Travel Stories - Vietnam

Excited I arrive at the local bus station in the morning; the dew still hangs like a blanket in the air and you smell the morning smells. In the stone-walled bus complex I look at the old collapsed colored colonial building which didn’t get a paint-job after the French have left. There are some palm trees on the edges where a local saleswoman has moved in; plastic bags hang on the walls with different ingredients and the wall uses them to store her glasses. It is a shop selling tea, coffee, but she also makes small meals. Smilingly she invites me to sit down on one of her tiny chairs where there is a bowl on the tables with spoons some forks and sticks. Against the pavement I see two buses standing in some big puddles that are still the result of the showers of last night. A number of people have gathered under some palm trees and someone comes to me to ask where I want to go. Because I am almost certain that buses will go to my destination from here, I call nonchalantly "Cao Lanh". One turns out to speak reasonable English and says that there are no buses and that I better take a motorcycle taxi. After a lot of going and fighting, I believe him and jump on his back and off we go. 

After a motorbike-trip and hitchhking I finally arrive in “Rung Tram”. I wave goodbye to the minivan that brought me here and walk towards the entrance. I wander over a bridge and look surprised at a large wooden platform on the water where ten people sit in "Vietcong" outfit. The war is over but it still remains a shock. These do not have weapons but are busy plaiting baskets and lazing in the hammock. Next to them is a labyrinth of narrow wooden scaffolds with elongated pointed wooden boats in between. On the bridge I buy a ticket but I turn off the guide because he leaves it to me to pay something; I’m not so fond about donations. I leave my big bag on one of the jetties and I step into the small boat with some difficulty, which starts wobbling with so much weight. The girl in uniform goes a bit easier in the boat and picks up a wooden paddle. When we leave, I hear some voices that disappear fast; there is a narrow passage between trees and bushes that grow in the water. It is diving for large branches hanging over the waterway and the girl has to zigzag good in order not to enter the reeds. It is quiet here, dark and the only thing I hear is when she puts the paddle into the water or stands up against a tree trunk.

It was here that during the Vietnam War about ten high generals of the guerrilla movement "Vietcong" were hiding from the Americans who had a military base just two kilometers away. They found it a strange piece of forest, also threw some bombs on it but never knew that plans were made under their noses to attack Saigon during the TET offensive in 1968. A bird flutters away when the girl turns around and points to a hut on a piece of dry ground. It must be a replica because something can never survive here, with this climate, but it does indicate how it must have been. Reed lies on a wooden hut on stilts and I think how stuffy, hot and full of flies and fear it must have felt here. In some places you can see wooden boards that have been a walking path; middle pieces of bridges were next to them only to be used if they were needed - otherwise they might be visible from the air. In total we zigzag past five huts, but I also see two large open areas where bombs have fallen and shelters that could also be used as defensive shelves that are now under water. When we come to the edge of the forest and it becomes open, there is again a sign; this piece has been filled with mines so that helicopters could not land here and American landing crafts were also stopped and given time for the generals to flee away and hide. In the dry period you seem to be able to take a walk here which might have been better because you can look at the cabins more quietly - now you boat past it which is another unique experience.It’s time to go back to Ho Chi Minh City if I can make it today.