War Crimes in Indochina

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The sky above Vietnam.

I left Hoi An for Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) and stood on the grounds of modern history. The busy streets of Saigon were more friendly than those in Hanoi, but equally as crazy.

The palace, where the South Vietnamese finally surrendered.

The Post Office in Saigon.

The Vietnam War was a crazy time. It was a war my father was drafted into. It is something I can talk about with many of my family members for a first hand account of what that was like. This wasn’t some battle thousands of years ago that’s completely unrelatable. This was recent and super intense. In one day we visited the Cu Chi tunnels and the American War museum. I had some really intense mixed emotions going on.

Actual size entrance to one of the VCs tunnels.

The two hour drive from HCMC to Cu Chi was pretty uneventful, save a tourist trap stop that featured people affected by Agent Orange exposure creating Vietnamese crafts, and a video about the American war.

To be fair, this video looked like 1960s propaganda. It was super retro and played in black and white. But, honestly, I had never felt a huge, overwhelming, sudden surge of patriotism so intense before watching this video. The video showed re-created battle scenes and talked about the war and the people who fought. The Vietnamese weren’t paid to fight in money, but in honor. So they introduced people who won medals for “killing 160 Americans” and things like this. After 10 minutes I fell asleep and just couldn’t listen to it anymore.

Inside one of the entrances to the tunnel system.

The tunnel tour was super basic and that was fine. The tunnels made me feel claustrophobic and I cannot imagine living like that. Considering how I felt makes me understand more tangibly the situation above ground for all people. Definitely not a good place.

B52 bomb crater.

Here we were taken down a path and shown various life size dioramas of how the Vietnamese handled the war at home, as well as some tunnels and traps. Like I said, the tunnels made me claustrophobic, but the re-created traps made me sick. Thinking about the thousands of Americans that died or were maimed in these traps, people whose story is still discussed first-hand, got me angry. I don’t think either side of the war was in the right, and I believe that awful acts were committed by both the Vietnamese and the Americans, but I was upset at that place. It was a strange feeling to see war from the perspective of the other side.

U.S. tank .

Seeing as my countrymen died in this tank, I felt like I shouldn’t smile. But I did. Because I can be awkward.

After the tunnels it was time for the American War museum. Now, many people would say that this is all just a bullshit propaganda museum. They probably wouldn’t be wrong, but I have to believe that at least some of it is true, even if I don’t want to. Seeing pictures of extreme ailments and deformities caused by Agent Orange exposure, pictures of American soldiers behind beheaded VC, recovered ammunition, guns and weapons, kinda fucked me up. I mean, I cried a significant amount in there. Thinking about their lives and their families really made me so sad. I saw the cages prisoners were kept in, and there were lots of US military vehicles outside, as well.

So at this point I’m feeling an overwhelming sense of American pride and shame simultaneously. It was a weird day, emotionally, so I ended it with a few beers.

Two days later I was at the Killing Fields in Cambodia.

Tuk-tuk in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Mankind is capable of such beautiful and terrifying extremes. Every beautiful thing I know and love is, somehow, connected to humanity, but so are my nightmares. The Tuol Sleng Genocide (S21) museum and The Choeung Ek Killing Fields are stories of horrors even more recent than the American War in Vietnam.

Human remains on display at the memorial pagoda at Choeng Ek.

The museum is in the same buildings and rooms that were used to torture and detain prisoners arrested by the Khmer Rouge in Phnom Penh. Each room contains pictures, beds, restraints, cells, or a combination. There are rooms filled with mug shots taken upon arrival at S21, almost all of which were murdered during the Khmer Rouge genocide that killed nearly 2.5 million people. There are survivor stories that haunt and always end with a reminder to learn from this and not turn a blind eye again. There are still a few blood stains on the floors of the tiny cells and there are skulls exhibiting how each person was killed. Torture was also explained. It was very hot and a lot of reading, but well worth the understating, especially as a prelude to the Killing Fields.

One of four sides of the memorial pagoda at Choeng Ek.

Here you are given a headset in your native language and use it to guide you around the mass graves and former sites of Choeung Ek’s execution site. No matter where you step, you are likely walking on bones. You can see bones and cloth rising to the surface all over the place. The paths tightly wind around the graves, which seem endless, honestly. There are a few graves given special attention, like the biggest one (by amount of people), and the one that was filled with women and children. People have placed bracelets around the fenced area, and even offer food and things at the base of the most chilling place on site.

Mass grave at Choeng Ek.

Because ammunition was scarce and expensive, executioners often bludgeoned people to death. At the killing tree, executioners regularly smashed children against the trunk of a tree until they were dead, and then tossed them into the adjacent pit. When this place was discovered, there was still blood, bone and brain matter on the tree.

The Killing Tree.

The centerpiece here is the memorial pagoda. It is stacked several stories high with skulls and bones of the people found here. Each one is marked with likely cause of death…and it is gruesome.

Memorial Pagoda st Choeng Ek Killing Fields.

Human skulls in the memorial pagoda.

The brutality of humanity is amazing. Terrifying and incredible. And for all the blood that spilled in this area in the last 50 years, the people are welcoming and kind overall. They are poor but never stop smiling. And I can’t help but think about what many of these people must have seen. I guess this is why we travel.

Bones and clothes that have surfaced over the years.

Hanoi and Ha Long Bay

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Ha Long Bay

 I left Korea a week and a half ago but it honestly feels like it’s been much longer. Having adventures regularly will do that to you, I guess. I started out this whole thing in Hanoi, after a horrendous plane ride from Korea sat next to the fattest, most misbehaved little Korean boy I’ve ever encountered. This could be a slight exaggeration, but he was awful and his Omma (Mom) seemed to encourage his rudeness and gluttony as she didn’t scold or stop feeding him for the entire five hour flight.

I digress.

I landed in Hanoi and immediately realized how much I’ve changed in the last year. Landing in such a hot and frenzied place this time last year would have probably given me a bit of pause for concern, of which I had none this go-around. Fight with the taxi drivers, make them take you all the way there, try and fool me. I dared them. They didn’t.

 

Just like in Korea, the Vietnamese try to stay out of the sun by covering up as much as possible. Many women were wearing clothes like this over their normal clothes on motorbikes.

  I got to where I was meeting my friend, Niall, without issue and I was unexpectedly calm. Not really nervous, not really excited, just kind of another day, the first one of many on the move until December when I fly back to America. 

I had a great time staying and catching up with Niall and his fiancée Amy at their apartment the next couple days. Once I figured out how to cross the (chaotically) busy intersection in front of their apartment building without crying, I was golden. 

 

Hanoi, Vietnam

 We ate some delicious food the first night and signed me up for a boat cruise in Ha Long Bay, something I’ve been anticipating for a while now.

HA LONG BAY

  I signed up for the not-so-expensive but non-party boat tour for two days and one night. We took a very small bus from Hanoi to Ha Long Bay for about three hours (ROUGH) with one tourist-aimed stop between. Our guide was really sweet and funny and overall it was a good time. 

The tour included a stop off at a huge cave, called the Gate to Heaven, I believe. It was a huge, beautiful cave decorated with the ugliest, tackiest colored lights. This is also the first time I realized how jaded I am.

   
    
 
This place was discovered and ruined because the Vietnamese knew they could make money off of it by selling the “experience” to tourists, and here I was…buying it. I hated myself for it. And for all the little staged things we did on the trip, like kayaking with about four other cruising boats at some staged “fishing village” and anchoring for the night with even more other boats off of Cat Ba island, where other tourists slept.

All my cynicism couldn’t take away from how amazingly beautiful these limestone islands are, however.

   
   
We all went for a sunset swim in the (quite literally) piss warm and murky water. Not exactly what I had expected, but then again things rarely turn out how you expect them to. 

   

  

  

  

 After a chill night of dinner, beers and conversation, I went to sleep and *luckily* didn’t see any cockroaches in my room all night. Yay! 

The next day we learned how to roll up spring rolls as we headed back to port. We ended up eating the delicious things as part of lunch, while listening to the unfortunate sounds of an AWFUL British girl yelling at all the workers because the tables were too small for her highness to dine at. She was a bitch. I hate her. 

I digress.

All in all, as obviously set up for tourism as it was, I had a good time. I met some great people and experienced Ha Long Bay in the most common way. A couple days later and I was off to Hoi An…where I spent all of my money.