A Twee Tourist Town, the Killing Fields of the American War and the Heart of the Champa Empire
03-Apr-2012
Hoi An: A Trading Town
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| Vietnam |
Hoi An, sitting beside the estuary of the Thu Bon River, has been a port since the 2nd century BC. From the 7th to the 10th century it was the centre for the spice trade which brought wealth to the Champa kingdoms, but it its heyday was in the 16th century. The trade winds brought silk, ivory, porcelain and medicines from China and Japan, textiles, weaponry, lead and sulphur from Europe and all were traded in Hoi An. The Vietnamese imperial tax collectors took their cut and everybody grew rich.
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| Hoi An |
In 1639 the Shogun prohibited foreign travel by theJapanese, which left the field open for the Chinese for the next 150 years. In
the late 18th century European traders began to gain concessions on mainland
China and no longer needed the Vietnamese middle man. At the same time the Thu
Bon started to silt up, and the great days of Hoi An were over.
Left behind by history Hoi An avoided serious destruction in the French and American wars and set about reinventing itself as a tourist
trap. The somewhat self-consciously fossilised old town became a UNESCO world
heritage site in 1999 and has since grown a thriving crop of hotels, many of
them along the road from the old town to the beach.
Hoi An's Japanese Bridge
Our driver dropped us by the Japanese bridge, originally constructed in the 16th century, but rebuilt several times since. In keeping with Hoi An’s tourist trap status you have to pay to walk across it. As there is a perfectly adequate footbridge nearby we did not bother.
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| The Japanese bridge, Hoi An |
We wandered round the pleasant streets of the old town with their Chinese...
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| Chinese style, Hoi An |
...and Japanese buildings.
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| Japanese style, Hoi An |
Some are open so that we could wander in and look at the old wooden panels and roof beams. On the first really hot day of our whole Vietnam journey we marvelled at the old houses’ ability to remain cool without air conditioning.
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| Cool, dark panelled interior, Hoi An |
Chinese Assembly Halls, Hoi An
The Chinese residents grouped themselves according to their place of origin and built themselves Assembly Halls.....
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| Chinese Assembly Hall entrance, Hoi An |
...to act as both community centres and places of worship - they did the same in Penang where many of the community centres remain active and prosperous. Behind attractive and colourful gardens....
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| Chinese Assembly Hall, Hoi An |
...are meeting halls and Taoist temples very like those of Guangdong or Hong Kong.
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| Taoist Temple, Chinese Assembly Hall, Hoi An |
Hoi An is undoubtedly pretty, peaceful and calm. We had been warned that it can be busy in the morning when the tour buses arrive, but we
spent two afternoons there, and it was never crowded. On the other hand, a high
proportion of the people we saw in the streets, whether walking or riding hired
bicycles, were western tourists. The old town is the central part of a small city and
tourists are always a visible presence. The streets are full of restaurants
which are mainly aimed at foreigners, as are the shops.
Apart from this 'pop-up' restaurant….
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| Mobile Restaurant on the move, Hoi An |
…the town seemed to have given up on gritty reality in favour of presenting an image to visitors, and that is not our sort of town. We
did find some more interesting areas the next day, but our first afternoon was
a case of ‘this is nice,’ followed by a slow dawning that it was too ‘nice’ to be true.
04-Apr-2012
A Place where 'Success' was Measured by the 'Body Count'
The next day we drove an hour or so in-land to visit My Son. We travelled up the valley of the Thu Bon, through paddy fields green with rice and over long rickety bridges, some of which retained the structures of their wartime guard posts. The American War raged across this region; villagers were herded into selected districts without regard for the farmers need to work their fields, and the cleared areas were declared free fire zones on the assumption that anyone still there was Viet Cong. Those killed were deemed to be the enemy, regardless of age or gender, and the success of a mission was judged on the basis of body count. In 28 speeches between 1964 and 1968 President Johnson referred to the need to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of the Vietnamese people if the American’s were to win the war. Maybe he was right, and it was in areas such as this the American military made their most strenuous efforts to ensure they lost.
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| Through paddy fields green with rice |
16,000 people died in this small area, Minh told us, while the Americans lost 54,000 in the whole war. He did not say only 54,000, but the inference was there.
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| Vietnamese war memorial and cemetary between Hoi An and My Son |
All is now peaceful and the Vietnamese, being a resourceful people have gathered up the shrapnel and spent shell cases melted them down and turned them into useful artefacts to sell at roadside stalls.
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| 'Spears into ploughshares' - re-purposed ordnance stall between Hoi An and My Son |
My Son, the Religious Heart of the Champa Kingdoms
From the 4th to the 14th centuries My Son was the religious centre for the surrounding Champa cities and the burial place of Champa kings. With the fall of the Champa, My Son was deserted, forgotten and slowly reclaimed by the jungle. It was rediscovered by the French in 1898 who put some effort into archaeology and restoration between then and 1943.
In August 1969 the American’s came to believe the Viet Cong were using My Son as their headquarters. A week of bombing did more damage than the jungle had managed in
six hundred years. Fortunately most of the artefacts had been removed to the
safety of the Champa museum we had seen in Da Nang the day before. What was
left was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1999.
My Son is a large site occupying a wooded valley below the Cat’s Tooth Mountains. Despite the best efforts of the B52s there are still several areas of substantial ruins linked by jungle paths. Although the Champa were Hindu, they were not Indian in origin, yet we found ourselves among buildings which felt far more Indian than Vietnamese.
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| My Son |
Conservation work has stabilised most of the structures – though there is much left to do. Wandering around the ruins and in and out of the larger buildings gave us a sense of this long dead civilization, while the continuous battle against the encroachment of the jungle reminded us how easily a civilization can disappear, even without the use of high explosive.
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| Minh and me, My Son |
Champa building techniques are still being studied, in particular their use of resin mixed with ground mollusc shells and crushed bricks to produce almost seamless joints.
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| My Son |
As in India the carvings are as impressive as the buildings. Detailed depictions of Vishnu, Shiva and Nandi, elephants and flowers were abundant, some still looking freshly cut, others suffering from various degrees of erosion.
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| A damaged Nandi, My Son |
We were instructed to stick to the marked paths as the area is still mined and littered with unexploded ordnance.
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| Jungle path between the sites, My Son |
Brightly coloured butterflies fluttered alongside the path, I waited patiently for one to sit still long enough to be photographed. Lagging behind Lynne and Minh, I briefly found myself alone on a jungle path.
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| The Knight butterfly, Lebadea Martha (I think) |
What, I thought, if the path was narrower and rather less well made? What if I did not have a guide book in my hand and sandals on my feet, but a pack on my back, a rifle in my hand and army boots on my feet? What if there were eyes watching me from the jungle? What if they were hostile eyes, waiting silently until….? I found myself looking round apprehensively and then peering into the jungle as my imagination created shapes in the dense vegetation. I was perfectly safe, and I knew it, but for an instant I caught the slightest hint of what it might have been like for a GI far from home and surrounded by enemies. I did not envy him. (see In This Place, but in Another Time)
Back in Hoi An
Cao Lau for Lunch
We returned to Hoi An for lunch and Minh left us in the centre of town with instructions to visit a certain restaurant (sadly we failed to note the name) and eat cao lau. Ever obedient, we thoroughly enjoyed the local speciality described by The Rough Guide to Vietnam ‘as rice-flour noodles, bean sprouts and pork-rind croutons in a light soup flavoured with mint and star anise and topped with slices of pork’. Somehow spring rolls also become involved; they always do in Vietnam.
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| Lynne eats cao lau, Hoi An |
Exploring old Hoi An
We spent some more time exploring the old town and made a few purchases. One advantage of a tourist town was that I could buy a t-shirt.
I had failed in Hue - the XXXXL would not go over my head – but I found an almost identical shirt in Hoi An sized XXXXXL which fitted perfectly.
Then we walked along the river side and looked at the fishing fleet….
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| Fishing fleet, Hoi An |
…and some fishing nets very like the Chinese nets which are such a feature in Kerala, though they are unknown in China.
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| 'Chinese' fishing nets, Hoi An |
We photographed a ferryman rowing his passenger across the river…..
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| Ferryman, Hoi an |
….. and strolled through the vegetable market.
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| Vegetable market, Hoi An |
We liked the Hoi An riverside, it seemed connected with Vietnamese life unlike the carefully preserved ‘Disneyland’ a few blocks away.
We arrived back at our hotel, another ‘Disneyland’ consisting of comfortable two storey cabins set in a garden and linked with
walkways at ground and first floor level.
We spent the rest of the afternoon swimming and lounging by the pool before retreating to our room for a sun-downer on one of our balconies
(two balconies - well, that’s how the other half live!). Later we consumed a quantity
of pork cooked in a clay pot, grilled duck, sautéed green vegetables, rice and
beer at a nearby restaurant.
Back on a balcony for a nightcap we watched geckos skittering about the walls in their ceaseless endeavour to keep us free from insects.
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| Few reptiles are cute, but geckos are, Ancient House Resort Hotel, Hoi An |
In the morning we returned to Da Nang for the hour long flight down to Ho Chi Minh City.
Prelude: Raybans in Heathrow and Saigon
Part 1: Hanoi (1) Ethnic Minorities, The Old City and Water Puppets
Part 2: Hanoi (2) Bat Trang, Quan Ho Music and Fighting Cocks
Part 3: Ha Long Bay
Part 4: Lao Cai, Coc Ly Market and Sa Pa
Part 5: Trekking from Sa Pa (1), Sa Pa to Ta Van
Part 6: Trekking from Sa Pa (2) Ta Van to Ban Den
Part 7: Trekking from Sa Pa (3), Around Ban Den then back to Hanoi
Part 8: Hanoi (3), The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and the Temple of Literature
Part 9: Hue (1), The Citadel, The Battle of Hue 1968 and Some New Things to Eat
Part 10: Hue (2), A Self-Immolating Monk, an Impotent Emperor and Imperial Dinner
Part 11: Da Nang
Part 12: Hoi An and My Son
Part 13: Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)
Part 14: The Mekong Delta (1), Can Bei and a Cornucopia of Fruit
Part 15: The Mekong Delta (2), To Vinh Long and Can Tho
Part 16: The Mekong Delta (3): Cai Rang and My Tho
Part 17: The Cu Chi Tunnels and the Cao Dai Great Temple
THE END
I liked the moment of imagining walking in someone else's shoes--"in this place but in another time, has walked..."
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