And there I was, on the road during a cyclone in Vietnam. I was hitchhiking the length of South Vietnam in the early 60’s (before the Tonkin incident started us down that foolish by-path)!
Earlier, I had shared a house in Saigon with some journalists. They told me that, if I got a ‘press pass’ from the USIA (United States Information Agency), I could hop on any in-country flights. Mind you, I didn’t have to be a journalist, all I had to do was say I was a journalist. I thought to myself, “Now that’s the way to hitchhike!”
On the other hand, hitchhiking (on the ground) is by far the best way to experience travel – with as much hiking as possible. So, as I recall, I hitchhiked up to the northern border of Vietnam and then flew back via various military transport planes operating in the country. (Or maybe I did a mix of both, up and back. Memory fades.)
At that time, the Viet Cong would put up surprise roadblocks for a few hours here and there and check IDs and such, just to assert their authority. As a precaution, before leaving Saigon, I wrote an “I am a student of the world”-type letter and had it translated into Vietnamese. The idea was that, in the likely event that I got captured by the Viet Cong, they would see I was no threat. There were a few close calls, but fortunately, my rides never encountered a roadblock. Although, one afternoon found me walking down the road with sounds of gunfire nearby. That should have worried me, but heck, a young man in his early 20’s is invincible… right?
About halfway up country a typhoon hit, making for one long ‘dark and stormy night’. My most vivid memory is of the devastation I saw the next morning. Although, being out in the countryside, the damage was limited mostly to vegetation.
Normally, when hitchhiking, I would walk for a few hours before attempting to catch a ride. It’s a good way to get to know mother earth wherever your feet happen to be. The day after the typhoon hit, however, a jeep pulled up soon after I started walking, and some U.S. ‘advisors’ (there were a few thousand of them in Vietnam before Tonkin) “requested” that I accompany them. They took me back to the base and grilled me for half a day. What was I doing there? Why was I walking down the road? What did I really want? Was I a communist? They had a hell of a time believing my “student of the world” story. It just didn’t mesh with their ‘paradigm’. I suppose if they had water-boarded me I would have told them a story they could believe in.
Anyway, they finally released me, and off I went down the road. As nothing enticed me to stay longer in Vietnam, I soon returned to Thailand to settle down and get a job to rest awhile (i.e., work is a vacation from extended hitchhiking type of travel). Little did I know that I’d be back in Vietnam a few years later, working as a surveyor, getting shot at, and translating Vietnamese for the ‘boss man’ (RMK-BRJ) contracted to build infrastructure in Vietnam.
Background
Memories become dimmer as the years fly by. Many are even too misty to write down without filling in the voids with poetic license (fiction). Still, I’ve set out to fetch what memories remain before they fade any further. See: The Further One Goes for background on this ‘Times of Yore’ series.
0 Response to “It was a dark and stormy night…”