Travelogue - Vietnam

Talking of travels an online friend suggested that I must share some of my more memorable visits globally and so here is the first one in this series of Travelogues. This is from Vietnam and the visit was in June 2013.

For most who have had a sense of history, especially American, the Vietnam war was the most famous. A giant of a country like USA had attacked a small puny country Vietnam to save the country from communism. The war stretched for around 10 years, and finally public outcry in USA forced the USA to pull out. The enduring image of that war was this.

The popular opinion was that the USA had been brutal, excessively violent, and the Vietcong in spite of this had survived and prevailed, in an unjust war. This piece is not to debate the war or who was right but to share what I saw when I got a chance to visit the jungle area museum – called Cu Chi Tunnels - where even today Vietnam has honestly displayed the horrors of the war. This is just that – sharing images of the horrors in that war and to speak of the ingenuity and fight back. To me after this visit my view was – it is not about who started what first, or who was right and wrong, but the brutality was not one sided. Every human who was targeted suffered – immeasurably.

When one reads of American men in uniform who even today are called Vietnam veterans and why they are so special, this visit explains what they escaped or went through, if they survived. When I visited I was given strict instructions not to stray even a foot from the path laid out and absolutely no wandering in what looked like a lovely forest to walk around. Forget mines, the place was the most brutal death trap of a place. So to my American friends I would say - Next time you see a car with Vietnam Veteran written on it, don't dismiss it. That, is a badge worn for a reason. 

Like with most things even today, the American is the big burly chap and where a fly swatter will do, will use a hammer, where a stick would do, will use a missile and the focus is on technology. They faced in this war, an enemy who was puny, had no technology. The proverbial rat versus elephant fight and in the end the rat won. Looking at the area, one in hindsight feels that the Americans had no chance of victory and their frustration could be gauged by the way they simply carpet bombed the place down. 

The tiny Vietcong were so small, as these pictures will show, they could in a flash go underground and disappear. A chap actually demonstrated it and if he was not demonstrating, the speed with which he could disappear was literally in seconds. 

The Tiny trap door that merged with the jungle floor

The soldier jumps inside it in a flash

The soldier drops in like a stone silently and swiftly closing the door above his head

Nothing left behind to easily notice in the jungle and the Vietcong who had just killed your fellow soldier had disappeared like a ghost

And this into a hole that was so small that even a fairly short person like me could not even try to fit in. A soldier would hear a rustle and by the time he turned, the rustle would be silence and nothing to see except dead leaves on the ground. More often a stealthy approach from behind, a soldier quickly killed and before others could turn at the noise, total silence and like a ghost the attacker would have disappeared.  

As the American soldiers trudged on, every step looked like solid ground, but one small misstep, and a booby trapped door made of wood would swing silently and swiftly as it opened up, and the unfortunate soldier would fall into the pit. The pit would be fitted with sharp spikes on the ground and made of bamboo or iron rods. From what I heard, the screams of pain would be so tortuous that trying to rescue their fellow soldier was NOT an option and the most merciful option was to shoot him dead so he doesn’t suffer. The worst part of this was that the booby trap door was designed that it fell back in place, and so fellow soldiers could not see it easily. However, from somewhere below the ground they would hear the screams and then slowly find the location.

The trap door one didn't notice easily walking through the jungle

As a soldier stepped on one, it opened silently and the soldier drops in as the door closed swiftly

The sharp bamboo sticks buried inside impaled the soldiers from below as the door swings shut

There were many variants of such booby traps and were laid out across the jungle floor and each created an unimaginably painful horror. If one was like a folding chair that trapped one like between a crocodiles jaws pierced all over, another was like a window which meant that a large bodied soldier was trapped in more ways than one. In the rolling trap the fallen soldier was impaled multiple times as he slipped down from head to toe with the spikes moving in an out.

A well where as the victim went down the sharp spikes impaled victim from all sides & tore them apart

Here it not only tore a person apart but trapped him hanging midway

Here again the victim was shredded from bottom to top as he slid down due to his own weight

In this the victim was also stuck half in and half out in a tiny place

Here the victim was trapped like in a pincer hold

Those who thought that searching a house was easier, they were mistaken. An old woman or child sitting outside would in fear allow the soldiers to enter their homes to be searched, knowing what lay behind the closed door. The moment the door was opened a trap would swing down in 2 halves and impale the soldier in critical places. In every case death was never instantaneous. It was always most agonising and prolonged.

The victim opens a door only to be impaled from below but if he thought he was smart and stepped back a second one at a higher level came crashing down to impale his face/neck

As many would have read the Cu Chi tunnels, a huge labyrinth of tunnels in Vietnam used by the Vietcong was around 120 Kms length and shows the level of determination, intelligence, engineering skills and ingenuity that’s amazing.  

When such traps didn’t kill the soldiers, a plethora of guerrilla tactics using the tunnels were used. For example a stream flowing would have a tiny hole in the side that at best would allow a dog or fox to crawl into and not easily seen by anyone walking by. As the American soldiers crossed the stream, Vietcong would crawl out from these holes and shoot the soldiers from the rear. As the soldiers ducked for cover, dived on to the grounds, they would escape back into the tunnels. Convinced that they had somehow missed the Vietcong as they crossed, the soldiers would cross back only to be again shot down from the rear.  Often their enemy was unseen.

Entrance to a tunnel

Entrance/Exit on a side embankment in a river/stream or path through which Vietcong appeared & disappeared like a rat in a flash

Another entrance/ exit

Yet another entrance/exit that one just could not see or even if seen ignored. Nothing bigger than a dog can even go inside here

The way the entrance to a tunnel looks like, but back then it was without all the clear markings 

A entrance as it looked in a jungle path

The entrance to these tunnels were not just tiny, but also very well camouflaged. I had to literally crawl through the tunnel feeling claustrophobic but yet the Vietcong seemed to navigate these tunnels with speed. Their entire life was below the ground in these tunnels – be it living, cooking, working. Often as shown, the entrance would be just a hole in the ground and as one can imagine a jungle will have a million such holes. Given their small size it would have been next to impossible to identify a hole as actually an entrance to a tunnel.

In many places as one travelled in the tunnels you had to literally crawl

Bereft of arms and ammunition, theVietcong collected every shred of bomb, other metals that the Americans had used and then used those to create their own arms and ammunition. Now be it these forgings or even cooking there would be fire and smoke. Technology meant that the Americans could notice this smoke even from the air and bomb the place. So what was the solution ? Sheer genius.

American ammunition collected were converted into spikes, weapons

Bamboo sticks being sharpened

The entire smoke from a day long cooking would be led out from the kitchen/ workshop tunnel area to another closed tunnel room where it could fill up. From this place there would be tiny pipes that led up into the atmosphere and ended in an ant hill or a tiny exit hole from where the smoke escaped, at a rate  not more than what an incense stick would emanate. Apparently, the smoke created in one hour of cooking would take 24 hours to seep out of the ground into the atmosphere.  For any technology to try and locate an incense stick sized smoke in a jungle is sheer impossibility. In professional engineering parlance this is called FMEA. 

Cooking and dining areas as they were underground

The anthill from where the smoke finally came out

The exhaust hole in the ant hill

A tiny trap door from which the smoke escaped so slightly that even standing in front of it, was not easy to notice

Standing next to it this is how the exhaust trap for smoke looked like

As one finished the tour I realised that the Americans fought a war they had no hope in hell of winning. If one were to point fingers at the Americans and the Napalm bombing and such other stories that photo journalists and others have widely spoken about, how the Vietcong suffered, it is important to realise that American soldiers also suffered immeasurably. For many deaths caused by bombing, many Americans died horribly and if they lived, life would have been an eternal hell. However much it sounds easy and even justified to point fingers at the Americans for their bombing and violence, it would be a travesty of justice if one does not accept that they also suffered hugely and for long. If the local populace suffered horribly, so did the American soldiers.

Reading the caption below the photo is self explanatory

Just read the captions below the picture

Any war is brutal

Brutality was common and as the pictures indicate, many a human in war can become worse than animals and benumbed.  But to be like an animal in war, one need not always be a soldier. A photojournalist is also equally involved as they acquire fame, name, wealth based on how lucky they were to witness a particularly brutal moment in human tragedy.

The work that a non combatant does on the battle field honestly explained as you can read from the caption below the picture

If statistics are to be any reference point the number of Vietnamese who suffered were likely a hundred times more than the Americans.  In the end, all war is brutal and when it means boots on the ground it becomes hell. 

Whoever one may blame for starting a war, the fact is both sides suffer greatly depending upon how much of humanity they show or forced to not show. There are no easy answers. The report linked below gives a tiny glimpse into that aspect by referring to the incident mentioned earlier in the picture "Any war is brutal".

https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/publications/articles_papers_reports/106

The communication between the countries then and much later in 1995 when finally the two countries resumed a relationship. The grace, maturity and statesmanship of the letter of 1995 is worth noting. 

Walking the streets, one felt surprised at the level of cleanliness and there were many more beautiful and lovely sights one saw during the visit. One thing that stood out was, that there were far more women working, manning shops, walking around and someone told me that the war had left behind too many women. That’s likely why the population of men in Vietnam is lower than women.

Looking down from the Saigon Sky deck this looked like Paris with its Siene and very lovely

Women were working, earning, running business in most places

As I  walked and glanced at a group of young girls, they decided to give a pose and I clicked this picture. The only thought in my mind was that these young girls showed confidence about themselves and their future, which they deserve. 8 years later today, I wonder what each of them are doing. 

In the end, the idea here is to neither justify, comment or opine on anybody, any country or any policy but to just showcase what one saw on the visit. If at all one were to have an opinion then I think it is that the Vietnamese have been far more open and honest in showcasing history than what one would expect. They seem to have truly moved on. 

Prayers in a place of worship that even had the Indian triumvirate Brahma, Vishnu, Maheshwara displayed 

The opera house and garden