Good times under the North Vietnamese Commie flag

by Jack Corbett

I cannot believe this.  Here I am relaxing underneath a North Vietnamese Commie flag and actually enjoying it.

I missed my date with History.  What should have happened thirty years ago, right after graduating from college, I would have been inducted into the U.S. Armed Services and been sent to Vietnam to fight for my country.  We were fighting a war to save the free world from the Russian Communists.  The reason for losing 60,000 American lives and killing over 1,200,000 Vietnamese was Communism was a unified entity that threatened the entire planet and the supreme ruler over all Communists was the Kremlin in Moscow from which the Red Chinese Communists took orders.  Communism was on the march in Vietnam and if we did not stop the red bastards in Vietnam an entire domino effect would start with one country after another being taken over until the entire world succumbed to a now irresistible force.  In 1969 I would graduate from college and it was said that all of us might as well put on our khaki uniforms beneath our black graduation gowns because that's how fast we would be drafted.  But I got lucky and didn't wind up getting drafted, and now twenty-nine years later I found myself in Hanoi, which is not much more than a 1 hour flight out of Thailand which is now my home.  Ironically the Russians are taking over near my Thai home.  When I'm at the next door Long Beach Hotel pool I'm hearing Russian all around me and very little else.  And this is in Pattaya just a short distance from one of our major airbases which we were using to bomb Vietnam.  And in Vietnam I found hardly any Russians at all, and we fought a war there to save Vietnam from Russian Communism and here I'm now living in Thailand where I have to be really on my toes to keep the Russians from cutting ahead of me in line at the  Seven Eleven?  But that was twenty-nine years ago.  I will now tell about what my one week trip in February, 2008.

For one thing, on the first day I about froze my ass off.  Pattaya is warm year round.  it's just hotter in April and May than all the other months and then there's a cooling off period that lasts for about three weeks around Christmas that passes for Pattaya's winter.  Besides, I had seen too many Vietnam War moves in which American soldiers were sweating their butts off in the jungles and rice paddies.  And although I'd looked at a few maps of Vietnam never did I think in terms of how much the climate might vary between North and South.  Vietnam is a long slender country and it's much further from Saigon and Hanoi than one would think, and it's in the South where U.S. soldiers fought.  So I wore my usual sandals on the plane along with a pair of shorts and a t-shirt.  And that's all I packed--more shorts and short sleeved shirts.   I mean why change?  It works in Pattaya full time so why should Hanoi be any different.  When I arrived it was raining and the first two other things I noticed as soon as I got off that plane is 1. I was freezing and 2.  I was the only person in Hanoi wearing shorts, sandals, and a short sleeved shirt.  Everyone else was bundled up like  New Yorkers or Chicagoans.

I stayed at the Viet Anh Hotel in downtown Hanoi for about forty bucks.   For that I had a prime location near several great restaurants and even had a computer and broadband internet in the room.  Back then I was still smoking cigarettes.  The room had a nice balcony I'd go out on to smoke, watch the people and traffic in the street below me, and drink beer.  But as soon as I arrived I talked to the staff at the front desk about tours, and wound up booking two, one a day city tour of the city the next day, the second the day after, of Halong Bay where I'd stay overnight with my own private cabin on a junk.  I had just heard about Halong Bay, which had been compared favorably to the Krabi area in Thailand, which I had already spent a week at.  Halong Bay promised to be spectacular.

But the next morning I had second thoughts.  All I had to wear were shorts, sandals and short sleeved shirts.  I was even dreading the city tour.  I had not committed to either one, or so I thought, having told the desk clerk I was very interested, but while I was having breakfast the tour guide arrived, and one of the desk clerks came to my table to get me.   I had no clue where to shop for clothes and had just arrived late afternoon the day before.  So I already knew that as soon as I joined that tour group, I'd be the coldest person in Hanoi.

We saw the private residence used by Ho Chi Minh during the early part of the Vietnam War, but the high point of the tour was Ho's mausoleum.  The mausoleum had been set in a park through which hundreds of visitors were either coming or leaving.  Before entering the mausoleum everyone had to leave their sandals at the door.  And inside was Ho himself venerated just as Lenin had been and Mao Tse Tung later on.

The entire place had an aura about it.  I think everyone coming in, Vietnamese and Westerners alike were in awe of what Ho had come to represent to the Vietnamese people.  And here I was, who came within a hair of fighting Ho's troops when I was 22, and who by the time I was 16 or 17 had come to view Ho and his followers as the Devil Incarnate.  But I had done a lot of reading about the real Ho Chi Minh since those days and had even taken a History class on the Vietnam War.  A far different picture of Ho had emerged, a true patriot, a man cast in the same mode as George Washington, John Adams and the other heroes of 1776 who had forged American Independence and a new nation.

Tears started to fill my eyes as I walked past Ho's remains.  Somehow I felt just as in awe of the man as any Vietnamese.

I was freezing.  Mercifully the tour ended around 3 p.m. which gave me ample time to buy some clothes.  I asked the tour guide where to go for a jacket and he told me what direction to go in.  But it took awhile to find the right kind of shop so along the way I kept asking directions.  People were very helpful and eventually I found a shop that sold the kinds of jackets I wanted.  I settled on a bright yellow jacket that was nicely padded inside for warmth which cost me $25.00.  I had probably paid too much but such a jacket would have cost at least $75.00 in the U.S.  I was desperate, couldn't wait to get it on, and when I did, I knew that all my problems had been solved.  I was still wearing my sandals and I still didn't have any long pants but that jacket made all the difference  in the world.

The next morning the mini bus arrived early.  They weren't even serving breakfast that early.  But as I got in, I made a joke, which one of the women who's be on the tour found to be hilarious because she immediately said to me, "I can already tell this is going to be a great tour."

The woman's name was Nancy and she was American.  She was also sixty years old but hardly looked it.  And if I've ever said I hate all American women, I take it all back.  That's because Nancy is just about everything most American women aren't but should be.  But I had met a few others who were different and very memorable.  Nancy and I were destined to become fast pals.

It must have taken about four hours to reach our Junk and let me tell you this---the ill-informed who tell you that junks are junk are way out of touch.  I mean this oversized cabin cruiser or yaht was the cat's meow.  It had ten cabins for paying guests and a large indoor area where breakfast, lunch and dinner was served.  Was a helluva bar at night too.  The top deck was very spacious with ample room for sunbathers.

Luckily for me the sun had come out and it had quit raining which warmed things up a lot.  And that new jacket was just what I needed.  As for the scenery, it was spectacular.  There's 1969 islands rising abruptly out of the sea, several of them having huge caves inside.   Although it did remind me of Krabi in a way, the bay was more closed in meaning there's always a gorgeous rock formation or cliff nearby.  Out on the Gulf of Thailand in Krabi, one definitely has the feeling of being on the high seas.  There's spectacular rock formations and cliffs jutting straight out of the water but there's also large distances between where there's nothing but water.  Halong Bay is so sensational that it has recently been nominated as one of the world's 7 Natural Wonders by the New Open World Foundation.

As for my cabin, I'll just let the pictures below do most of the talking.  But it had everything a man could need including an electric space heater which one could leave either in the states room or the adjoining toilet to take the chill out of the air.

Well, she might be sixty but Nancy proved to be in terrific physical condition.  Back in the U.S. she exercises on a regular basis and by that I mean at least five days a week for at least two hours per session.   Our junk stopped at a little island that had a steep hill on it that must have been at least three hundred feet high on which there was an observation platform at the top.  There was a walk way up to the top.  One would think she would have been satisfied just walking up that steep hill, but not Nancy.  Nancy had to run up those steps non stop.  It was nearly impossible to keep up with her and I exercise all the time.  Afterwards a young Canadian member of our tour group told me, "I almost died trying to keep up with her."  He was still in his middle twenties and seemed to me to be in fine shape himself.

Later Nancy would have a push up contest with our tour guide.  I don't know who won but they both seemed to be having a lot of fun doing all those pushups.  And to think I might have been shooting at someone just like him thirty years ago.  The man was a college professor.  I think he had a PHD.  For that matter the young Vietnamese tour guide in charge of the city tour was also very well educated and spoke impeccable English.

I had just started going out with a girl back in Pattaya who would wind up living with me for 10 months.  Both on the way to Halong Bay and back to Hanoi we stopped a large retail outfit.   I'm sure that whoever our driver was would be getting a nice cut out of everything we purchased there.  Nancy and I shopped together and when Nancy was not around me I was flirting with the Vietnamese sales attendants.  They were way cute, and one thing is for sure, they certainly weren't bar girls.  I wound up buying a small jewelry box and something inexpensive to put inside it for my new Thai girlfriend and Nancy helped me pick it out.  But I would wind up leaving my new package in the mini bus when it let me out in front of my hotel in Hanoi.   So I lost the gift I had just gotten my new girlfriend.  Later I'd get bailed out at the Hanoi airport where I found one just like it at half the price.  And airports are not cheap.  MORAL OF STORY IS WHEN IN ASIA DO NOT STOP AND SHOP WHERE TOUR GUIDE OR BUS DRIVER TAKE YOU.  I have a lot more horror stories to tell starting with Hong Kong, so just take my advice as the gospel.

On the way back our mini bus had to slow way down and finally arrived at the scene of the accident which had caused the slowdown in the traffic. Two dead Vietnamese men lay dead in the middle of the road having just been killed in a motorcyle accident.

On my last day in Hanoi I hired a motorcycle taxi driver who had kept hanging around my hotel and who had been asking me to hire him every day.  So I had him drive me to the War Museum.  I paid my admission and his which wasn't much and together we explored all the tanks, artillery pieces, planes, missiles and small arms weapons inside.  There were also a number of photographs taken by the Vietnamese side during the war that one never sees.  Once again I found myself accompanied by a man whose father I might have been trying to kill thirty years ago and who would have been trying to kill me also.  Together we clamored all over tanks and airplanes many of which were captured American fighter bombers left behind by the retreating South Vietnamese forces.  Signs and all other written material in the museum were in three languages, Vietnamese, French and English.  Now having it all in French is understandable considering Vietnam had been a French colony and the French influence over the entire country had been huge.  But do note what I just wrote---English, French and Vietnamese.  What is missing is "Russian" and "Chinese.

So whatever happened to all those pinko Commies from the good ole U.S.S.R. and Red China?  They weren't here.  Period.  End of story.  They are all in Thailand and they aren't really pinko Commies anymore either.  So what the hell were we fighting that war for?  Far as i could see, in Hanoi they were selling Marlboro cigarettes and Johnny Walker Red Scotch and lots of German stuff as well.  Didn't see anything made in Russia or China though.

There were these signs around the Sam missiles and artillery pieces in the museum.  The signs read, "This weapons was part of such and such a Sam battery that shot down 7 American warplanes from such and such a date to such and such a date.  Weird.   Those same batteries were taking American lives, shooting down American planes worth millions, which is very bad from the American point of view. But taken from their point of view we were the aggressors.  And those who fought the aggressors who were keeping the Vietnamese from unifying their country were heroes.  And they were.  And anyone who claims they weren't just aren't thinking rationally.