Back to Blighty

First Minister  checking out  the Emirates Arrivals team

There was something definitely not ethereal about gliding through the dense cloud cover and into the great grey yonder of Glasgow airport on the Emirates jet. The captain announced that it was -2º C and hoped we would soon fly again. As the doors opened and the cold air entered the fuselage the temptation was to stay seated and accept the Captain's invitation. 

But we followed the crowds and that depressed us even more. The narrow shoddy-looking corridors leading to the terminal seemed like a tunnel to the third world after the sumptuous airports in Dubai, Hong Kong, Hanoi, and Saigon. A narrow strip of worn-out carpet, grey walls, cheerless lighting, some RBS adverts with the usual hyperbole, and a couple of moving pavements were not working. Why do so many airports have to be portals of misery filled with overpriced franchised retailers and fast-food chains. The ambience of Scottish airports has changed since the days of BAA, we are now left with rampant aviation capitalism and armed police that Scotland that is not conducive to delivering Donald Dewar's vision of a confident and egalitarian country. There was little to suggest that we were entering an ambitious, dynamic, well-functioning nation on this gloomy grey Sunday morning.

The luggage turned up in reasonably quick time and the bonus was the cheery Border Control staff who welcomed us with the quick repartee and warmth that is the Glasgow style. An hour later we were home having witnessed the airport fox stalking around the car park and then gathered some bread and milk at the co-op. The house was freezing, the newspapers full of acrimonious stories about dodgy celebrities, political intrigue, and corporate greed. We both grabbed for the travel section.

Cambodia - Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat

The short flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Siem Reap in Cambodia did not even allow time for a drink but the flights are cheap. The new Cambodian Airline, which works closely with the excellent Vietnamese Airlines, ran a shuttle service from several Vietnamese and Thailand airports to Siem Reap. We arrived at sunset and were surprised at the slightly hostile bank of customs officials, who stamped our visas without a smile as we ran the gauntlet of 15 of them all dressed in severe military uniforms before we were allowed to have our passports inspected. They must have been trained by the Americans who specialise in having the most officious bunch of officials at border control. It was mid-evening by the time we made the hotel so we decided on an early night before the full day of tours the next day.

Angkor Wat lies at the heart of the Angkor Archaeological Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site which covers 154 square miles and contains scores of other Khmer temples dating from between the 9th and 15th centuries. Angkor Wat is six kilometers north and is the temple closest to Siem Reap. Our guide suggested we visit Angkor Wat early in the morning before visiting the temple of Ta Prohm and then after lunch exploring the massive citadel of Angkor Thom. This was the reverse order of the majority of tours and meant we had the sun behind us as we approached Angkor Wat. A large phalanx of Koreans were coming the other way from lunchtime onwards. The sheer scale of Angkor Wat and the Angkor Thom was beyond our wildest imagination. They are approached through superbly landscaped grounds with serene lakes and beautiful woodlands.

The masterpiece of Angkor Wat is Cambodia’s best-preserved temple. The 500-acre site is one of the largest religious monuments in the world and represents the architectural pinnacle of the Khmer Empire. It was founded in the 12th century and originally dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu. It has been identified as a replica of the universe, and its towers, moats and concentric walls reveal an architectural sophistication. The walls are covered in bas-reliefs with figures of either apsaras, the dancing girls, or depicting triumphal battle scenes during a wealthy period of history. The figures are carved into sandstone and remain pristine despite the blackening on the female figures where thousands of tourists have stroked the carvings.

Ta Prohm is one of the most photographed temples, deliberately left mostly unrestored, and tangled and strangled by undergrowth. It famously featured in the film Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. This was evidenced by the queues to be photographed in the doorways and beside the tree roots that dominated the decaying temples on this site. We continued through the site to one of the local restaurants for a lunch of noodles, fresh vegetables and fish.

We began the afternoon by entering to the huge citadel of Angkor Thom which once housed almost a million people. The focal point is the Bayon temple, the towers of which are etched with enlightened bodhisattva faces and where bas-reliefs depict ordinary Khmer life rather than Hindu gods. Unfortunately, the afternoon light was flat but the dozens of carved faces provided a jigsaw of immense proportions and it was difficult to leave such a remarkable temple. We exited the Archaeological park by a bridge over the wide moat which was decorated with carved heads. Elephant rides were available but we returned to Siem Reap to enjoy a night out which included cocktails in the colonial club before a ride back to the hotel.

The next day was our final one and after a couple of hours swimming and reading by the pool we enjoyed a few hours in the markets of Siem Reap before flying back to Ho Chi Minh. We had to kill five hours before the flight to Dubai and then Glasgow but the excellent airport restaurant was a wonderful contrast to the franchised food outlets in UK airports. Cambodia had been a great finale for the trip and along with Vietnam a worthy contender for any traveller but just as special were Hanoi, Halong, Hue and Hoi An.

The moats that surround Angkor Wat

Friendly locals

Approaching Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat towers

Heavenly Dancers

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Apsara dancers

Angkor Wat entertainment

The grounds of Angkor Wat

Local children

Entering Ta Prohm

Ta Prohm roots

Tomb Raiders

Angkor Thom monks

Bas relief at the foot of the Bayon temple

Carved bodhisattva faces

Buddhist Monks descending from Angkor Thom temple

Carved heads on the bridge over the moat to Angkor Thom

A real moat

Siem Reap market

Vietnam: Mekong Delta

Mekong barges

We awoke to another cloud washed day in Saigon. Breakfast on the roof garden of the Majestic overlooking the river brought back thoughts about the terrible events that had occurred in Saigon through much of the last century. I had been reading Anthony Grey's book, Saigon, and the final chapter was about the fall of Saigon in 1975. It referenced many of the places that we had visited yesterday and its 800 pages covered the tragedy from 1925 to 1975 as the country fought for and eventually achieved its independence. It felt right to be moving on and we left at 8:00am for the 4 hour drive to Can Tho, the largest city in the Mekong Delta, from where we would take a 24 hour boat trip across the main distributaries and canals of the Mekong Delta to reach Cai Be and the floating markets.

The boat was modest in size with just six cabins. There was a party of six French and two other British couples. We were fortunate to have a local guide who bubbled with enthusiasm. We began the cruise on the Hau river, one of the two massive distributaries of the Mekong, and followed a series of smaller rivers and canals across to the Co Chien river. It began to rain as it only can in the tropics and we sat on the covered deck watching the flow of traffic on the rivers with massive construction barges, ferries and sampans competing for channel space.

At dusk, we transferred to a small tender and went walkabout to a small village. The lush vegetation and muddy paths led us to a house where we were invited to partake in an afternoon tea and sample the exotic fruits that grow in abundance in the delta. Washed down with green tea it was a a wonderful feast. Our guide, Lan, had the knack of bringing the best out of everyone and we left the family in admiration at their sustainable lifestyle and the superb diet of the villagers. Returning to the boat, we had some time to ourselves whilst we covered a few more miles along the waterways before it dropped anchor. We were served a Vietnamese meal which had a perfect balance of fish, meat, vegetables and fruit. After a couple of weeks of Vietnamese food we were feeling very healthy.

The next morning we were moving at first light. It began to rain heavily again as we crossed the mighty Co Chien river during breakfast. Despite the dense vegetation along the river banks, there was a lot of villages, construction work and commercial activity along the waterways. We eventually left the boat and took a small launch around the local floating market at Cai Be.

We went ashore and visited a family run factory that made rice wrappers, rice corn and other rice based delicacies. The technology was intermediate but the results were impressive. The trip had been thoroughly enjoyable and as we swapped email addresses with Lan, who wanted to improve her already impressive English, we hoped that we would see her again even though she had yet to venture as far as Saigon.

Leaving Can Tho

Mekong parking

Mekong traffic

Barge

On the deck

Mekong village

Lan

Water Melons

In the Rice factory

Rice Wraps

Garden Plantains

Tropical Fruits

Spot the Plimsoll line

Crossing the canal

Construction traffic on the canals

Floating Market at Cai Be

Breakfast

Vietnam: Ho Chi Minh (Saigon)

Ho Chi Minh City Post Office

We arrived in Saigon quite early in the morning after the short flight from Danang. Ho Chi Minh airport had a well-modulated style and efficiency. We soon collected our luggage and drove on the crowded roads into Saigon or Ho Chi Minh to give it its Sunday name. The renaming of the city in 1975 was a political statement and, whilst the majority of people we spoke to took a relaxed view on the name, they still called it Saigon in everyday conversation.

Saigon had been a lead item on the news for a decade or so during my teenage and university days and I had some trepidation about visiting the city that had been the epicentre of fighting between the Communist world and the American-led Western capitalism during the Cold War. It seemed ironic that after the most expensive war effort by the USA, South Vietnam had eventually capitulated to Communist-ruled North Vietnam. The United States may have rejected the Imperialist ambitions of the European nation-states but replaced it with an explicit anti-communist vendetta under Kennedy, Johnston and Nixon that was both costly in resources, to life and reputation and doomed to eventual failure.

The 7 million Vietnamese killed in the fighting, the bombings on a scale never before or since repeated, and the dropping of deadly chemicals such as Agent Orange had been against the Viet Cong forces led by Ho Chi Minh. Until 1945 he had worked with American forces to drive out the Japanese occupation. He had high hopes of gaining the support of the United States as was evident from his stated aims of the Viet Minh in a speech on 2 September 1945.

"All men are created equal; they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776. In a broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and free.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of the French Revolution made in 1791 also states: All men are born free and with equal rights, and must always remain free and have equal rights.
Those are undeniable truths.

Nevertheless, for more than eighty years, the French imperialists, abusing the standard of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, have violated our Fatherland and oppressed our fellow citizens. They have acted contrary to the ideals of humanity and justice. In the field of politics, they have deprived our people of every democratic liberty.

They have enforced inhuman laws; they have set up three distinct political regimes in the North, the Center, and the South of Viet-Nam in order to wreck our national unity and prevent our people from being united."

Ho Chi Minh concluded with the following words:

"The whole Vietnamese people, animated by a common purpose, are determined to fight to the bitter end against any attempt by the French colonialists to reconquer the country.
We are convinced that the Allied nations, which at Tehran and San Francisco have acknowledged the principles of self-determination and equality of nations, will not refuse to acknowledge the independence of Viet-Nam.
A people who have courageously opposed French domination for more than eighty years, a people who have fought side by side with the Allies against the fascists during these last years, such a people must be free and independent!

For these reasons, we, members of the Provisional Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam, solemnly declare to the world that:
Viet-Nam has the right to be a free and independent country—and in fact, it is so already. The entire Vietnamese people are determined to mobilize all their physical and mental strength, to sacrifice their lives and property in order to safeguard their independence and liberty."

Unfortunately, the opportunity was missed and the United States and the United Kingdom supported the recolonisation of Vietnam by the French as part of the post-war settlement. The consequences were devastating for the Vietnamese people and severely damaged the reputation of France and the United States. What was surprising was how the relationships with some countries, notably the United States, Japan and Australia had recovered whereas there seemed a more lasting enmity against China and France who had occupied Vietnam for most of the last thousand years. Having said that, the younger generations seemed to want to move on and not become mawkish or bellicose about Vietnam's turbulent past.

Saigon had grown rapidly and its road network was almost at a standstill. All the streets seemed to specialise in certain types of goods: refrigeration, generators, cement mixers, timber, and then there were markets.  We visited the largest one in Cholon (Chinatown) which was awash with every type of food and swarming with thousands of sellers and buyers. We visited a museum of Medicine and began to understand why herbal medicine and acupuncture are still widely used; the Health service is privately run and beyond the means of most families. 

We had decided to visit the war remnants museum which harboured a comprehensive photographic record of the horrors of the war along with miscellaneous weaponry. It was a stultifying experience and whilst many have criticised the propaganda style of the exhibits, they did represent an Asian holocaust that is a horrific reminder that when democracies decide to challenge those seeking independence or authoritarian regimes the losers are inevitably the indigenous population. The images of the effect of Agent Orange were chilling but there were so many powerful images including the shot of the mother with her children crossing the river to escape the shootings. We visited the former Presidential Palace afterwards where the puppet leader, President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, held court from 1965 to 1975 until the fall of Saigon following the decision by the United States to no longer support Thieu. The tanks crashed into the grounds of the Presidential Palace and a couple of tanks are still there in what is now known as the Reunification Palace.

We walked back through Saigon passing landmarks such as the Post Office which looked more like a railway terminus, the Continental Hotel, the Rex Hotel where the foreign correspondents stayed, the Opera House, Maxim's Club and the high-end shops before reaching the Saigon River where our hotel was located. There was a chance to take some photos from the roof terrace and cross the road by walking through 1001 motorbikes, I remembered to keep walking as the traffic slipped past me at 20mph. I then had a run in the gym, the prospect of fighting the traffic in Saigon made it one of the few places where I have ever declined to go for a run.

Saigon was a genuine metropolis, a sophisticated and diverse city sprinkled with new multinational business HQs but it lacked the intrinsic charm of the capital Hanoi. We ate out at a local Vietnamese restaurant but it was a food aimed at the international palate and as such bland and pricey compared to the healthy indigenous food that we had enjoyed elsewhere on the trip. Saigon may have been renamed Ho Chi Minh but rampant international businesses had eroded any charm and made it the only disappointment during our visit to Vietnam.

Agent Orange

Napalm exodus

Mother and children escaping the fighting

War remnant museum

Ben Thanh Market

Thien Hau Pagoda in central Saigon

Twin towers of Notre Dame Cathedral

Saigon River

Ho Chi Minh traffic - try crossing this

Viet Cong on the Presidential Palace lawn

Inside the Presidential Palace

Continental Hotel

River traffic

River Boat on Saigon River