The Mekong River With Mike and Gail Brown

Wednesday November 13, 2013
It's over a year since we were in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (Saigon) but a few things have prompted me to write a blog post about a specific part of that memorable holiday last year. When travelling, we are able to get some UK TV when we have a good WiFi connection, and we managed to watch the series "The Mekong River With Sue Perkins". It's a massive river even just the bit flowing through Vietnam. Sue Perkins had a much, much bigger journey than we could ever hope to experience, with her trip ending in China! Our own experience was a day trip to a small island within the Mekong Delta. I suppose it was advertised in our hotel as a "typical" day tour – early start; several hours in a bus; see a traditional village; typical Vietnamese lunch; river market; etc. etc.! And it was an excellent day – after a bad start.

I said a few things prompted me to write this, and not just a baking competition presenter.

I consider most of our immediate family to have been fortunate in not experiencing the real horror of war, certainly as civilians on the potential receiving end of enemy bombs, although mum lived in Dundee as a girl, which was a target as an industrial city and port. Dad as a boy lived in Kent and dogfights and German bombers and rockets flying over the county were never associated with danger and death, but as something to look at as a youngster. But the direct effects of war did impact the family with one of mum's brothers never recovering from shell shock. Gail's dad was directly involved as a young man being with the RAF in Northern Italy at the end of the Second World War. That was the only time he travelled out of the UK.

But being grateful for no first hand experience of war, doesn't stop me from being reminded of the effects of war on places we have travelled through in France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Croatia, Bosnia. . . As one example, when we visited Dubrovnik, it was to be reminded that the city was under siege – not that long ago - with buildings bombarded by land, sea and air. It was one thing to see photographs of a beautiful city with buildings on fire, including the Hilton hotel just outside the old city walls, which has been restored to look similar to those dark times; but the photos and names of hundreds of people who died during that period was a bit of a shock.

But back to Vietnam. As I wrote earlier it was an excellent day – after a bad start. We were on the bus at 8 and at the next hotel stop, no sooner had the bus started off when this guy turned round to us and starting chatting. Very quickly in the conversation we found out he was in his 70's and well travelled, and had lived in the Midlands, before returning to his "home" country on the request of his wife.
He asked if we had visited the War Museum. Before I could tell him I had, but Gail hadn't, and it was probably as well because it was very depressing with horrific images – it was over 3 floors and I had enough after floor 2. Not only for the depressing images, but the strong anti-American propaganda messages. Anyway the guy in the seat in front had decided he was going to let us know that he not only agreed with the museum's messages, but also let us know generally what he thought of Bush, Cameron, Imperialist aggression and on and on and on. No idea what Bush and Cameron had to do with Vietnam. I really couldn't believe what I was hearing, but with a nudge in the ribs from Gail who could clearly sense I was about to snap, I decided to look out of the window . . .

It doesn't matter whether I agreed with the guy or not, we were on holiday and not looking for in depth debate or argument. Nor were we ignoring that there had been a terrible war in Vietnam. I was never that sure what the war was about, but it was a lot more than American aggression, as I have read up since. Without detailing the entire Wikipedia article, it's really quite a complicated series of historical events, with France losing control of their colony to the German allies during the Second World War. At the end of the war, the French and also the British had enough to do rebuilding their own countries, to be involved with Vietnam, and it was agreed by the Allies that China would control Vietnam as part of Indo-China. This was before the Chinese revolution resulting in a Communist regime which threatened the entire Asian sub-continent. And less than a decade after the Second World War the Allies get involved in the Korean War. The threat of communism overrunning Asia sparked the involvement of the Americans in Vietnam.

And the young guide on our Mekong delta tour did not choose to ignore the Vietnam War, pointing out that the Viet Cong had used the Mekong Delta to hide in, with the Americans struggling to search them out. He also kindly pointed out that another tour took you to the tunnels where the Vietcong also hid out under the noses of the Americans. In reply to a question to someone on the bus, he said that young Vietnamese are looking to rebuild a strong Vietnam, looking to the future rather than the past.

It was a great and interesting day trip, but with a real taste of the poor river way of life. We actually sat with the "Anti-Imperialism" guy at lunch, who turned out to be good company in chatting about everyday things. The three of us were the oldest on the trip, so it eventually turned out well to have someone older to speak to. We had a reasonable set lunch of typical Vietnamese food, but the guy on his own also ordered a whole fish which he kindly shared with the 5 of us on the table. Looking at the menu I spotted that squirrel was on the menu. Everyone thought that couldn't be right and I was making fun of the Vietnamese food – but nothing was lost in translation as the eating place had kindly put a photo next to the description . . .

All part of the experience!