Vietnam: LIFE GOES FAST WHEN YOU'RE HAVING FUN

Thursday January 11, 2007


On my first trip in 1992 to Siem Reap and Angkor Wat, the Khmer Rouge controlled much of the territory to the North and East of the Tonale Sap (the largest lake in SE Asia), the UN was very present in Cambodia to see if they could have a nearly honest election and there were less then a dozen tourist hotels in the area.  My memories of that trip are extraordinarily strong. I was traveling with my friend Michael McDonnell and in order to get to Siem Reap you had to go in through Phenom Phen, which at the time was a seedy, dirty and dangerous place.  We flew from Saigon in a Russian prop plane that looked and felt like it might fall out of the sky.  After a day or two of trying to find something worthwhile to do that did not include going to the place where Pol Pot killed every Cambodian who could read or write in this retched place, we flew on to Siem Reap in an even smaller and scarier Chinese made plane that I thought had been put together with baling wire and twine.  When the pilot started the plane, smoke filled the cabin and the live chickens on board screamed at the top of their lungs.  The flight took perhaps less then an hour but seemed a short nasty lifetime.  The previous day a Cambodian group of guerillas had attacked the Vietnamese fishing villages that snake out into the largest lake in SE Asia (the above referenced Tonale Sap).  It is a fertile fishing ground and the Viet people had been on the lake for hundreds of years.  Many people were killed in the attack and I had suggested to Michael that perhaps we should stay away from the Angkor ruins.  But no, with some but not enough trepidation, we were on the bus for better or worse.  The pilot swooped in over the lake and the villages as if nothing had happened and we landed at the small and especially crummy airport.  Welcome to Siem Reap. 
It goes without saying much more, that the monumental scope of the ruins did not disappoint us and although we had an armed guard with us at all times in the ruin our viewing was not disturbed.  After all, we were but 2 of a handful of tourists who picked this crazy time to come to Angkor.  So we checked out Angkor Wat, Banyon, and Ta’Bromh with no competition from the masses.  We stayed in what I thought was an old Holiday Inn and went to the best and only two restaurants for the native food.  Aside from the constant firing of rifles and artillery from the perimeter and the various war patrols going out from Siem Reap, we did ok.  I suppose we were very lucky nothing happened to us.  Michael probably has a somewhat different version but I think most of the above is true. 

A short 15 years later, Kim and I took a spanking new plane from Bangkok to Siem Reap.  The airport is large and spiffy, new and beautifully designed.  We were met at the plane by the B&R rep and whisked to our fancy and quite wonderful Grand Angkor hotel. Siem Reap is unrecognizable from my prior visit; there are over 100 hotels, the city streets are jammed with tourists and the tone is very hectic and upbeat.  We did the trip around the historic ruin by bike and bus with crowds that made me imagine Yosemite on a crowded day.  Still it is a phenomenal world preservation site and I am glad to have brought Kimbo to see it.  Riding a bike in the heavy traffic is more then a ride in the park.  The motor scooters, cars and trucks have some sort of established etiquette, but I haven’t quite got it down yet.  The Butterfield and Robinson crew are high skilled at getting us around and we feel relatively safe.  A good mixed group of 10 plus guides with good weather and high spirits is the perfect combination.  Also, for some reason, almost no jet lag and some easy biking have made the days fly by.  Be here now and in the present; life goes fast when you’re having fun.    

Yesterday, we flew a real jet from Siem Reap to Saigon.  It was a city of two million when I toured in 1992 and today some say 7 but most think it is 8 million souls.  It sort of looks the same but not downtown.  We stayed mere blocks from my first hotel, the Majestic, former home of the General Staff of the American Army. It has been redone and well.  It was a special memory of my original visit to sit in the lobby and have a drink.  Our hotel, the new Caravelle, is now considered old in this roaring busy city.  New hotels by the score and old ones being made new like the Majestic.  Late last night Kim and I sat on the balcony on the ninth floor of our Hotel in the popular Saigon Saigon bar and looked out on this colossal new city.  It was fun and gentle breezes wafted through the pollution. I am fascinated by Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City aka HCM).  The people as a race are very beautiful and seem to have no animus to us Americans.  Of course, over half of the population was not alive when the war ended.  I am sure there is substantial poverty in the country but not the same as the grinding Cambodian dirt and filth.