Vietnam Day 25 (7/2/09)

After two and a half blissful hours of sleep, I hauled myself out of bed and over to the airport. The lines in the airport were ridiculous. The ticketing and security processes themselves were painless, but the lines waiting to get to those points took almost two hours. By the time we got to the gate people had already started boarding. All that matters is that we made the flight (My’s and Phat’s first, which is always exciting). During the hour flight, we flew over plains and mountains so untouched I knew I had to be back in central Vietnam. We met our guide at the tiny Qui Non Airport and boarded an even tinier bus to go to Son My.

Kendra, Wen, and I ended up on tiny seats that folded out into the aisles and offered absolutely no back support so we had a very uncomfortable three to four hour bus ride (unclear exactly how long it took because the guide gave so many fifteen-minute warnings that I lost track). The view on the other hand was amazing the whole way. We passed all sorts of fields, towns, and mountains, all insanely beautiful (with the exception of the men relieving themselves on the side of the road or, as our guide put it, doing the bush dance). More than one of the Vietnamese roommates told us that this was the “real Vietnam.” With farmers comprising nearly eighty percent of the population, I suppose they’re right.

At last we arrived at Son My, the site of what is referred to by Americans as the My Lai Massacre. This is the site where one mentally-unbalanced U.S. commander led his platoon to brutally murder almost an entire village of peaceful people living in Son My. The pictures of the aftermath were disturbing and devastating to look at. Everywhere, images of young and old killed in the most horrible ways and left in unforgivably disrespectful conditions and positions. There were also pictures of the American soldiers who tried to stop the killing, as well as of the photographer who exposed this monstrosity to the world. I admire the Vietnamese for calling any Americans “heroes” after what they lost here. There was large stone slate with engravings of all the names and ages of victims – far too many of the ages were in single digits.

We passed the large statue built as a memorial, with incense burning at its base, and walked out onto the grounds where the genocide occurred. We saw the foundations left behind when the misguided American soldiers burned down the houses as they left. One of the survivors, a small woman of about eighty, paused from her work picking vegetables to talk to us. She told us the story of how she survived by lying in the river pretending to be dead until the soldiers looked away and she fled with her young daughter. As her eyes welled up with tears, I felt mine do the same. She didn’t need to speak English for me to see the pain in her eyes. I couldn’t speak for some time after we left. I knew if I opened my mouth I would start screaming and weeping. It wasn’t as if I felt guilt because Americans were involved, I was just mortified to see further proof of mankind’s ability to hate and destroy.
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In the afternoon we checked into our hotel which turned out to be a resort complete with all the amenities – a luxurious pool, riverside views, and even a bathtub-shower combo with a real shower curtain. After a delicious four course dinner, we walked around town looking at the shops. The streets were dominated by tailor shops since Hoi Anh is famous for its speedy tailors. Some of the girls were thinking about having something made but I was so overwhelmed by the number of shops to choose from that I gave up on that notion. The other shops were overwhelming as well. They did have really beautiful things like lacquerwear, jewelry, and lanterns, but as we went further down the street every shop started to look exactly the same and all of the beautiful things inside just started to feel mass-produced (which, don’t get me wrong, didn’t stop me from buying a few things here and there).

At the end of the road was a Japanese-inspired bridge that would have been a beautiful scenic photo shoot opportunity were it not for the slums on the other side and the putrid smell coming from the trash-infested water flowing underneath. Before going back we stopped at a street-side cart to have sweetsoup. Unlike the gelatinous drink I had in Ninh Thuan, this version of sweetsoup was a warm corn pudding, which I liked a lot better – in fact, I loved it. Above us and scattered around town was a mixture of traditional colored lanterns and others with the flags and names of different countries of the world printed on them – there seemed to be one for every single country from Colombia to Slovenia. For some reason, I’m finding traffic here more problematic than in Saigon. I suppose it’s possible the drivers here aren’t as skilled as smoothly avoiding people or perhaps the reduced number of vehicles is lulling me into a false sense of security so I’m more easily surprised by them – either way, I haven’t been able to cross the street with the same ease as in the city. Maybe I’m just disoriented from visiting too many touristy shops.