fields marked with giant puddles and the burnt-sienna mud and a cluster of water-buffalo. Kids walked and laughed in groups and bikes whizzed by leaving trails of dust and exhaust.

We crossed a river that was edged on both sides with houses on stilts, made largely of blue tarps and mismatched bits of wood, metal, and cloth. They stood on stilts and resembled tree-houses if you could put extreme poverty out of mind for a while.

--

Mass graves.

Choeung Ek. Outside the ticket booth a handful of amputees begged money or stood in the shade. It was extremely hot so mostly they just hung around in the shade.

At first glance, Choeung Ek doesn’t seem to earn its other names. It feels like you are buying entrance into an old orchard, or a second rate park. Off in the distance stands a Buddhist stupa that reaches to the sky. It looks as though it might be a kind of museum. Signs in Khmer and English dot the trails next to these pool-sized divots that cut into the earth. Grass has grown over these holes so their presence is muted, not shocking but unnatural.

The Killing Fields.

That so much of Cambodia’s tourism, particularly in or around Phnom Penh, is directly related to such a horrible time in the country’s history says something about their willingness to face such a nightmare without balking. The atmosphere at Choeung Ek, the best known of many Killing Fields is subdued, quiet, a bit creepy, and sad but it also has this feeling of “look at this, look at what has happened here, how?”

Victims of the Khmer Rouge.

I walked around Choeung Ek because that is really the only thing you can do there; it isn’t a place you really enjoy or are entertained. Groups of people were doing the same thing as I, some with guides who spoke in whispers.

The stupa was full of skulls. Thousands of skulls. They stare out of a central tower in the center of the structure and from the walls opposite. To walk in the narrow path around the stupa is to be flanked on either side by the faces of horrible deaths.

Estimates say that well over a million people were killed by the Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot. Many of those people died in places like this and were buried in mass graves in places like this. Many people died in this place.

The divots in the ground were mass graves. Gnarled trees reach from their sloping edges, their shapes perverted by the uneven ground. Next to the trees are displays of what happened here and what is still happening as a result of rain and earth’s tendency to regurgitate what is put into it.

Remains that came to the surface.

There used to be a chicken coup in my back yard. It was destroyed a long time ago, but still pieces of glass come up through the dirt when it rains. Here, in Choeung Ek, torn strips of faded clothing and bones are still coming to the surface and are laid to the side. The bones at this tree belonged to a child, says the sign.

I walked through the woods for a while. The entire park was silent. At the back side there was a pond and then a barbed wire fence marking the end of the property. Shoeless and shirtless boys begged with their hands reaching through the links. Later I listened as a guide told his charges that he lost his whole family to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in these fields.

“Sad place,” said DJ Camera when I returned to his tuk-tuk. “Now, we go to school.”

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Phnom Penh, Cambodia: DJ Camera

DJ Camera, my tuk-tuk driver in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, was beginning to creep me out; not majorly, but I was beginning to dread his jolly, round face, and off-centered dirty baseball cap.


He was everywhere.

I arrived, admittedly thanks to DJ Camera, at the Noura Motel unscathed and found that while the $20 rooms were occupied, the manager was willing to let me stay in a $35 room for $25. DJ Camera had something to do with this and I was grateful, but he lingered about the tiny reception desk for too long.

“OK, Thomas,” he said in his over-excited manner of speaking, “go to your room, relax, come down. I wait for you and we make plans for tour tomorrow. We do many things.”

I looked at him and my heart sank a little. His sweaty brown face was staring at me and smiling. He was selling me something. Cabbies, whether in a car, on a bike, or pulling a rickshaw, in this part of the world are always trying to sell you something.

I handed him the few dollars that I owed him and told him that maybe I would see him later, and if I was to take a tour I would go through him.

DJ Camera shook his head in the negative and steamrolled my hesitation and told me that he would take me anywhere. I told him “maybe” a few more times

The Noura Motel has a layout and atmosphere that reminds one of an Old West saloon / hotel. Stairs lead to hallways that branch in many directions, looking over a small bar lit by dim, flickering bulbs. Idle workers stood talking by empty tables that spilled out towards the street. The street was teeming with beggars, tuk-tuks, and the fire of the setting sun.

I was shown to my room on the second floor. I walked through a reading room and down a hallway that led to a wide open balcony. Just across the street stands the royal Chan Chhaya pavilion, a part of the Royal Palace; its green lawns dotted with barefoot kids, sleeping tuk-tuk drivers, and a few soccer balls.

If I didn’t want to sit in the wicker chair and watch the setting sun, then I could have seen it from the massive windows in my room.



Sure enough, when I found my way to the main lobby to leave for dinner, DJ Camera was waiting for me. He sat at a small table just outside of the hotel. As soon as I was close he sprung up and asked where I was headed, if I wanted a ride, and began listing the things we could do the next day.

I cut him off. I told him that I appreciated his effort, but I wasn’t sure if I would be taking a tour tomorrow and that I might just wander around and take photos.

He looked hurt for a moment.

“OK, tomorrow when you want leave,” DJ said, “I will wait you outside hotel.”

He then grabbed my hand, shook it whilst ignoring the growing annoyance on my face, and sat down again.

I understood why DJ Camera was so eager to seal the deal: “maybe,” and “I’ll call you,” generally mean “no” and “fuck off” in his line of work. That has certainly been the underlying meaning when used by myself. What I could not understand was why he didn’t give up and look for business else where. And why was he still outside the motel!?

I walked towards the Meekong and sat down to a traditional Khmer meal of Italian grinder, fries, and alcohol.

I thought of my smiling DJ Camera and of a taxi driver in Mexico.

It was a few years back and I was wandering up the wrong road on the wrong hill. Drug cartels were beginning to take hold of the edge of town and apparently I was walking straight that way. A cabbie came running up, grabbed me and asked me as polite as possible as to where the fuck I was going and if I wanted to die?

I replied no, that I needed a cheap place to sleep.

He drove me for a while until we came to a hotel on the edge of a bay full of dirty water and men in tin boats hawking fresh fish.

This man had the same anxious tone as DJ Camera and wanted me to take a tour with him the next day as well but there seemed to be something more sinister about him. The hotel was on the edge of town and I became paranoid that this cabbie knew where I was and that my door was only a sliding plastic curtain. Friends from Mexico and guidebooks warn of local cabbies aiming for extortion, kidnapping, or worse.

I slept with my bed against the door and when he didn’t come to kill me and I never let him take me for a tour I felt guilt. I was ashamed of my paranoia.

Still, DJ Camera just wanted my money.

DJ Camera asked me how my dinner was when I arrived at the hotel. I shot him a look but there was no reaction..

“Tomorrow…” he went on again.

“MAYBE!” I told him and walked away.

“I will wait you tomorrow.”



After a few power-outages I headed downstairs to use the wi-fi and have a bottle of Angkor beer, the local version of the cheap, flavorless, working class beer of the world.

The two person bar staff talked in a corner and the tables outside the hotel were swarmed. Laughter rose frequently and the slamming of beer glasses and the clink of utensils against glass plates. Khmer filled the air. I half expected DJ Camera to —

“Hello!” said DJ Camera, standing up from his chair outside.

I stared at him in disbelief. Behind him tuk-tuk drivers slept in their vehicles. People walked by on their way to the bars or restaurants of the Phnom Penh night; but here was DJ Camera, still sitting outside my hotel.

I returned the greeting, disregarded whatever else he said and continued to drink my unfinished beer and then a second when I felt somebody staring at me.

I looked out the door and DJ Camera was stooping in, looking uncharacteristically meek. I stared at him for a moment and he spoke quietly.

“Thomas,” his memory was impressive, “please, it is a happy night. You are in Cambodia. Do not sit alone. Sit with me outside and drink.”



Shit.

I had him wrong like I probably had the cabbie in Mexico wrong. I pride myself in adaptability and openness in travel but here, I had it all wrong.

What the fuck?

I smiled, closed my computer and joined a smiling DJ Camera outside.

The table was full of food and pitchers of beer. There were two men at the table with DJ Camera. They smiled at me. A group of extremely beautiful girls laughed at me as I mumbled awkward “hellos“.

The man next to me was another tuk-tuk driver and the man next to DJ Camera was the manager of the lovely Noura Motel, and a close friend of DJ Camera’s.

“We are like family,” said the manager, a squat smiling man with one of the friendliest faces I have ever seen. “We take care of eachother.”

I felt shame.

I looked at the man who I assumed wanted only to take my money.

“Tonight, Thomas,” DJ Camera said, “you are our new friend and we take care of you.”



They did take care of me. There were pitchers of local beer mixed with a beer from Singapore. They pushed a kind of edible rice cloth my way and it tasted like a neutral rice cake on it’s own but it was heaven in the sweet, fishy dipping sauce.

“Traditional Cambodian,” my new friends told me.

There were questions about me, questions about my time in Korea and Vietnam. There were questions about Cambodia, whose answers were to be expected:

“Cambodia is the best!”

The four of us spoke and drank for a time as we descended into the universal language of drunkeness.

“Thomas,” DJ Camera said, eyes glazed over after declaring that he had left school sometime before high school, “you are my friend!”

“Good friends,” I corrected.

“I saw you alone and I take care of you. I take you to my friend’s motel. Tonight you eat and drink with us. We take care of you. Tomorrow I want you to see Cambodia!”

Finally, I agreed.

Jol Moi! We all said as we clinked our glasses and drank.

“Thomas,” said DJ Camera, “Can you understand my English?”

“Nobody can understand your English!” Piped in the other tuk-tuk.

“Thomas, DJ is very drunk. Nobody can understand!” Said the manager of the motel.

DJ began to introduce me to the girls scattered around in the night. The tuk-tuk drivers parked across the street looked over occasionally if they weren’t otherwise occupied by being passed out.

The night wore on for a while until finally the alcohol was gone. I pulled out my wallet but was hissed at by all three of my companions.

“Thomas,” said DJ Camera, “tomorrow I will wait you. Sleep long. I will be here.”

“Maybe you will have no tour tomorrow,” said the manager, “DJ will probably crash into a tree tonight!”

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Phnom Penh

Sorry all, I've been in Florida or otherwise occupied away from the computer.  Let's push and finish this ol' blog.  This next one might be familliar if you have seen our little magazine.  Anyway, after a long bus ride from Saigon, I ended up in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Cambodia, with its history of violence and a recent tragic past, is a place of dichotomy.  Common guides often speak of warmth, hospitality, and beauty on the same page as warnings of armed robbery and drive-by brick attacks aimed at foreigners along the banks of the Mekong on the same page.  The scars of the ultra-communist Khmer Rouge regime attract huge numbers of socially-aware tourists while leftover landmines and assault rifles have taken their toll on the population and given the country something of a renegade reputation.
Cambodia is a contradiction; at once beautiful and violent which gives way to the frequent comparison to the Wild West.  When driving through outpost towns on the side of a poorly maintained and heavily holed “highway” from the Thai border to the capital, Phnom Penh, this comparison is valid.
A burnt-brown dust hangs in the air, kicked up by every manner of vehicle from tour bus, to car, to homemade “Road Warrior” contraptions that would lead to instant arrest in the U.S.A.  Buildings stretch in rows alongside the road, both shaded by the tall palms in front and covered in their dead leaves.  The storefronts are well worn or run-down, depending on how you look at it.  Sun-worn locals adorn the entrances, sitting around, talking, drinking or smoking if they aren’t selling fruit, meat or sweeping away clouds of dust with palm-leaf brooms.  Many people kick up dirt to add to the ever present haze with bare feet.  Here and there men sleep in a ragged and faded hammock tied to a couple of leaning palms.  Dogs lay in the shade batting flies and the occasional weathered old man with patchy brown skin and unkempt hair wanders naked into the Mekong.
The guidebooks lead you to believe that some of the people in this “frontier” are armed with more than a six-shooter.  They are probably right but it doesn’t seem to matter much.

A store in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

I will confess a certain level of apprehension and paranoia before I crossed the border between Vietnam and Cambodia.  I have been in hairy situations before and Phnom Penh seemed to have potential for things to go bad pretty quick.
As the bus carrying a couple dozen travelers from Saigon to Phnom Penh -a mix of locals and western tourists- came into the city limits I began to wonder if I had bitten off more than I could chew.
There was no real plan, so to speak.  I had no place to stay and my wad of cash was becoming a little smaller each day.  Further, I had been hauling a year’s worth of possessions from South Korea along with my camera equipment; if there was a brick thrower in the area I probably wouldn’t even make it off of the bus.
When the bus pulled into a derelict station that consisted of a faded white stone building accented by decaying wood and a dirt “parking lot” I became overwhelmed.

I stepped into the oppressive heat and dirt-filled air to the barrage of tuk-tuk drivers shouting, beckoning, and stopping one step shy of kidnapping.  Luggage was pulled from the storage compartments of the bus and dumped onto the dirt.  It was hard to maneuver between the people and vehicles.  Tuk-Tuk drivers spoke in varying levels of English, and a blizzard of Khmer filled the air.  The crowd of my fellow bus travelers dissipated in a cloud of confused faces staring off, unable to efficiently process what was going on until one of the tuk-tuk drivers shouted loud enough to cut through the staccato and then they were riding off into a cloud of dust and a cluster-fuck traffic.
I picked up my dirt covered luggage and tried to leave the chaos, only to come face to face with one of the tuk-tuk drivers.
“Are you alone?”  He asked.
“Yeah, I am.”
“OK, then I will take you to a hotel.” He said.
“I need a cheap one.”
“Ok, $25,” off the top of his head.
I agreed.  I had been taken for a long and expensive ride when I was in Saigon to a hotel with an astronomical price.  Cheaper accommodation can be found in Phnom Penh, but I didn’t mind paying the $25 if I had a decent place to sleep and didn’t have to worry about being shot, stabbed, hit by a brick, or all three at once.
The driver, a squat dark skinned man in a baseball cap loaded my luggage onto the rack and I hopped into the back for my first tuk-tuk ride.
Tuk-tuks seem more exciting than they are because they remind you of a hay-ride or going down a hill in a red wagon when you were a kid.  Ideally, a tuk-tuk ride is less apt to send you flying into the certain death of Phnom Penh traffic but the possibility is there and that makes it exciting.  Also, like all of Southeast Asia, there is the chance of actually being a participant in a motorbike bag snatching which can result in such vacation-making events such as a stolen camera or death, if you are unlucky enough to be pulled onto the street.
I sat with my camera bag tangled in my arms.
My driver called himself DJ Camera.  He was a gregarious man somewhere near

middle age.  He spoke with the enthusiasm of someone trying to sell you something, anything.  He asked where I was coming from and what I was doing tomorrow.  The roof of the tuk-tuk was adorned with flyers of tourist attractions and DJ Camera arm-in-arm with blonde girls and backpackers.  DJ Camera was also a guide.
We passed the ever-present Southeast Asia gas stations: small wagons with cola and Fanta bottles full of gasoline and baking in the sun.  Motorbikes whined past us and people crossed the street, often barefoot, with no apparent regard for their lives.  An occasional “delivery” bike passed by, recently slaughtered poultry bouncing were strapped to the sides; they flopped with each bump as though reliving their death throes.
“Tomorrow,” DJ Camera said as he played a mad game of Frogger with his tuk-tuk and our lives, “I show you Cambodia.”

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Cu Chi -Home of the Viet Cong- Vietnam

A secret entrance to a Viet Cong Tunnel.
Cu Chi, Vietnam.

The next day I signed up for a tour.  Ordinarily I don’t go for too many tours when I travel for the simple reason that I usually travel alone and end up being the guy sitting on the bus who never says anything.  This tour however promised to be an interesting trip to experience a place that was close to Hell for U.S. Soldiers during the war.

After a fresh baguette (with nothing on or in it, though still delicious) I was picked up by a small tour bus.

I sat in a window seat, my legs folded up by my chest courtesy of a protruding wheel well thankful for air conditioning and nice view of the streets of Saigon.  At least I was in little danger of getting run over by 50,000 motorbikes inside of a bus.

For 30 minutes the bus drove about bustling streets, turning here and there, to pick up the other groups that had signed up for the tour.  By the time everyone had boarded and the attendance sheet was passed around I found myself thrown together with 20 or so Australians and a Chinese family. 

Our destination was 2 hours outside of Saigon.  The trip, cramped though it was, was worth the $10 I had paid for it.  We left the frantic streets of downtown, crossed a river and soon found ourselves in the somewhat decaying sprawl of the outer limits of Saigon. 

Everywhere people sought shelter from the heat and the sun in shaded hammocks.  People sat on tiny plastic chairs at the ever-present food stands eating cheap food and drinking Vietnamese ice-coffee. 

Soon, the city gave way to rice patties and the shacks of farming communities.  Even motorbikes became less and less common, replaced with the occasional water buffalo wandering on the side of the road. 

The roads deteriorated quickly.  Pavement ceased after a time and the rock covered road filled with potholes and other bumps.  More than once I found myself flying off my seat.  If this had been an airplane ride I would have been praying. 

Finally we came to our destination.

Cu Chi.

Cu Chi is a district of Saigon.  It was once farmland housing villages of rural Vietnamese.  It still has the appearance of rural farmland and is in fact surrounded by many farms, many of them passed on the way. 

The place is relaxing and at first glance looks like nothing more than a small swatch of forested park.  It looks like any campground in New England sans tents and with staggering temperatures.  This, I suppose, is what makes Cu Chi so contradictory.  It is a place that projects the peacefulness of nature but its reality is one of unimaginable violence and terror. 

Beneath the dirt, grass, gnarled roots, and trees is a series of tunnels, sleeping quarters, strategy rooms, and traps.  Cu Chi is the land of the Viet Cong.  From Cu Chi the Tet Offensive was planned.  From Cu Chi the Viet Cong brought guerilla warfare to an invading army. 

My first inclination that Cu Chi might have been an odd pick for an American was the documentary we were shown in a large canopy with a thatched roof.  The footage was grainy and the audio was horrible.  The only things I could really make out was something about “trained murderers,” “evil,” “barbaric,” Americans.

The forest and vegetation in Cu Chi and the surrounding areas was thicker at one point, but American bombing and carpet bombing campaigns has left the area with permanent scars.  In fact, strewn about the trails of Cu Chi are bomb craters filled in with trees growing at odd angles from the crater walls. 

Cu Chi is protected by the government and has been turned into a kind of open-air museum except that most of it is underground. 

The displays, some authentic and some recreated, generally relate to hiding from or killing American soldiers. 

Trap doors line the area and are so well hidden that when the guides hop down to demonstrate their effectiveness and then close the door above them, they are completely invisible. 

Pits full of sharpened and poisoned stakes are cordoned off. 

There is an entire building dedicated to spiked booby traps designed to maim the unfortunate to such a degree that it is impossible to free one’s self from cris-crossing spikes without removing all of the skin from the bone. 

There is a door that if opened will send barbed spikes swinging crotch level.  Behind each display is a painting of what an American soldier might look like if he was the victim of such devices.

Termite mounds provided air to the subterranean maze and many of these things still exist in Cu Chi. 

What struck me most about this place was that along side with tacky exhibits of poorly made animatronic mannequins demonstrating such things as how to turn an unexploded bomb into a mine was this air of genuineness.  The place is a tourist attraction but the place is also authentic.

Bad things happened in Cu Chi to everybody involved.  People died in this place.  I have been to Gettysburg and I have seen musket ball craters on graves in the Boston Common but it is hard to relate to things that happened so long ago and have been so well ground into us in history classes. 

People died in Cu Chi and it wasn’t so long ago. 

I found myself thinking about the numerous other foreigners I had seen who seemed to be the right age to have been a veteran of this war.  I thought about the men I saw drinking beer in melancholy air in the cheap restaurants.  And further I thought of how many Vietnamese I passed in the street who were also veterans of this war.  For those people who were here during such a violent time, Cu Chi is still a fresh wound.

A destroyed U.S. tank.
Cu Chi, Vietnam.

Towards the end we came to a U.S. tank.  It sat at the edge of an alcove of trees.  Kids climbed over it like it was a jungle gym and people posed for photos at the top.  I don’t know the story of the artillery at the War Remnants Museum but the story of this tank was included in the tour. 

This tank was a casualty of war.  It was the real deal.  It had been occupied and driving along when it hit the trigger of an improvised mine likely made from an American bomb.  The back of the tank is blown out.  Jagged metal protrudes where the explosion hit.  Paint is chipped and faded and bullet holes dimple much of the body.

People died here. 

A lot of people died from both sides.

My guide spoke with pride of the resistance of the Viet Cong.  It really is incredible.  They were farmers drawn into battle, living in horrible conditions fighting a horrible war.  He spoke with pride about how many Americans they killed and the ingenious simple but fatal traps they used to kill them, to kill us. 

It is fascinating to hear the other side of a story but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be difficult too sometimes. 

I thought again of the veterans who make the trip back to Vietnam.  Why do they do it?  Closure?  To see that the place really isn’t the hell that it was during that time?  What must it be like for them to come to Cu Chi and see all of this? 

My guide motions to me and tells me that he will take my picture if I want to hop onto the tank and pose.  An Australian is sitting atop pretending that he is operating the gun.  I decline.  It just feels, I don’t know, wrong for me to do that.

One attraction of Cu Chi is the option to shoot a number of weapons that were used in the war.  It is phenomenally expensive so I didn’t partake, but it adds to the atmosphere of Cu Chi.  The jungle is thick, the heat is oppressive and always there is the sporadic burst of automatic rifle fire and the quick whiff of gun powder. 

There was one thing I was determined to participate in.  The government has maintained some of the Cu Chi tunnels so that they are safe enough for visitors to pass through them.  The path from start to finish is obvious with optional exits every 10 meters or so.  Traps have been removed or cordoned off. 

In Cu Chi you can wander the tunnels and into the rooms where the Viet Cong lived, died, killed, and planned during the Vietnam War.

It is billed as a simple way to get a little closer to history.

The tunnels at Cu Chi are a nightmare.  Some have been widened a touch to make way for western visitors but they are still overwhelmingly claustrophobic.  Their curved ceilings are too low to do anything but stoop and waddle, knees level with your belly.  The air is still, thick with humidity and hot as hell. 

I got the impression that these tunnels would be well lit and a breeze.  I was wrong.  There were low powered bulbs where the tunnel turned 90 degrees but the light was overcome by darkness a few feet later.  To walk in the tunnels is to walk in darkness.

Viet Cong tunnel.
Cu Chi, Vietnam.

Claustrophobia set in pretty instantly.  By the time I bowed over to get into the tunnel I wished that I hadn’t but already there was a line of people behind me.  You can’t turn back in the tunnels.  You can’t go forward either if the line of people in front of you have stopped for god knows why.  So I sat there in pitch black, oppressive heat, unable to fully extend my arms even if my elbows were folded. 

We waddled along a few steps and then stopped again.  This continued until we came to a turn and then a drop into a tunnel further still under ground.  We came to a larger room, something only obvious with the change in the echos and people bunching up and bumping into each other.  It was a nightmare. 

You could hear voices ahead and behind but often you couldn’t see anything in front of you.  Closing your eyes made no difference in visibility.

The tunnels are panic inducing.  Illogical as it was, I developed this nagging fear that some moron at the head had taken a wrong turn and was leading us to hell or some other humid and black tomb.  Certainly we were underground for a hell of a lot longer than I expected and the turns had disoriented us. 

When at last we felt a breeze (still almost 100 degrees, mind you) I had had my fill of the Viet Cong.  When I could finally stand in sunlight I was covered in sweat and dirt.  My knees were scraped from the tunnel floors.  My legs hurt.

An Australian behind me muttered the sentiments of everybody when invited to enter another tunnel.

“Fuck this.”

  The next day I hopped a bus to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

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Vietnam: Museums and Amputees

Ben Tahn Market.
Saigon, Vietnam.

The man who split his time equally between standing behind the desk at the Giang Linh Hotel changing my U.S. dollars to Vietnamese dong, and sitting on a sofa watching TV and smoking told me that the War Remnants Museum was 1. Not very far, and 2. Cheap.  It basically met the minimum requirements for the sort of activity I was looking for.

I had spent a couple of days wandering around Saigon trying half-assed not to get lost.  I got lost routinely, but that is the point sometimes.  I would set out before noon or whenever I woke up, and return to my hotel for a couple of hours after eating lunch in one of the identical alcove restaurants to avoid the heat.  I would then head out again and find a market or some other place to walk around, take photographs, or just eat.  I was looking for some sort or tourist activity and the War Remnants Museum seemed to be the answer.

I walked as far as the Ben Than market, which has existed in one form or another since the early 1500’s, before succumbing to the heat and hopping into an official looking cab that did not screw me.  Fifteen minutes of snarled traffic and dilapidated buildings covered in grime and foliage later I was walking onto the War Remnants Museum compound.

Ben Tahn Market, outside.
Saigon, Vietnam.

The museum has one tall cinderblock structure that looks something like a parking garage (admittedly a pretty nice parking garage) that is surrounded by various vehicles and devices of the American war machine.  It seems to be the most heavily guarded parking garage in history.

Everything on display in the perimeter seems to be from the American military.  Amongst the landing craft, fighter jets, tanks, and attack helicopters are piles of unexploded ordinance.  Families take turns posing for photos next to giant machine-gun turrets. 

Off to the side is the recreation of a South Vietnamese political prison.  It is a hard thing to take in.  There is a guillotine that has seen heavy use.  The cages, regardless of being recreations, induce a feeling of intense claustrophobia when mixed with thick, hot air.  Every here and there are tools of torture on display next to photos of their results. 

Through the sights.  War Remnants
Museum.  Saigon, Vietnam.

The museum itself is largely dedicated to the reality of war in the eyes of the Vietnamese who suffered through it.  Walls are dedicated to the My Lai Massacre and in remembrance of the innocents of unknown villages who died at the hands of the “murderous, savage American aggressors.” 

It is a hard place to take in as an American.  While it is now called the War Remnants Museum it has had a few other names that were less subtle, for instance: The War Crimes Museum, The Museum of American War Crimes, and The House for Displaying War Crimes of American Imperialism and the Puppet Government.  The name has been changed to its current as part of Vietnam’s “normalization of relations with the United States.” 

Other exhibits include an extensive look at the results of Agent Orange, napalm, and unexploded ordinance.  Haunting black-and-whites depict children born with extreme mental and physical defects.  They are almost all wide-eyed and smiling, seemingly unaware at the horrible predicament they were born into; victims of a war long over. 

Another exhibit displays the photographs of the many photographers who died in Vietnam from dozens of countries. 

Outside, before I leave to get screwed over for the final time by a taxi driver, a man calls to me.  I see him first out of the corner of my eye.  As I turn I am taken back, shocked for a moment and then embarrassed that the man might have seen my surprise.  The man is a double amputee.

The Guillotine.  War Remnants Museum.
Saigon, Vietnam.

He tells me in quiet, fast, broken English that he had the misfortune of stepping on a leftover landmine.  His arms are cut to thin nubs of purple and bulbous scar-tissue just below his elbows. 

I notice them for the first time as he pulls out a book that he is trying to sell me.  The book is about the legacy of unexploded ordinance and mines that remain in Vietnam.  I look to his face and am again shocked, sickened, and then embarrassed.  His face is scarred to hell.  Purple lines and tears run from his chin through his lips to the rimmed hat that he is wearing.  His right eye is cloudy, faded, distorted, and dead.

I feel that I should buy his book but it is expensive.  He is persistent and becomes irritated when I tell him as polite as possible that I won’t be buying anything from him.  He takes the book from me and puts it back into an old saddle bag with his forearms.  He asks me where I am from and I tell him I am from Canada.

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Food and People in Saigon

An empty Street in the Backpacker
District.  Saigon, Vietnam.

The food in Saigon is cheap and everywhere.  I spent much of my time in Saigon just wandering around with my camera or trying to cross the street and I found that I was never more than a few meters away from food.  Pho stands seem to dot the overcrowded pavement in front of every other door.  Under foggy glass a collection of fresh vegetables and questionably fresh meat sat gathering a collection of flies.  In a minute you could have a bowl of pho for much less than a dollar. 

About these stands was an array of multi-colored plastic chairs and tables that were probably meant for little kids but were perpetually full of people enjoying their meals under the beating sun.

Courtesy of its history as a colony of France, fresh baguettes can be bought anywhere for next to nothing. 

The restaurants I frequented were largely across the street in the backpacker district.  Roads full of cheap restaurants, guesthouses, laundry, and booking services ran parallel to each other, forming this village of travelers, beggars, and more than a few dirty hippie drifters. 

The smells were intoxicating.  Lime and basil accented the smoke of burning meat.  Alcohol hung in the air as though the place were a giant open-air bar, which it basically was.  This place, the backpacker district was a little place of comfort for travelers without the luxury of a nice hotel or cloth napkins. 

Each restaurant had someone outside asking everyone who passed by if they were hungry, trying to drag in business as though they were fishing.  This is necessary because every restaurant there is almost identical: a long open room like a long garage, filled with tables and plastic chairs and cheap table cloths if there is one at all.  They lack ambiance but they deliver in quality food at low cost and the ability to watch as the night wears down. 

An Alcove Restaurant.
Saigon, Vietnam.

I sat towards the back of the alcove restaurant beneath a fan and still sweating.  Outside people laughed or shouted as twilight deepened.  The waiters and waitresses dropped all manner of dishes, pho and pineapple fried rice to burgers and meatloaf, in front of patrons from who knows why. 

Every now and again as I waited for my bowl of pho and pulled swigs of my warming Tiger beer a merchandise peddler would come in.  They usually had a tray of knock-off sunglasses or fans and they were usually visibly pissed off when you refused to buy anything. 

An American guy flirted with my waitress.  He is some sort of writer he said.  I blame him for my growling stomach. 

People walk in front of the entrance with loads of laundry or with backpacks that weigh more than half that of their owners.  So many dreadlocks. 

It is interesting to see who comes to these places.  For most people I do that thing where I try and figure their story out.  Do they live here?  Are they here for work?  Are they just passing through? 

The thing with Vietnam is that it has this weird mix of people.  The backpacker district is a good example of this.  Nobody here belongs but they don’t look entirely out of place.  Here and there are people in nice clothing wearing nice shoes and cargo shorts, but most people, including myself, have a layer of grime to them.  There are wild eyes in Vietnam and a sense of community. 

Then there is another population. I was eating lunch one day and they came in.  There were four or five of them.  Americans.  They wore Harley cutoff shirts or some cheap Saigon shirt that exposed black tattoos that had faded to a dull green.  They drank beer and talked and ate beneath a fan in the shade away from the sun. 

They were in their 50’s and 60’s I could guess and they were somber.  They laughed now and again but it was never the gut busting laughter that came from younger people who frequented these restaurants. 

As the meal wore on they became quiet.  Maybe they were tired and hot but they spent a long time drinking beer in silence staring out into the street.

Obviously what I am getting at here is that it is my assumption that some of these guys have been to Vietnam before under less than happy circumstances.  I wonder what it is like for the veterans of the war to return to a place that was so violent and horrible for them.  I wonder what brings them back.

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Saigon Traffic



The rotary. Saigon, Vietnam.



Saigon is set up in districts. District 1 is the main drag of the city and where the bulk of accommodations for visitors are located. The place is full of stores, sites, and people of every level of poverty and affluence. It was a dynamic and mad place and I am happy to have spent my time in Vietnam there.



Saigon, regardless of district, is controlled chaos, organized entropy. The mindset of Saigon is realized through the total shit show that is rush hour traffic. In District 1 there is a major rotary. In the center is a sculpture of a man who I assume is probably Ho Chi Minh. Five or six different roads pool into this rotary so that it looks like a nightmare to negotiate under normal circumstances.



In Saigon, like the rest of the world, rush hour is the plague of the day. The thing is rush hour seems to last most of the day here. Also, there are not too many cars. If there is some hidden population of four-wheeled transport then they know well enough to avoid this rotary.

Ajummas: not caring who is behind them internationally.
Saigon, Vietnam.

Instead of cars there are scooters and motorbikes. Thousands of them. When the traffic is bad, which is always, scooters clog the roads like blood pumping through excited veins. They ride as many abreast as possible and sometimes more than the road can hold. In effect, the street becomes a river raging in a flood, spilling rapids over its banks.

I made several trips to this artery. Firstly, because the spectacle of this traffic and the ragtag businesses that spring up about it (air-compressors, petrol in liter bottles of cola) is fascinating. Further, on the other side of the street is the backpacker district, full of cheap lodging, laundry, food and other logistic vendors. It is the place to be.

To get to the other side of the road, especially at the peak, is a lethal Why-did-the-chicken-cross-the-road joke. It seems impossible. There are not many pedestrian crossing signals and if there are they are usually inoperable or universally ignored by drivers and pedestrians alike.

To cross the street is a test of faith and steadfast nerves. The trick is this. Find an opening and start walking. Do NOT change your speed. It might even be helpful to look forward and pretend that there are not 800 scooters whizzing by you. Reach the other side and thank god that you made it. The other option is to wait for a local to cross and hope that they soften the blow when that hit comes.

Scooters.  Saigon, Vietnam.

There is a constant peal of anxious horns. Drivers on these roads seem to beep not so much as a warning or threat so much as an acknowledgement that they are entering into your space. Given that the roads are total gridlock (very fast moving gridlock to be true) the sound of whiny horns is constant.

Every so often a man in a pedal operated tuk-tuk or a salvager pulling a car stacked impossibly high with junk will come on and mess everyone up.

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Saigon Part One

Well, I have been home for a few days now.  It feels very bizarre.  It has taken me a while to get internet in my room (but not so long to buy a giant ass TV and spent a bunch of money) so this is all really late.  I tried really hard to take a lot of notes on my way through SE Asia.  Here it is.  Part one of "What the Crap Was I Thinking?"

Vietnam was my Vietnam. 

Hours earlier I had woken up in familiarity at a little hotel in Seoul.  The sun had risen to what looked to be a nice day on the peninsula.  Now, my plane is bouncing around a runway at night.  Trees that look like palms are silhouetted by the lights of run down and abandoned buildings with a distinctively French architecture that dot the area around the airport. 

I walk off the plane and am blitzkrieged by the heat and humidity of Saigon.  My skin becomes moist and my jeans suffocating.  As I stand on the bus that will take us to the arrival terminal of the airport I am pressed against the window Publish Postby the crowd of people piling in.  It isn’t so bad really.  There is air-conditioning and it I am in little danger of falling given that I can’t move.  And the view is good, so my eyes dart around as my cheek squishes against the window.  Behind a green fence are a couple of old bombers.  Their windows are smashed and the war-green paint is dinged up in a few areas.  Their identifying numbers are barely visible, but they are there.  They look like movie props from every Vietnam flick ever made but they are probably the real deal. 

Welcome to Saigon.

It is a strange transition between Korea and Vietnam.  I think it must be a strange transition for anybody to go from East Asia to Southeast Asia, or the opposite.  My first experience in Saigon, now officially Ho Chi Minh City (but Saigon sounds oh so much cooler), was a pretty good example.

I had become soft in Korea; too trusting.  You could probably leave your wallet in any bar and stand a pretty good chance of it being returned with nothing missing.  I rarely locked my apartment door (until my students started to come around towards the end).  I never thought twice about getting into a cab because they are all the same, and they are all cheap.

I hoped that the airport in Saigon would have a kiosk where you could arrange pick-up to a cheap hotel.  That was my plan after I had my visa processed.  Incheon Airport in Korea has said kiosks every thirty feet.  Saigon had zero. 

It was late.  Everything was closed and besides there wasn’t much to the airport in Saigon.  Just a long corridor with a few little rooms, most of which were abandoned.  I changed some of my Korean Won into Vietnamese Dong and walked out again into the heat.

There was nobody in the airport because everybody was outside.  Hundreds of people were mulling around waiting for arrivals. 

I walked away from the crowd to stand for a moment and formulate a game plan.  This was something I should have probably done before arriving in Vietnam but I was not yet worried.  I had a 3 week jaunt through Southeast Asia and not a single plan.  Immediately I was approached by this rotund guy who spoke pretty decent English. 

While Korea made me soft it did not make me stupid.  In defense of what happened I have to point out that I was exhausted.  I was pulling two big pieces of luggage.  I was wearing jeans and sweating profusely and had taken a decent amount of xanax for the plane ride.

The mind is quick to accept a way out of duress, even if that way is something you would not have gone for under normal circumstances.

The round man was a taxi driver.  He spoke with me for a while and I spoke back.  He seemed to be a genuinely nice guy; a little pushy but nice.  He spoke of Saigon with a lot of pride.  He asked about the handkerchief I had attached to my camera bag and he seemed interested when I told him it had come from Seoraksan in Korea.  Eventually one of his buddies, a thin and loud sort of jerk came over and began chatting too. 

The thin guy grabbed my arm and started running his fingers over the tattoo on my arm and asking me questions, particularly if I was traveling alone and why. 

At this point the first guy started to grab my luggage and walk towards his car.  Given that I had yet to agree to a ride this should have been my key to bail and find an official taxi company as opposed to a couple of goons in the shadows.

I grabbed my bag and asked him where he was going.  He told me he would take me to a cheap hotel near downtown.  I thought on it and decided, against my gut, that I might as well ride with tubby.  I had to get to a hotel and this guy didn’t seem all bad.  Or maybe he did, I didn’t know.  I was exhausted.

I got into his car.  It had no taxi markings on it.  It bothered me a little but not enough to send any sort of alarm. 

I closed the door and the thin guy jumped into the passenger seat up front and said something real quick.  For a moment I thought I was about to get robbed.  I became very self-conscious of having an absurd amount of cash on me.

The thin guy spoke again and then told me I had to pay a fee to him because he was the boss.  I gave him money and he told me that he would keep my change as a present.  He then smiled, jumped out of the car and ran away. 

Shortly after this the cabbie hit me up for the cost of the exit toll (this is pretty standard).  He then took me to a hotel that cost $80 a night in the middle of a colony of homeless families.  The taxi cost almost as much as the hotel.  I didn’t pick up on this until I looked up the exchange rate. 

The next day, after paying for water I drank from the mini-bar and becoming extremely depressed over a rocky start to my trip and losing quite a bit of enthusiasm for the entire thing, I took a reasonably priced cab back to the airport to try again.  My debit card was sitting somewhere in my old apartment in Cheongju so my wad of cash was all I had for the duration. 

$80 hotels were not in my budget. 

The second cab driver looked like a 90 year old mole.  He spoke in this high-pitched whine that reminded me of the old man in the Adam Sandler Chanukah cartoon.  He led me to his car (totally thread bare, by the way), charged me the exit toll, and brought me at last to a cheapish hotel.  He told me he had gotten me a deal because I had been good to him and that he thought I was nice.  I thanked him for finding what looked to be (and actually was) a safe and legit hotel.  He then made a valid effort to scam me out of a lot of money (and was successful to a certain extent) before he drove off.

I was then led upstairs to my tiny $20 a night room.  I moved my luggage into a corner and relaxed for the first time since leaving Korea.    

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Guangzhou, China

I am writing this from somewhere in China.  I could put down the name of the city but it is currently in my bag full of random computer wires and electronics charges (when combined with the appearance of my external hard drive and alarm clock look something like a bomb in the airport x-ray machine, if you were wondering).  There’s not much point in naming the city though because I am in an airport so the city and even country are really irrelevant. 
There is a wall of windows to the left where planes take off about every 5 minutes.  I like watching the take-off despite my own inability to not sweat profusely when I am directly involved.  I left Seoul at 9:40am, and arrived here 4 hours later (but we went back in time for an hour during the flight). 
The flight was mostly ok.  The plane itself was the least impressive plane I’ve ever been on.  The tiny tv screens would raise and lower randomly through out the flight.  I wasn’t feeling very good about being boxed in with NO legroom but I lucked out and the guy who should have sat in the middle of the trio of seats never showed. 
I popped a xanax and felt pretty okay for most of the flight, but it didn’t alleviate anxiety enough for me to say that I actually enjoyed it.  I was tired and started to doze towards the end, and that’s when I tend to freak out: jerking awake and remembering I am in a plane. 
There was an interesting 10 minutes when the plane suddenly dropped more than I had ever felt before.  It then bounced to one side and the other.  The intercom went off amidst the creaks and thumps of shifting luggage and people.  Her voice was tonal and her words were fast.  She was talking about turbulance and there was a dash to clip seatbelts in a hurry.  I buckle mine as soon as I sit down and I never unbuckle it because I do not get up for anything- I didn’t pee once on the 13 hour flight to Korea. 
The turbulance went on and it got pretty bad for a few moments.  Over the years I have developed this weird way of dealing with turbulance: I shift around in my seat.  If I am moving myself up and down the drops and bumps don’t seem so intense.  They left as fast as they came and the guy next to me didn’t notice regardless because he managed to sleep through the entire damn scenario.
He slept through the whole flight.  I envy people who can do that.  I can’t even sleep in a car.  I am also really happy he slept through it because anytime the plane bounced or turned I looked like I was severely constipated with both arms linked under the arm rests and my mouth sealed shut.
I have also developed these weird habits on planes that seem to help with flying anxiety.  I don’t really even notice doing these things.  I will pinch or scratch myself if I am tired.  Sometimes I will pull out a hair.  These were tips on some website I read before I came here.  A little pain to bring you back to reality.  Some people wear rubber bands so they can snap them on their wrists if they start freaking out.  I also hate being hot so I almost always end up with my jeans rolled up to my knees to alleviate that hot, itchy feeling you sometimes get.
So, by the time I land I basically look like a moron wearing high cut black socks, nice black shoes, capris pants, and missing a bunch of hair on my arm.
I am exhausted.  I am starving.  I am thirsty.
This section of the airport is fairly bland.  After misunderstanding the immigration official as to where I should stand as an international transfer traveler and looking like a moron standing in the middle of a room for 10 minutes, I made my way to the international departure floor. 
I’m not impressed. 
It is one long hall with the sort of ugly grey rug with swirls of blue and brown that remind me of cheap clothing stores I went to as a kid.  There is only a scattering of a half dozen stores selling nothing I currently want (food, drink, a secret money belt).  Further, there is no money exchange here so even if there was a store selling, I don’t know, maybe a triangle kimbap, or candy, or chips, or a soggy pre-made sandwich at this point, I wouldn’t be able to eat.
There are no ajjumas here.  Everybody looks pissed off.  The entire place smells like stale cigarettes because the “smoking room” is actually just an area on the floor with no walls and little vacuums that fail to suck in much smoke at all. 
In each of these smoking areas is a machine that dispenses water.  My mouth was dry and stagnant so it was a welcome sight but it took me a bit to figure out how to use it- there were a surprising number of buttons and levers.  A woman tried to help me and I thanked her in Korean without even thinking about it.  I suppose there are a lot of habits I have picked up over the past year.
I opted for the cold water.  I filled my Seoul thermos and headed back to my seat / bed.  It was about 90 degrees.  There is one man sitting directly across from me.  He is picking his nose with enthusiasm.  He is also wearing white pants and is pretty obviously not wearing underwear.
Only another 6 hours to go and I will be on my way to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam.

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