We rode an easy twenty five kilometers on flat roads through farmland and a few small towns. Obviously we passed rice paddies, but also rubber tree groves and fields of beans, basil, and other crops. I can't say that the ride was particularly pretty. There is a sameness to poor areas in warm climates. Except for the fields (and sometimes there, too), the land is scraggly and unlandscaped. Scrawny dogs, chickens, and cows wander around. The houses are huts of simple wood or corrugated metal set on bare ground. When the people have a little more money, they build better houses, maybe out of brick, and put tile porches or patios around the houses. Often they fence the house and tile patio. But the houses still sit in the middle of bare ground. So you see barren landscape dotted with shanties and increasingly nicer houses.
The Cu Chi tunnels were much more interesting than I expected them to be. The highlight was a 1967 Viet Cong propaganda film that they showed us. It extolled the Viet Cong heroes who were bravely fighting the evil American invaders. The tunnels were big enough to walk in bent over and they were lighted, so I didn't panic like I did crawling through the Bar Kochba tunnels in Israel. Besides, Steve wasn't here for me to grab his ankle as we crawled interminably in the dark. And my Kiwi roommate, Suzanne, had reminded me to bring my torch, so I was set for the dark this time. Besides the tunnels, we saw huge craters from the bombing, and they showed us the booby traps that the Viet Cong set.
The kept man from England managed to get Binh to take him to the shooting range. Then Suzanne and I accompanied him and his wife back there for her to shoot off a clip from an AK7. I've never seen any one fire a rifle except on TV. It is LOUD.
During the bus ride, Binh gave us an overview of Vietnamese history, culture, and language. Some interesting tidbits... In a country with a population of 90 million, a third of whom are under the age of 18, there are 40 million motorbikes. Sixty percent are Hondas and cost $1,000, but you can buy a cheap, Chinese motorbike, a Honga, for $200. There was a reason I saw families of two to four on the motorbikes: it is illegal to have more than two children under the age of twelve on a motorbike.
Also, Vietnam is still a Communist country meaning it has only one political party, but it has a capitalist economic system, which according to Binh, was forced on Vietnam by the World Bank. Binh sees some positives in capitalism. For example, he thinks it is good that factories pay for piece work. When everyone received the same wages, he said people didn't work too hard. What a concept. I have the same questions I had in Cuba: what does it mean to be Communist and capitalist. Is that a contradiction in terms? And to put the cost of a motorcycle into perspective, the average annual salary was $1,600 last year but Binh thinks will be nearly $2,000 this year.
In the evening, we went to see the famous water puppets. According to the brochure, you cannot understand Vietnamese history and culture unless you see the water puppets. It was slightly underwhelming, but I expected that. Only tourists go these days so how "cultural" can it be?
No comments:
Post a Comment