M Y O B

July 3, 2009

INFO

I presume my readers know that to keep up with this blog they have to click on the last listed entry over there at the right. This blog opens to the same page every time, so navigate to the latest if you are keeping up. Also, email addy is [email protected] and I am always pleased to hear from my readers.

MEDICAL UPDATE

I had my first and last post-op exam by the surgeon yesterday. He says I’m fine, and he’s right. I still have a little bit of soreness around a couple of the incisions, but I know this will go away. Altogether, the removal of my gall bladder was close to being a non-event!

MICHAEL JOE

I suppose way back somewhere I saw MJJ and thought it might be interesting to know more about him, particularly what he looked like sans clothing. But as for following his career or becoming any kind of MJJ groupie, it was not on. I don’t get along well with “Type A” individuals, and at least when on stage, MJJ struck me as a Type AAAA. And since I know nothing about dancing, his moves always looked frantic, often as if he was having a fit of some kind.

Somewhere along the line I did find a recording of his ballad, “She’s Outa My Life”, and I really liked it: I still play in now and then. But as time went on, there’s no denying MJJ got more than a little “strange”. The tragedy of his untimely demise lies in his inability to control his intake of drugs, and there was no one with enough power over him to stop the carnage until it was too late. I hope his tortured soul really is at rest now.

TATS

I’ve mentioned before that tattoos, generally, put me off. All this hype on TV, with entire series devoted to tats and tatters leaves me cold: many of the designs are over the top, and woe be unto any who decide they should be removed!

ON WITH MY NARRATIVE: THE 1960s

I TANGLE WITH THE INFERNAL REVENUE SERVICE

Johnny and I bought a house together in 1962. We were both gainfully employed (he teaching, I an analytical chemist); it cost us $17,000. We worked it over, then traded up to something larger. But as it became apparent our relationship was going down in flames, one night in 1964, in a drunken rage he made me quit claim to the property and chased me out at knife-point. To make matters worse, he burned most of the deeds and other paperwork involved. Nevertheless, he was able to sell the place shortly thereafter (it was planned!) and pocketed about $40,000 . He drank that up in just a few years; but, I digress.

That year I filed my income tax and claimed a sizable loss on the property. Three years later, in 1967, the IRS objected, pointing out I had no proof: all that burnt paperwork came back to haunt me. The IRS concluded that I owed them the princely sum of $1800, and I was forced to agree that I did. I was willing to pay it, except that the IRS demanded I borrow the money from a bank at 8% interest. My position was the IRS was charging 6%, and there was no reason a bank should make money on my misfortune. [Imagine 8% interest at a bank in those days!}

The upshot was a series of meetings with low-level functionaries who tried to cajole me into taking out a loan. Throughout, I maintained that I would pay the amount owed, but over time, plus the 6%: there was enough “slop” in my budget that I could spare something each month: I was pretty much living from paycheck to paycheck, as my salary was not all that great. But, the IRS would have none of it, and the more they pushed, the more stubborn I got. I quickly realized they have no ability to deal with someone who simply says “no” and refuses to budge. I used to load up on aspirin: I was like a zombie, and no matter what they offered, my answer was consistently “NO”.

Someone told me I could take a person with me to those meetings, and did not even have to introduce them. The theory was that if there was a witness to their coercive tactics, they would not be applied. So I set it up with a friend of mine: he was a large fellow, a clerk in a dime store, but he had one good suit and an imposing cough. The IRS would harangue, I would say something like I was going to yield, and Jim would cough loudly: then I would say NO! It drove the poor interviewer nuts, but got us nowhere.

Another time, after several guys had taken turns at me, I decided to “lose it”: without warning I jumped up and shouted loudly, “Why don’t you guys just take me out in the hall and shoot me? Put an end to all this shit.” (And so forth) Jeezus! We were in a room full of cubicles, so everyone  heard me, and for a moment, I thought they might take my recommendation! Such a hub-bub. But it got us nowhere.

Then there was the day we finally came to some sort of agreement, and the interviewer wrote it up long-hand on a special pad with carbon-paper (remember carbon-paper?) and told me to sign it. I was about to, when I noticed printed boldly along the bottom, this line:

THIS AGREEMENT IS NOT LEGALLY BINDING ON ANY OF THE SIGNATORIES HERETO

Say what? They explained that was to protect their interest so if I were to have a wind-fall, they could take their share out of it. I explained that it was no contract at all, and tore it up and threw the fragments at them. Whooooie! They were pissed!

The resolution came when I decided to devote an entire day to getting this thing off my back. When I reached an impasse with the first interviewer, I demanded to see his Supervisor. When I got nowhere there, I demanded to see his Supervisor, and so on up the ladder. About five rungs up, I was allowed to explain the whole problem to a fellow sitting behind a desk: I repeated my offer to pay over time with their 6% interest.

“That sounds reasonable to me,” he said. He wrote it up, and it was a done deal.  I’d won!

DISILLUSIONED

The whole mess with the IRS put me right off. Work was getting boring. Money was tight, especially with monthly payments to the IRS. I needed a change. One weekend I visited my older brother in Southern California, and was perusing ads in the LA Times. On a lark more than anything else, I responded to an opening for a chemist in VietNam, and promptly forgot about it.

Several months later, I got a call in my office: “Are you ready to go to VietNam?”

Well, no I wasn’t, but I quickly decided I sure as heck could be!

What happened next will be my next page.

NEXT

From a fellow PA&E-er who was rotating out, I bought a larger motorcycle which I felt confident would be better for driving long distances. It was a Honda CB160 like the one shown below:

Honda CB160

_________________________

Sunday PM, 28 July 1968

Dear everyone~

Once again, two weeks have passed since I wrote—largely because there just hasn’t been anything worthwhile to write about. There still isn’t, actually. . .

The sixteenth of July came and went without incident (for some reason rumor had it that that was the day the VC would launch their next “thing”). The twentieth (anniversary of the Geneva Accords) did likewise, as have all the days since. There have been a few incidents of terrorism, mostly in Cho Lon. The VC apparently had counted on the Chinese contingent in SVN swinging to their cause, but the violence of their Tet and May 5 offensives brought about just the opposite result; hence the VC terrorists are directing their efforts to the Chinese in retaliation for the latters’ lack of support.

There was a fire in the JUSPAO (Joint U S Public Affairs Office) Building yesterday AM; the JUSPAO Office is adjacent to and actually a part of the Rex BOQ. Apparently the fire was caused by faulty wiring, not VC. It was a stubborn, smokey sort of fire (no flames), and it took a lot of doing to put it out. Damage from the fire was light, but damage by the fire-fighters was heavy.

Having spent a good deal of time getting the new CB160 Honda I picked up (used) running its best, I took a sort of shakedown ride tonight, taking a long circle trip around the city. The bike performed very well (it will be far better for my trip to Cambodia) (than the 50cc bike I had before), but of course I got into a drenching downpour just before I got back here! Soaked to the skin—but no matter, everything is dry again now!

My status with PA&E has changed—slightly. Since my job was eliminated from the FY 1969 manning table, Dan Smythe “surplused” me. He could have initiated a transfer to some other open job at LB, but since we haven’t really gotten along well the past 6 months, he decided to let CMO do it—hoping I suppose that I’ll wind up in some other installation. Saturday afternoon I went to CM0 to see what the prospects were, but got a long runaround and really didn’t learn anything. Guess I’ll just have to wait and see what action they decide to take, and if I don’t like it, I may resign. CMO, on the other hand, could decide that I am truly surplus, and terminate me (which I would prefer). However, there is a possibility that I could go into Entomology, and of course I could wind up just about anywhere in the country. One thing that mitigates against a successful transfer though is my equivalent GS13 rating: there’s a scarcity of “13 slots” in the manning table, because the Army tried their best to downgrade everyone this year. All this could take weeks—meanwhile I shall be trotting off to LB every day, there to sit and do nothing, until CM0 takes SOME sort of action. Incredible! But true.

That really is all the news there is: I hate to send one-page letters but there is no reason whatever to start another. So, love to all  hope you’re all well, as I am.

Luv~
Bruce

___________________

Anticipating the need for sending letters by international mail (rather than via APO), I tested the “system” by sending some letters written on stationery I swiped from the Caravelle Hotel:

Caravelle Hotel Stationary

The part that’s hard to read is: “Shades of Wallace Wimple”, which refers to the salutation, “Hello, Folks”, which was WW’s jowly greeting to Fibber McGee and Molly: I’ve never forgotten it!

_________________________

Monday Noon, 6 August 1968

Dear Everyone~

Well, the die seems cast now. My final processing out awaits only the affirmative decision of the “front office”—this may take a day or two, and the final processing is likely to take several more days. All going well, I should be on my way to Phnom Penh around the 15th of this month.

I mentioned that Mr. Smythe at LB had surplused me; CMO promptly lost the paperwork, and I spent a week in limbo, enjoying Saigon and getting my bike into good shape for the forthcoming trip. Then last week, new papers were made up which I hand-carried to CMO to be sure they got there. For a while there was talk of reassigning me somewhere, but I balked at this on the basis that I have already spent six months away from my profession, and another year would be damaging to my career. This morning, all set for a big battle, I went to CMO and found that Personnel had sent my papers forward with the recommendation that for the best interests of the company and myself I should be surplused forthwith.

My position was awkward, in that had they recommended otherwise I meant to resign, which puts a black mark on one’s record and means a considerable financial loss: no leave pay, no repatriation-fund refund, and the price of my fare home. But by being surplused, I get fully paid, a “completed contract”, release to work for other overseas firms, and (tee hee!) a letter of recommendation.

Consequently, I will be leaving Vietnam with $5000 in the bank (I’ve NEVER had a larger balance!) and a plane ticket in the event I should ever need it. My tangible assets will consist of some clothing and my Honda, along with an assortment of tools and spare parts that I’m taking along.

I shall fly (with Honda) to Phnom Penh. It is only about 180 miles away, and I’d given much consideration to riding there. But security conditions at the present time simply do not allow for this—too many VC along the way—and there is nothing to see anyhow, to make taking the risk worthwhile. People in times past have gotten through, but the VC buildup was not nearly so heavy. Additionally, I’m told the “hiway” (No. 1) as far as Cu Chi is in dreadful condition, making progress slow and hazardous.

My itinerary for Cambodia is not firmly fixed. I have in mind several days in Phnom Penh, then go south to Sihanoukville, which is on the coast and is famed for beaches and food. Then back to Phnom Penh by a different route, and onward north and west eventually to Siem Reap, the only major city near Angor Wat. Depending on weather and other conditions, I hope to spend ten days or so in this vicinity: there are many other ruins in the general vicinity which might bear visiting, but roads are poor so will just have to play that part by ear. Then I hope to go on to Bangkok via the only hiway available. The Cambodian visa is good for three weeks, and I expect to use all of that; no visa at all is required for Americans entering Thailand. By the time I get there, I shall probably have a sore rump and will be ready to stay put for a while!

I have arranged to sell my typewriter and radio to a friend before I go. This means that for the most part we shall once again have to rely on the Xerox machine. I will be traveling light for obvious reasons and hope to be able to ship ahead only my single large bag as unaccompanied baggage to Bangkok, where it will be held at the airport until my arrival. This is risky, but there will be only clothes in the bag, so if it “gets lost” I won’t be out a great deal. (There are three suits in that bag that have remained unpacked since January!) Shipping the radio and typewriter would be expensive and foolish, though, and I can get both cheaply in Bangkok, or wherever I settle down.

I might mention that in the back of my mind is the possibility that I sha’nt find work in Thailand, and may decide to go to Djakarta—I could even ride that distance on the Honda, though there is a train route that sure looks fascinating. There is a lot going on in Malaysia in oil exploration/development, and there ought to be a demand for chemists there.

Naturally, if I don’t find a job anywhere and the money runs out, then I’ll come on home and see what I can dredge up through Overseas Craftsmen’s Association, which I have joined—its a sort of personnel clearing-house, working both with large companies which hire overseas and with personnel who want to go overseas to get jobs for the latter and employees for the former. Good outfit—they do not have anything to do with PA&E!

That about brings you up to date—I should be able to get one more letters off before I go (hope the VC hold off on their next offensive for another week or so!). Also hope to get some packages of trinkets for everybody on their way sometime this week—though just what these will be I can’t be sure right now. Native VN crafts are not awfully lovely, to my way of thinking, and so much of it is actually made in HK or Japan that one has to be most careful!

I am in no way sad about leaving PA&E—and am not really sad about leaving VN either. I feel that unless we change our approach and policies RADICALLY and soon, our “involvement” is doomed to an ignominious failure. I still feel the only candidate on the scene who just MIGHT be able to bring about some of these changes is McCarthy, but just where his star sits at the moment is pretty hard to guess. Meanwhile, there is nothing for me to do but turn my back on this “bleak plain, where … ignorant armies clash by night”.

Luv to all~
Bruce

I outfitted the cycle with saddle-bags and a satchel I could easily strap to the luggage rack. I also fitted a left-hand throttle arrangement, expecting to need to relax my right (throttle) hand now and then. This device was a god-send, and a wonderful source of introductions to other cyclists who had never seen or thought of such a useful feature.

I tried to interest some other ex-pat cyclists I knew in going on the trip with me. They all said, “Oh, you’ll be robbed! You’ll be killed! It’s an idiotic thing to do!” I sent them all post-cards from Singapore nine weeks later. In retrospect, though, I’m glad I went alone: there were no arguments about where to go next, or when!

______________________

Sunday, 11 August 1968

Dear Everyone~

I forget who it was who said something about the best laid plans of mice and men. . . but in my case they have gone awry—at least for the moment.

My “die seems cast” letter was written Monday evening after I’d been told by “Out-Processing” that Personnel had sent a recommendation to the front office that I be surplused. They said to come back Tuesday afternoon to get the ball rolling.

But I underestimated the ability and willingness of the front office to make an already bad situation worse, and on Tuesday I was told that the front office had denied the surplus, allegedly on the grounds that the approximately $2500 involved might be disallowed (for reimbursement by the [US] govt), and that I would have to take another assignment. There followed three days of the most amazing “Micky Mouse” routine while Personnel tried to find an open slot that I could fill. For awhile it looked as though I might wind up as a Sanitation Supervisor, which with some stretching of the imagination is at least close to my field. But that failed because it would have meant a $35.00 cut in my salary: since the company is hanging me on the fine print in my contract (which allows them to assign me out of my classification), I hung them on some of the same fine print that bars them from reducing my salary under any circumstances. Hence, it became necessary to find a slot that carried the appropriate salary, and that turned out to be—of all things—a SUPPLY ADMINISTRATOR. This turns out to be nothing more than a dressed-up file clerk. When the Head of the Department asked me what I knew about Supply, I replied truthfully, “absolutely nothing”—to which he replied, “well, that never stopped PA&E from placing a person before.” His only other question to qualify me for the job was whether I could read and write English! Having set the standards THAT low, there was no basis on which I could refuse the position (giving the company thereby the right to fire me for cause). Although I had planned to resign at one time, I could not quite see why I should be forced to take the onus of that (and black mark on my record) just because I’d gotten caught in the cross-fire between CMO and Dan Smythe; and the more they shunted me around the less inclined I became to resign. So—for the moment—I am still on board, stuck in a freezing cold air-conditioned office all day at CMO, working 6 8-hr days/wk.

The matter is by no means concluded. A friend of mine in Contract Administration is close to the man who allegedly refused to approve the surplus, and the former has suggested a way by which it can be done and be fully allowed; he says he will talk to Mr. [redacted] and see if he can swing him around. If not, I may eventually resign under protest and hand the matter over to the NLRB and others to adjudicate. The most absurd part of it all is that not only is there a good case for the Army to disallow what I’ve already earned here—since it got absolutely no good whatever from my being here—; there is also an even better chance that my salary from this point forward also might be disallowed because I am working so FAR out of classification (on which the Army and the president of PA&E both frown)—a fact that seems to have escaped the attention  of Personnel entirely.

Then, too, there is the matter of these new “work agreements” coming up, and no one really knows what’s going to happen in that regard. PA&E has several thousand employees under contract identical to mine, yet, in negotiating the 1969FY R&U contract with the govt, they agreed to a number of limitations on their employees that are in conflict with the existing agreements. Thus, while my contract says I earn 3 days per month of annual leave, which can be accrued, and which can either be taken or worked at my option, the company has already promulgated a new regulation by which we are getting only 2 days per month, with the stipulation that a portion of it must be actually taken. Those who sign the new work agreements (which will be retroactive to the date they signed their current ones) will in effect be signing away a number of benefits, thus in effect voluntarily reducing their income.

One of the knottiest problems involved in the new work agreement hinges on the subject of Vietnamese income or other taxes. Our current contracts obligate the Company to pay any of these that might be levied (and of course the company recovers the funds from the [US] govt.). The new work agreements say nothing at all on the subject. Now, it is true that there are NO such taxes—at the present time, but the [VN] government could decide tomorrow that a tax such as the VN pay (about 37%) on the AMERICANS would be another marvelous way to wangle a whole lot of money out of the US—and without the protection of our own contracts, we would be obligated to pay this out of our own pockets, or quit. Needless to say, most people would do the latter!

So, it appears unlikely that many people (certainly not me) are going to go along with this new agreement deal. What the company is holding over our heads is that if we DON’T sign, they won’t offer us another contract when our current ones expire. Well, since most people are fed up with this outfit, they don’t intend to stay past their current tour anyhow, so no matter. There are already suits being filed about this thing, and many more can be expected: I hope it doesn’t come to my having to do the same. But some of the shenanigans that get pulled here are simply not to be believed—and a company operated like this one at home would fold up overnight!

You may have read about a couple of terrorist acts in Saigon a day or two ago—one of them a grenade tossed into a Cafe on Dr. Yersin Street. This is just past the circle at the end of Le Loi, not far from me. Such is the way of things here, though, that I knew nothing about it till I read the papers!

Luv to all~
Bruce

The upshot of this re-assignment was that I went each day to a frigid office in a Quonset-hut at Tan Son Nhut. The office contained three desks, one of them mine, another occupied by a fellow whose job I could never determine, and one for a lovely Vietnamese Secretary. There was a telephone on my desk: I was supposed to answer it, but it never rang. Once each month a stack of papers arrived mysteriously: my job was to arrange them in a certain order and hand them to the gent at the other desk. I have no idea what he did with them!

Speaking of the Caravelle Hotel, I found this article from the LA Times:

Caravelle Hotel

“In early May, Saigon’s historic Caravelle Hotel launches celebrations of its 50th anniversary with an appearance by Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent Peter Arnett. Though best known as a CNN reporter in Baghdad during the Persian Gulf War, Arnett covered the Vietnam conflict before that, filing some 3,000 dispatches from the Caravelle from 1962 to 1975 for the Associated Press.

He was not alone. During and after the war, the Caravelle was ground zero for the foreign press corps, including David Halberstam, Walter Cronkite and Morley Safer. VIPs like Richard Nixon, Bob Hope and Pierre Cardin also stayed there and drank in its fabled rooftop Saigon Saigon Bar, as did the cast and crew of the 2002 film “The Quiet American,” starring Michael Caine.

The hotel opened in 1959. After the fall of Saigon in 1975 it was renamed the Doc Lap (or Independence) Hotel. In 1998 a 24-story tower was added, bringing modern conveniences like a landscaped pool and fitness center to the historic site.”

That’s the National Assembly Building well-lit in the foreground: when I last saw it there was rocket damage! It is difficult to see whether any part of the original Caravelle was saved.

National Assembly Building, Saigon 1968

My situation with PA&E was tenuous at best. The saga continues on the next page.

NEXT

As the second tour of duty in Cairo neared its end, I was chatting with a fellow from Kansas CIty one night: we shared a huge old flat at the time, a Company facility that was being shut down. I mentioned that in the previous year I had tried to take the boat & train to Sudan, but had been unable to get a visa. “Well, let’s try again!” says he. We turned in our passports and requests at the Sudanese Embassy, and a couple of days later, the visas were approved. Committed now, we arranged for passage. Lance had not even gotten to Luxor, much less Aswan, so we arranged to spend some time in each place as we wended our way South.

In Luxor, we spotted this fine old steamer, now in private hands:

I got aboard and found the steam engine intact!

There was time for a few photos in Aswan:

That’s the Oberoi-Aswan across the Nile

More modern accommodations were available on the Nile

They tend to all look alike, but this one is classic

There were two boats to Wadi Halfa each week. The Thursday boat was run by the Sudanese, the Tuesday boat by the Egyptians. We got lucky and were on the Thursday run. The train took us right up to the dock, and the first “boat” we saw was this venerable WWII LST relic:

Still operational, this was our “motive power”

Lashed to each side of this thing were two much older relics of days gone by: ancient steamers!

It took much of the day, but in time all this got set to right and we were under way!

Wadi Halfa, here we come!

The trip is three days and two nights. There was nothing to do; much of the time one could not even see the shoreline. No progress occurred at night: the assemblage was at anchor and lashed to buoys. We had remembered to bring our yellow-books, and a good thing it was: yellow-fever inoculations were being given to everyone, all through the same needle! Fortunately, the “doctor” administering these accepted our yellow-book entries and let us pass. In the fullness of time, we arrived in Wadi Halfa. Our train was waiting:

Looks modern enough in this view

The train was hauled by a diesel engine, and there was an ancient dining-car in the consist, and at the tail end—thank goodness—a box-car loaded with fish, rapidly rotting in the heat. Once under way (after the usual interminable wait) I spotted this kilometer-post, No. 2 of  some 137 (if I recall correctly) before any sort of settlement was encountered.

Bleakness, sand, and scrub was all that one could see

Eventually, we began to find little towns where the train would often stop briefly. But somewhere near Berber, in the middle of the night, we became aware we were no longer in motion. We found all the passengers sleeping under the stars on the platform, the train motionless, everything dead calm. Eventually we were able to learn there was track-work ahead, and we had to wait for its completion. In the late afternoon, after more interminable waiting, the engineer gave a toot and started up the train. What a mad scramble there was for the passengers to get aboard! In the wee hours of the next morning, we rolled into Khartoum. A taxi driver took us to the Hilton, which was fully booked; he then took us to the Grand Hotel:

On the banks of the White Nile, the Grand Hotel

This had been a British hotel, but more recently it had been lovingly refurbished by a French Consortium. The accommodations were modern and air-conditioned, the restaurant was quite good and elegant, and best of all, one could sit on the verandah, sip a lime-and-soda and watch the White Nile, just across the road:

Just above the confluence with the Blue Nile

Down-town Khartoum was a leisurely 20-minute walk from the hotel, and a bus stopped at the hotel for those wishing to visit Omdurman:

The Mahdi’s Tomb in Omdurman

Of course we visited General Gordon’s home (preserved) and various other notable places, but the temperature was fierce, on the order of 110º at the height of the day. Lance spent a good deal of his time in his room, but I managed to wander around and find a few souvenirs to bring home. After a week or so, we returned to Cairo on an airplane which covered the distance in a couple of hours that had taken us several weeks to cover in the other direction!

I’ve always been glad I made this trek, because Sudan seems to have gone steadily down hill ever since. Lance and I just happened to fall into the short window of opportunity when visas were available. The ancient dining-car on the train was a real hoot, and the bowab must have been with it from the beginning!

I doubt they still use these colorful bills!

Ten Sudanese Pounds

Five Sudanese Pounds

One Sudanese Pound

Fifty Sudanese Piastres

Twenty-five Sudanese Piastres

Back in Cairo, I brought to an end the study of Cairo’s sewage that I’d been in charge of for several months:

Bench-scale treatment plant for Cairo’s wastewater

I had several assistants on this endeavor, who mainly went out each day and collected fresh examples for us to run:

My staff on the wastewater study

There were a few remaining sight-seeing trips:

I don’t remember the occasion, but I was there!

Here’s a picture of some of our drivers: the one at left was especially good-looking, I thought, but the one on the right was actually cuter.

Waiting for food after a long day’s drive

Once the shit-disturber had been shut down and the report written, it was time to head home. Next page: Manila

NEXT

My letter of September 27th, 1968 continued:

Since the border is officially closed, there isn’t much for the customs people there to do, & they had to spend nearly 1/2 hr looking for the tax stamps (about 3¢US) required on the paper-work for the motor! But, at length, I proceeded. From Aranya Pradet to the intersection with Hiway 33, there is no pavement, & what with recent rains, the road was pretty bad in spots—slippery and muddy. When I got to pavement (about 60 km) the machine was covered with red laterite mud; but I ran into another storm almost at once which washed the worst of that off very quickly. I sat this one [storm] out [in a bus shelter] with a family whose son spoke  fair English, & so passed a pleasant half hour or so. Pressing on, dodging a couple more storms, I reached Chachoengsao just at dusk, and checked into a brand-new hotel, where I had a very comfortable room for US$1.75. Not much edible food, though (had a bowl of Chok, the Thai version of Chinese Soup; it has every imaginable [& some unimaginable] thing in it) but it is not bad. The next AM Ieft about 7:30 & was just nicely under way, with nice warm sun & cool breeze, when I had the first flat tire of the trip. The stem pulled out of the “chambre d’air”—inner tube—and it went flat instantly. That took about 3/4 hr to fix by the road-side (I had a spare tube), & I then proceeded as before.

First Flat Tire

BACKSTORY: Chachoengsao was a very frontier-ish sort of place. I met up with a group of pretty rough-looking guys who wanted me to take them to a movie: having nothing else to do, I did. The “theater” was a tent with some old wooden bleachers; the projector was an old 16mm, and the movie was an ancient US “western”. The boys—six of them with me—obligingly sat up on the rear-most seat, where it quickly became apparent some of them at least were horny: lots of clutching at their own crotches, a universal signal! With some trepidation I groped the boy nearest to me and found him hard. One thing led to another, as the old saying goes: in the end, we all jacked off together and left quite a mess behind. They all wanted to come to my hotel, but this I felt unwise, so when the movie was over I sent them on their way. It was cheap fun: the cost for the seven of us to watch the movie was less than a dollar!

The Thai’s drive on the left—which is a bit harrowing in itself, as I’m unfamiliar with that approach of course. They also drive like madmen, just as the Cambodians, but of course traffic is much heavier. One reaches the outskirts of Bangkok about 40 km out, and from there on traffic gets very heavy. I arrived about noon, wandered around till I found a reasonable hotel, took a nice lunch & flaked out for the afternoon!

I’ve decided to proceed to Singapore. This will take me down the Kra Isthmus, along the west coast of Malaysia, through Penang to Kuala Lumpur & eventually to Singapore. Depending on how my money lasts, I might go from there to Darwin, Australia, & by train from there to Melbourne (friends there, C&E people), but that is speculation. Accordingly, I put the Honda into the Agency Shop today for a check-up & engine overhaul: it has 7000 miles that I know of on it, maybe more, and this is the first place I’ve hit with a Honda-accredited repair team. Although the machine has run well, I want it to be in first-class shape for the next leg of the journey: it is 1000 miles, just to the Thai border, almost as far as Kuala Lumpur, and about half that to S-pore! So I shall have a week or two here in BK—about all I want, I think—it has all the modern conveniences, and all the modern ills, such as smog!

BACKSTORY: When I departed VN, my vague plan was to go north from Bangkok, across Burma, and across India. My brother, Todd, had done this ten years earlier, traveling by air and train, and had found Burma particularly agreeable. However, ten years later, Burma was (then as now) firmly closed. Southward lay Singapore…

Am having photos developed & printed; they should be ready (if the camera worked) to enclose with this letter in a few days.

BK has marvelous old (French) street-cars! Not many, but they must constitute some of the oldest rolling-stock in the world apart from the cable-cars in San Francisco!!

More later,

Bruce

BACKSTORY: Fond of streetcars anywhere, I rode the old cars in BK several times. The tracks ran along the sides of the streets, a few feet from the edge of the sidewalk: people parked their cars right on the tracks, which brought the old trams to a halt with much clanging and shouting. We often had to wait for some time before parked cars were moved. It was apparent these trams served only a few folks and were utterly out-of-place in Bangkok, trying its best to modernize. Little did I know!

The letter was continued on the 29th:

Why-why-why? do tourists insist on traveling with little children? I’ve met a number of travelers  poking around with under-2 year-olds with them. Not to mention the expense, there is an awful burden on themselves and others, and all it does for the child is to enable him to say in the future, “I was in wherever when I was a year and a half old and I don’t remember anything about it.”

I watched, fascinated sort of by the contrast, as a Dutch couple eating in a nearby restaurant spent all their attention on their little boy, harnessed into a chair; special food, heated in the kitchen just for them, special spoon, etc., etc., etc. (And mama & papa had to order for themselves something not on the menu).  Two tables away was a Thai family, with a littler little boy, who sat unassisted & fed himself from portions of the same food his parents were eating. No fuss.

Children grow up rapidly in the orient and they learn much more in the process—at least as much about living—than american children. Parents start their children walking as soon as they are weaned or before; toilet training the same time: I can’t see that either hurts the kids any. It is frequently astonishing to see the things small children do here—even hard work—without complaint.

Caught a small cold (air-conditioning territory again!) so have been rather sluggish. Besides, the Moto being in the shop means walking, which is OK except that BK is a big place. Took in Dusit Zoo (nearby) today; quite a good zoo, & very popular (on Sunday) place to go. Tomorrow I have to go to the airport, pick up and re-pack my bag there are and ship it on—I think now I’ll just send it on to Robb, since I can’t imagine having any use for the stuff in it for quite a while.

BACKSTORY: There really was a time when one could pack a suitcase and send it anywhere in the world as “unaccompanied baggage”. This was very handy, and you could arrange to have your baggage at your destination even before you got there! In my case, I had sent a bag from Vietnam to Bangkok, thinking at the time I might settle in, or get work in, Bangkok. I quickly decided this was not to be, so shipped the bag on home via by Brother, Robb. Getting the bag out of customs at the airport involved a little money under the table, of course, but I had become so used to this in VN that I thought nothing of it.

Bangkok is expensive. I want to take one of the bus tours in the next day or two, & then press on fairly soon. One sees in Bangkok a preview of what Saigon will be like ten years from now, and frankly it isn’t all that pretty. Grinding poverty in the very shadow of splendor; gawdawful traffic, & smog at times; very little of Thai culture—and much of the bastardized american-thai substitute.

The Thais do have what must be the most lavishly decorated trucks and busses, though. Most start life as a Mercedes or Toyota 1½ or 2½ T chassis. The bodies (except cab) seem to be built locally, mostly out of wood, all carefully finished and polished. The whole is decorated with vast amounts of chrome trim, with hammered designs, and (fake) rivet-heads running in rows everywhere; also popular are painted scenes in little chrome frames tacked on here and there. To all this is added rows of colored lights all over the place, so at night it all looks like a moving giant Xmas tree. (And I do mean Xmas!)

Curiously, one’s surroundings change quickly after crossing into Thailand. Of course, this is emphasized by the border being closed, hence the Thai and Khmer cultures do not mix. Thai homes are built of wood, on or very near, the ground & not raised up 10-12 feet as are Khmer homes. Bangkok is largely built of wood, & there are large fires at times (I see the remains of one in some shops just down the street from this hotel). One leaves French behind quite rapidly, too, at the border; not nearly as many people speak English as the booklets say, though. Street signs are frequently nonexistent &  it is a hard city to get around in. The layout is odd, & compounded by one-way streets, traffic-circles & such. Driving on the left still seems odd—I suppose it will for quite a while—but I’ll have that from here on, so I’d better catch on. Making a right turn against oncoming traffic becomes precisely the problem that making a left is in the states.

Enclosed photos better than I’d expected!

Much love to all,

Bruce

Buddhist Temple, 1968

Buddhist temples like this are everywhere in Thailand. This was one of the first I encountered, so I snapped a photo because the weather was fine. Of Bangkok itself, I got no pictures: the reason will become apparent in future letters.

Stay tuned!

NEXT

August 29, 2009

As the last scion of the Kennedy family is being laid to rest, it seems appropriate that I have reached the point in my narrative where the news of Bobby Kennedy’s assassination reached us in Vietnam.

Sunday, 9 June 1968

Dear Family~

Needless to say, the news here much of this week has been largely concerned with the sad events in Los Angeles, et. seq., and has tended to overshadow the local news. The local news is getting stale anyhow, as the VC continue to shell Saigon night after night. Nothing has come in as close to me as the two on the 19th of May.

Early in the week, the news centered on the unfortunate accident in Cho Lon, where a US Helicopter-fired rocket misfired and killed six high officers of the national police, and wounded several others, including the (now former) Mayor of Saigon. The first reports were that this was a VC shell that had hit; investigation indicated shortly however that this was not so, and close examination of the shell fragments, and investigation of the pilots involved, eventually revealed beyond doubt that it was one of our own “strays”. It was not a unique sort of accident, of course, but the reaction has been pretty unfavorable.

Word of the Los Angeles debacle reached us at Long Binh late in the afternoon Wednesday, First reports were hopelessly confused, but by evening it was clear to me that a miracle would be required for Bobby to survive. I stayed at home (with a cold) on Thursday. I awoke late in the afternoon as a BBC broadcast was coming to a close, and the announcer stated that the foregoing program had been prepared before the unfortunate death of Senator Kennedy: this was my first confirmation of what I knew was to be. I tuned to VOA, which was playing dirges, so I had to wait until the local 5 PM news to get the details.

All of the applicable descriptive adjectives have long since been used to describe this latest turn of events. Over here, where violence is daily bread, the impact has not been nearly so great as I’m sure it was at home. The Vietnamese have been very cool towards Kennedy anyway, so other than the official condolences, not much beyond the facts have been forthcoming in the papers. Thursday morning the funeral cortege for the VN officers mentioned earlier passed my balcony, and I felt very sure then that before the day was over I would hear of the necessity for a similar event in Washington.

Now, of course, it is all over but the shouting. That is, this particular episode is over—but I predict there will be much more violence along the same lines before the next election at home. All the weeping and wailing  and gnashing of teeth about the “upsurge of violence” in the US seems to me to miss the point completely. There in nothing new about it. American history, from the war for independence onward is not noticeably less violent than the history of other countries. What bothers me is the fact that murder, homicide and so forth is often tacitly, if not openly condoned in some circumstances, while acts that are substantively the same are condemned in other circumstances. Where was the great hue and cry when shooting or lynching Negroes was even more commonplace than it is today? Where was the period of “official mourning” for the twelve children killed in the bombing of a Birmingham church? The cortege and pompous burial for Medger Evers?

I certainly agree with President Johnson and the many others that seem to have concluded that there is something wrong with america today—something that finds its expression in assassinations, riots, and so forth. But I think I’d disagree with many about the causes of the wrongness. The American Ethic has too long denied the essential humanness of all people, and the people within its borders particularly. Organized religion has for centuries been promulgating a body of doctrine that simply fails to take into account the fact that humans are, first and foremost, humans. much of this doctrine found its way into our federal structure (the colonisation of america was initiated, after all, by a persecuted religious sect which proceeded to become as adept at persecution as those who drove then from England): the constitution is shot through with examples of pseudo-religious beliefs translated into a formula for government. And through the years, a vast body of legend has been built into american history that grants to the american people something very close to actual divinity. So powerfully imbued have we become with our feelings of God-given superiority that we have even undertaken to export the commodity.

Future historians may well record the 1960s as a decade in which america finally realized that the credibility gap between its facade of liberty and equality and justice and pacifism and the edifice of actuality became so wide that the entire structure collapsed. Examples of our duplicity in the world today are myriad, and all the world is beginning to take notice. Lately, even large segments of our own population have been taking notice too. Everywhere our “Do as we say, not as we do” approach is being rejected—quite appropriately, I think. Our future as a nation, or as a world power, hangs now in a delicate balance, and it remains to be seen whether we will really pull in our horns, gird ourselves, admit our mistakes, and set about to bring into reality the “american dream”—which is still no more than a dream—or whether we will close our eyes once again to the oppression, inequality, injustice and belligerence that have brought us to our current sorry state.

There is no change in the work status, and none is looked for. PA&E may try to pull some hanky-panky again this year about our employee contracts, which will give me precisely the “out” I need: but if they don’t do this, I shall certainly resign before too long, unless the situation changes radically with the award of the new parent contract with the Army July 1.

I’ve been investigating the proposed trip through Cambodia. The Vice Consul here points out the necessity of being very careful on such a trip, since we are not diplomatically represented there, but explains that there is nothing she can do to prevent the trip. Tourist Visas to Cambodia are issued through the Australian Embassy here, and I haven’t had the chance to see them yet. Ordinarily, Thailand requires no visa, but it may be that one would be required for persons entering Thailand from Caniodia, so I shall have to contact the Thai Embassy as well. The plan is still very hazy and no dates are set. Having my Cambodian friend along as a guide should prevent any major mistakes that might conceivably involve me with authorities. Air Vietnam has regular flights to Phnom Penh.

As I start this third page, I realise there isn’t much to add to what I’ve put into the previous two.

The weather is getting consistently wetter, with storms just about every day. Rob can now testify to the wetness of our rains, and to the lightning accompanying! I mentioned earlier that I finally succombed to a Vietnamese cold, and find it remarkably similar to the US variety (though this may be an imported cold for all I know!) It is about over now.

Mail was delayed this week, and I didn’t go to LB Saturday—went to CM0 instead—so I suspect letters will be waiting for me Monday AM. My last letter from Dad was 5/26, containing the copy for Rob (he got it OK).

That’s about 30 for this week: as usual, I hope this letter finds you all well.

Love,

Bruce

It was slowly dawning on me that I was involved in a boondoggle, and the likelihood was great I would not complete my contract. I began to formulate a plan to ride my motorcycle from Saigon to Phnom Penh: the main reason for doing so was to get to and see the Temple complex at Angkor. I had seen all the pictures in old issues of the National Geographic, and had seen the pictures my brother Todd had brought back when he visited the temples in 1958. I wanted to see this for myself, and in Saigon was only a few hundred kilometers away from them.

I was also becoming critical of our lack of progress in the war itself. Within a few weeks of my arrival, I came to the conclusion we should never have gotten mixed up in this business at all: but it seemed to me that now that we were there, we should identify our objectives and then get on with the job. With the VC close enough to shell Saigon daily, I felt we were not actually getting anywhere: we should either “shit, or get off the pot!”

IF this sounds familiar, think “Iraq” or “Afghanistan”!

Wednesday, 12 June 1968

Dear Everyone~

I don’t generally write during the week, but I suppose you’ve all been hearing the reports of the VC shelling of downtown Saigon, and may be worried about me.

The curfew hours were changed Sunday to 2100 to 0600 in precincts 1, 2, and 3: I am in 2. Consequently, somewhat more people were about at 6:15 Monday morning than normally. I was not among them, however, since our bus schedule had not yet been changed, and I was more or less asleep (the alarm had rung at 6) when the first rocket hit. It was the one that landed in front of City Hall, and the nearest [to me] of all: none of the rockets in this barrage actually came as close as the two mortars that hit on May 19. But the 122 mm rockets are a bit bigger, and do much more damage…

I got up and went out on the balcony, where at first I could not identify the peculiar whistling sound I heard. It wasn’t long before I realized it was rockets overhead, so I went back inside! All 25 of them arrived in a space of about ten minutes. As one does these days here, I calmly set about shaving and within a half hour after it was over was in the Rex having breakfast.

The rocket that landed near the Rex set two cars afire, demolishing both, ignited gas pumps in front of a garage, and blew out windows for a large area around. The one that landed against the Indian Consulate on Tu Do did a lot more damage, and killed two old women asleep in the adjacent doorway. Two others landed nearby that one, but hit nothing of consequence.

Five rockets landed across Cong Ly Street from the SE corner of the palace grounds, doing heavy damage to three large residences. One of these had every tile of the entire roof blown clear off, leaving all the wood and concrete structural members intact—a curious thing. About 6 landed near the intersection of Gia Long and Le Van Duyet, and it was there that a large number of people were killed and injured.

For some reason our bus didn’t come that morning, so I walked around in the afternoon to see the destruction brought on by this attack. Not very pleasant, though one should always bear in mind that vast areas of North Vietnam must look far worse by now.

The reaction here is almost universally one of puzzlement as to why we don’t retaliate by breaking off the Paris talks and/or bombing Hanoi. It’s a good question, for which I have no better answer than anyone else. There’s been a good deal of wry commenting on Westy’s parting remark about the shellings being “militarily insignificant”, a remark that to my way of thinking indicates the distance that separates the military mind from a reasonable mind.

The very day that [Robert]  Kennedy was shot, I had spent the morning composing a letter to Senator McCarthy, indicating why I was supporting his candidacy and suggesting some areas that seem to me to need attention in the years ahead. I have never sent the letter (I planned to polish it up a bit first), but now I think I shall have to re-write it altogether.

Dad’s remark in his last letter to the effect that I seem to be getting a bit more hawkish is true enough—though I hadn’t realized it showed that much. I realized myself how my thinking had changed when I completed the aforementioned letter to Senator McCarthy, and found I had advocated bringing the war to a rapid conclusion through massive strikes at all strategic targets in the North that we have so assiduously protected so far. I see only two alternatives to this, however: 1) the whole sad affair will drag on and on and on and on, no one really winning or losing anything, as is essentially the case so far, except billions of dollars and thousands of people… or 2) the pull-out. Now, the pull-out of itself is not such a bad idea, though the alterations in world-wide alignments that would result might be quite startling; but a pull-out here would almost certainly see a repeat performance of the whole mess on some other soil.

If one accepts the inevitability of a direct confrontation with either Russia or China, it seems to me prudent to get it over with before either has a chance to build up further towards it. The question is, if we were to attempt to bring Hanoi to its knees (and I don’t really doubt we could do it smartly and quickly if we put our mind to it), would either China or Russia interfere at this time? I think that a close study of History would reveal that neither country in this case would risk a world-wide conflict—at this time—in support of what is essentially an insignificant country like NVN. Ho Chi Minh has been walking a tight-rope between Peking and Moscow for some time, and not entirely pleasing either one. Taking into account growing animosity between Mao and Kosygan at the present time, I don’t believe either would rally to Hanoi’s side strongly—at this time. I keep saying at this time because I think timing is important here. Whichever power succeeds in making the largest propaganda victory out of continuing to hold the US at bay in Asia may ultimately turn out to be the winner in this part of the world: if we are really serious about containing BOTH the Chinese and the Soviet influence within present borders, then we should by all means get on with it, and sheer military superiority is (either now or later) going to be the only way we can succeed. The history of “negotiations” with the Communist countries does not indicate any degree of optimism is justified in that method of containing Communism: even a casual look at Korea or the Middle East will confirm this.

Of course, if one has serious reservations, as I do, about the necessity or desirability of keeping Asia entirely free of communism, the foregoing argument is invalidated, and a pull-out here is the only answer. One of the more-or-less rhetorical questions I put to Sen. McCarthy was, “Does our paranoid fear of communism really square with the fact that millions of people are better off today under it than they were under some previous from of government?”

Recent events in the US strongly reinforce my belief that McCarthy may be the best choice we have. I was glad to hear today that some Senator has been pointing his finger at such american traditions as war toys, horror movies, shoot-em-up TV programs and the like. He overlooked the fact that we have maintained HUGE armies throughout our period of existence, thus training virtually every man in the arts of war for nearly two centuries. The effect of this I think is important.

If I fill up this page, there won’t be anything to report this weekend, so I’ll close this now and get to bed: our bus is running earlier now, so I have to go to bed earlier, too.

Love to all~

Bruce

Forty years later, we all know what happened to Senator McCarthy!

More letters to follow. . .

NEXT

Dad’s tiny hen-scratch indicates this was my 17th letter.

24 March 1968

Dear Everyone~

I realised last night that it has been over a week since I wrote to anyone. Time flies along here, and each day is so much like the others that it is hard to keep track of them. The week was eventful, in a way—at least there were things to talk about, and occasionally, work to do.

There was a fellow that came over in our group who was also assigned to Long Binh, as an Entomologist.  Fred XXXXX was his name. He had a good thing going there, lived in Thu Duc, somewhat nearer [to Long Binh] than Saigon, was supposedly working “7 10s” (i.e., 7 ten hour days/wk), and so forth. For a couple of weeks he would occasionally talk about wanting to go home (Louisville, KY), but we all just figured he had a touch of homesickness, and kidded him along. Tuesday last, he told me he was going to drive his truck into Sgn and stay here at the Loc Bldg to get a good hot bath and quiet night’s airconditioned sleep: since I figured this was just what he needed, I went along for the ride (the truck is much more commodious than the bus!). When I woke up the next AM, there was a note under my door, and the truck was gone. He had taken off early and gone to Tan Son Nhut, somehow bought his own ticket home, and somehow gotten his exit visa, and, well, just took off! That left me to get out to TSN and pick up the truck and drive it back to the motor pool at LB, and it fell to me to break the news to Dandy Dan Smythe—he took it suxprisingly well, all considered!

I’ve been spending a good deal of time this past week working as a refrigeration mechanic. If CMO ever learns (and you can bet they will!) that their GS13 Chemist is grubbing around a bunch of beat-up worn-out reefers, ice-machines, and air-conditioners, there’s going to be a flap! But at least it gives me something to do besides sit around with my finger in my ear in the meanwhile.

You recall I was dickering, on an insurance policy before I left. They were supposed to write and let me know whether or not I could get the Double Indemnity without a war-clause, and some other details. Instead, they issued the policy for straight 21000 dollars, no DI (no war clause, tho) and no waiver of premium. The cost was nearly $500/yr (for some reason it is very expensive to convert from group to individual policy), which I consider to be much too high. So I politely sent it back and asked for a refund on the unused portion (two months) of the premium I’d paid. So, I have only the 10000 dollar Workmen’s Comp policy through the company in case anything happens—but that ought to be enough for now.

Just today, I got two checks from the IRS, both out of Ogden. One was for some adjustment on 1965 Income Tax, and the other was the 118 dollars they had “applied to outstanding tax bills”: obviously, Ogden has caught up with the fact I don’t HAVE any outstanding bills, even if San Francisco hasn’t. There has been absolutely no word whatever from SF—not even any acknowledgement of my four (so far) letters. So, directly I finish this, I’ve got to get out some asbestos paper and get another one off to SF. I’ve already undertaken to establish a bank account out of the country (probably Nassau)—and there will probably be some paperwork involved in that that will have to come through for your signature, as it should also be a joint account. I’ll keep the one in SF as the one to which PA&E can send my checks, and just transfer money by check to whatever account I open up elsewhere. In a way I hate to have to go through all this: but if the Government feels entitled to attach bank accounts at will, I will simply have to take the necessary steps to protect myself. I am advised by a PA&E lawyer, incidently, that since the account was a joint one, and they made no attempt to distinguish what money was there was mine or yours, that a Federal Court suit could slap their wrists quite hard. I’m sure it won’t come to that. Taking the money out of the US can be a bit risky, I suppose, but then, it’s risky to leave it there, too, when it can be taken away without so much as a howdydoo. As to my—as you put it—”annoyance” over this thing, it amounts to something more than that: the fact is I’m maddernell about it. And as for catching flies with honey, what’s the point of that when you’re dealing with WASPS?

Enclosed is a recent photo  one of the guys here at the hotel was fooling around with a Polaroid the other day—and the clipping is one possible answer to the recent Newsweek editorial—an editorial with which I agree in the main, except that it stopped short of the mark. More on that later when I get around to my first encyclical!

Love to all—

Bruce

________________

I was a trifle more complicit in Fred’s departure than I let on in this letter. Fred was a nice fellow, but very much out of his element. He wound up in Nam as an entomologist because he had worked with a pest-control company at home. He was newly divorced. Although he and I had nothing whatsoever in common, I saw a lot of him because he got his supplies from stocks at LB Post: he often stopped in to my office to “shoot the breeze”. However, it rapidly became apparent he was losing his mind, and I was quite sure if he did NOT get out of the country, he was gonna go nuts. He was deathly afraid of Dandy Dan, as were many guys there, so he didn’t dare approach him with the notion he wanted to break his contract and be sent home. I facilitated his departure by assisting him to get his exit visa: how he got a plane ticket I never found out!

I actually dropped him off at Tan Son Nhut and then drove the truck to LB and covered with the little fib about Fred’s abandoning the truck. Unfortunately, the last thing he handed me as we set off that morning was some sort of revolver with six shells chambered. He knew if he was found with it on the plane he’d be in “heap big trouble”, so handed the gun off to me, thereby instantly putting my job in peril. I cleared the damn thing and stashed it in the bottom of a suitcase, figuring I’d develop a plan to be rid of it somehow. I did manage to get rid of it, and at the appropriate time I’ll reveal how.

Mention of the refrigeration work requires explanation. In a new contract proposal, PA&E wanted to take over maintenance of all such equipment on the large number of 500-man mess-halls on Long Binh Post: these were scattered all over the place, and each one had ten to fifteen pieces of refrigeration devices. It became necessary to compile a list of these, so the company could have some idea of how big the job was, how to price it, and how many people might be needed. They went about his by ordering up a “density report”. That’s a bit of army jargon for just such a list of equipment. All hands were pressed into service, visiting each mess-hall, listing the equipment present, condition, serial numbers and so forth. I generally went along with a chap who had come over in our group named Bob; he’d had been a refrigerator repairman back home. Bob was one of the few truly competent people I met while in VN: he could listen to a machine and instantly diagnose whether it was operating correctly or not, and if not, tell you exactly what was wrong with it. He was also a very pleasant chap, laid back, entertaining. The job, and eventually Dandy Dan, got to him, though, and a few weeks on he broke contract and went home.

Meanwhile, letters from home were arriving fairly regularly, and these often contained clippings and questions. So, six days on, I wrote as follows:

30 March, 1968

Dear Everybody~

Dad’s last letter, mailed your-time Monday, reached me my-time Thursday, as he predicted. I hadn’t known anything about the trip to Portland in advance, but am certainly glad you are getting around OK after your set-back at Christmastime. I’ve started this letter this evening, but expect I may not finish it until sometime tomorrow.

I about dropped my teeth when your articles enclosed in the last letter fluttered to the floor, and, as I picked them up, W R  Hearst’s face popped out: I can recall the time when Hearst papers weren’t even allowed in the house, along with funnybooks and such. Ah, well, times do change.

Going back a few letters, you asked what the military situation here is, and after some sleuthing, I’ve uncovered most of it. Like all Gaul, the US involvement here is quartered into three halves. There is, in the first place, MACV (Military Assistance Command-Vietnam); this is the advisory group which has many men in the field with the various (and numerous) ARVN units, at all levels. Whether any real assistance takes place one cannot really tell. Then, there is USARV (United States Army-Vietnam), with all of its jillions of subdivisions and so forth. This, of course, is where the bulk of our fighting forces are to be found, along with lesser numbers of Navy, Marine, and Air Force units. Then there is (directly under USARV) the First Logistical Command, which directs all of the logistics of the entire operation, and for whom PA&E and the other US Companies here work. Then, there is USAID (United States Assistance for International Development), which I have mentioned in previous letters. And then there is the Free World Forces which have to be coordinated into the picture in various ways (most of them come more or less directly under the command of USARV). Now if this seems likely to be a confusing situation, consider the fact that in addition to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), there are at least six other local organisations of militiamen, more or less armed, who enter the picture at various levels from nationwide down to hamlet level. Consider the fact, too, (alluded to by Dad’s last letter) that ALL of these organisations are to various extents infiltrated by VC and by NLF sympathizers.

Now, depending on the location, there are two basic situations that can occur in the midst of all this. One is the sort of thing going on in the North, around Khe Sanh and Hue, where a more-or-less constant state of siege exists, which enables the local commanders to take some initiative in attempting to locate and eliminate the enemy. But in the south, the situation is very different. Even on the highly touted Search and Destroy missions, the American forces ARE NOT ALLOWED TO INITIATE any action, but must wait until “engaged” by the enemy (that is, the VC must fire the first shot). Once begun, the engagement will last as long as the enemy returns fire, or until he is wiped out. Now, the ARVN units also conduct S&D missions, and are under no restrictions, so that it has often happened that US and ARVN units, through a failure of communication of intentions, have engaged each other! It further happens, and quite frequently, that US reconnaissance locates, in one way or another, a group of VC: let’s say in a small hamlet they have taken over a pagoda and have intimidated the local people by a few well-placed bullets. Further suppose that recon learns positively that there are four emplaced mortars within the pagoda compound, poised for shots at some nearby target. This info can all be transmitted to ARVN if any are nearby and  they can go in and try to root out the enemy. On the other hand, if the US Army brass decides they can do the job better, the permission of the ARVN Commander, and a host of other people, often right down to the hamlet chief, must first be obtained, by which time the enemy has long since learned they have been detected, and has departed. All too frequently, when permission is at last received, we go in and blow up an empty pagoda, and half the rest of the town along with it: the dead may well be counted as VC—but where their politicil affiliations (if any) truly lay no one can say. Then, too, there are the snafus that seemingly occur in every stupid war, such as bombing our own units or known friendly villages and that sort of thing. You won’t often hear about these in the US, but these snafus occur quite regularly.

The Newsweek article “The Agony of Khe Sanh” was pretty badly received here: at least one reaction I have already sent home. The most frequent argument against it has not to do with the facts, but with the interweaving of fact and editorializing in such a way that the editors’ opinions seem to emerge as fact. We must face the fact that the article was, in the main, propaganda. But there were few errors of fact in what was reported as such, and the magazine freely admits the rest was a position it felt compelled to take. The letters to the editor in the front of the same issue were revealing—in that they were all from Vietnam and all were chastising the magazine. Newsweek is one of the few US magazines that has had one of its reporters kicked out by the Saigon Government, which may also cast some light on the matter. For myself, I can find little to argue with in the article, except their disregard of the Geneva Agreement (1954), and one other thing:

Among the most puzzling aspects of the feedback from the States that we get here is the Press’s canonization of General Giap. Disregarding the politics involved, I find it dismaying that he should be regarded as “brilliant”, masterful, etc  for he has used tactics over and over again that cannot be justified on any grounds that I can think of. His takeover in Hue was accompanied by bloodletting among the civilians there on a par with similar debacles in Cuba, Hungary, and even Germany at various times: at other times, these tactics have been decried and denounced on every front, yet here, General Giap emerges as some sort of a Master Tactician who has outsmarted the US at every turn and managed to keep the offensive throughout. It doesn’t add up, in my book…

What may not have been very clear before Tet, however, is certainly painfully apparent now in these days following it. Hearst’s article and others in the states have called attention to the fact that is now overwhelmingly clear, namely, that for all the billions we have poured down this rathole, we have little or nothing to show for it. The enemy’s forces and will have not been markedly reduced; the South VNese are not markedly better-off than previously; we have not created a solid middle-class citizenry; we have not raised to power a popular and strong government; we have not won the affection or support of the majority of the South VNese; and we certainly have not “won” the war.

I for one, am appalled by President Johnson’s fixation on plodding on with this whole affair. There are times when stubborness is an asset, and times when flexibility pays off: of the latter, I see no evidence in Johnson during the last few months. Determination is one thing, but fanaticism is something else again. Time and again, he has been assured by various people of position and note that this-or-that action would open up avenues to the negotiating table, and he has turned a deaf ear to them all. Indeed, every time a new approach is made, he has escalated not only the war, but his demands for conditions on the negotiations. All this is in line with his hope for bringing the enemy to his knees to cry “uncle” before he gives an inch: but if he cannot see that this policy is a complete and utter failure, then he is both blind and very ill advised, and not only he, but all of those surrounding him should be swept out of office at the first opportunity. Among the most sensible alternatives I’ve seen, but by no means the only one, is Rep. Clausen’s detailed by Hearst in the clipping Dad sent. At least this proposal takes cognizance of the fact that all of asia should be considered as a whole, not as a separate series of staging-areas for a succession of wars against communism; it also takes into account what Mr. Johnson and friends seem totally unable to grasp, which is that the world-wide rising tide is one of Nationalism, NOT Communism (this is even becoming evident now in the so-called Soviet-Bloc nations). If we had any sense at all we would climb on to the bandwagon (just as some nations did when WE were fighting for our own independence) instead of trying to scuttle it.

As to stateside politics, the situation is not a very happy one. Rocky’s decision not to run actively has been very quickly forgotten, and the possibility of his being “drafted” is not overlooked, though unless the Nixon campaign hits some deep sand-traps, it seems unlikely anyone would want to draft Rockefeller. Kennedy’s decision, on the other hand, came as a surprise to no one, but he has been quite roundly criticised for trying to pull the rug out from under McCarthy. It seems to me that K reckons he can count on McCarthy votes coming his way at the convention if he can split the first vote badly enough to keep McCarthy out. Personnaly, I hope McCarthy can pull a rabbit out of his sleeve and get the nomination—but it will be a tough thing to accomplish. McCarthy is getting some criticism here for his own devotion to the Vietnam question to the exclusion of everything else; on the other hand, many feel that if he can succeed in solving the Vietnam thing some way, the rest will more or less automatically come along. We’ll have to gamble on it, I think. The forthcoming summer, which is almost bound to be long and very hot, may, of course, change the political climate before November. I would not take any bet that Wallace won’t win!

Three pages of this sort of thing ought to do for now: I’m hungry, and dinner is about to be served upstairs—Vietnamese. I constantly surprise myself by ordering and enjoying the local concoctions. Needless to say, I have lost NO weight over here!

Love to all …
Bruce

PS:

I just had the most interesting  and unlikely-sounding dinner. I understand there are several variations on it, but the essential combination of ingredients is cauliflower and shrimps! In this case, the shrimps were pounded in a mortar to make a paste, (seasoned, no doubt), and the paste was sort of wrapped around individual flowerettes of cauliflower, then rolled in breadcrumbs or meal, and the whole rapidly deep-fried. Delicious!

I understand it is also served simply as boiled cauliflower and shrimps prepared in more conventional fashion: one take a bite of each and combine them at the table.

Imagine eating like this—with my picky ways of savoring each item individually at home. The essence of Vietnamese cooking is precisely in the exotic combinations of ingredients, frequently 15-20 individual items in a single concoction. But it really comes out very good.

There is also a very interesting local fruit here, called a Vu Sua, which I am told is to be had in the states under the name of Paw-Paw, though I’ve never seen them there. The things are ugly round green things, with a peculiar milky white juice and what appears to be very stringy insides: but the entire interior (except for the black seeds) is very sweet, with a taste that combines the essence of strawberries and cantaloupe melon and comes up with something unique. Fine eating, but currently out of season and not too easy to get. Mangoes, of course, abound, but I’m not as fond of them as of the Vu Suas.

Cheers, & Bon Appetit!

___________________

All my life I’ve been one of the least adventuresome of eaters—of food, at any rate. I’ve always been a “meat and potatoes” guy, and prefer to consume all of each item on the plate before moving on to the next: I like to savor the flavor of each item individually, rather than mix them all up. Desiring to continue eating this way meant I took most meals in a BOQ or mess-hall. But I did break out now and then and eat things the Vietnamese ate, and generally found it palatable. On my subsequent motorcycle trip around the Gulf of Tonkin, the food problem became acute, but more on that as the narrative continues.

There will be more photos as my tale unfolds, though as mentioned elsewhere, I rarely carried a camera while working in Vietnam.

Stay tuned for more adventures.

NEXT

Continuing with Vietnam and the Tet Offensive, still not quite over.

Monday, 19 February- 1968

Dear Everyone –

Went to work as usual this AM. The first news I got was that yesterday (Sunday) my immediate spvsr (Chief of Operations) had decided to transfer. Since the Post Installation Mgr & he didn’t get along well anyhow, this was OK with the former. It was also OK with me, since Mr. [redacted] was not a very dynamic sort of person & it was obvious to me that he and I were going to clash before long. A new CO was on hand by noon—the fastest work I’ve seen accomplished here yet!—and I think he will be a much more successful person. The Post Installation Mgr? Well, he made a big thing of telling me, when I first met him, that he had been a PIM longer than anyone in VN—which I took immediately to mean either a) he was such a fine PIM that he couldn’t be replaced or b) he was such a bad one that he’d never managed to get himself promoted. The latter assessment of the situation begins to show itself as the more likely one, now. He’s handled his personnel in this crisis very poorly, we feel. He’d better show some real management ability to me soon, or we are going to clash!!

Enclosed copy of today’s Sgn DN [Daily News] is interesting both for its content and its omissions, which are due to government censorship. You can see what we’re up against in the way of news!!

Enclosed also is a very poor little map, showing more or less, central Saigon. I’ve appended my location and a very few details. I’ve seen so little of it, really, that I can’t mark very many places.

Map of Downtown Saigon, 1968

Your worries about my food are needless. I thought I’d lost some weight during “the siege”, but—alas—I haven’t lost a single kilo!

The “siege”—third stage—continues, though with less intensity locally. There was an incident yesterday morning on the Long Binh – Bien Hoa hiway, which closed it temporarily. I didn’t go to work anyway, so wasn’t involved, and it was all cleaned up by morning. Tonight as we drove in about 5:30 helicopter gunships were working over another portion of Go-vap, an outlying section of Sgn which, like Cho-lon, has seen some pretty intense fighting. Tan Son Nhut is being mortared pretty regularly, and I’m not sure what this has done for the tenuous commercial flights recently reinstated.

As you can see, the direct route from Saigon Port to Long Binh & Bien Hoa is directly up the main street of Sgn! New Port, more directly accessible to LB-BH, was severely damaged by VC raids, hence a lot of freight, vehicles and so forth are being moved each day right through down-town Saigon. Needless to say, the sight is appalling, and traffic is snarled up maddeningly as a result. Tu Do Street is hardly 3 US-car-widths wide, and there is always a double line of small cars parked at the curb on each side. 7 days a week, tons of cargo move right up the main street, around the cathedral, and on to Bien Hoa or Long Binh. Quite a sight, as I said!

One of the more delightful things about which I’ve said very little so far is the gekkos—small lizards that live everywhere and—happily—eat bugs by the millions. They’re everywhere, though they hide out during the heat of the day. But at night they come out and gather around the lights.The silly rascals can crawl—run, actually—along any surface, straight up, or upside-down on the ceiling, with perfect ease. They have about 270 deg of vision, and any bug that lands anywhere near them is doomed to be a a gekko’s dinner. They look something like Chameleons, but are a uniform color. Occasionally they make a sort of chirping sound amazingly like that silly noise I [used to] make, but usually are silent—and very diligent in their duty.

Bugs aren’t much of a problem here. Mosquitos are the worst offenders, but if one keeps a sufficient stiff breeze in the room by means of a fan (usually a ceiling fan) they aren’t very bothersome. I got badly bitten one night when the electricity was off, but the bites were only unsightly, not painful. Roaches are to be found occasionally—frequently in dumpy places like the Tourist Hotel, and more frequently still in shanties, I’m sure—and they are usually real big ones. Despite their harmless nature, they are still ugly and one of the few beasts to whom I take a real dislike! But I’ve only seen a couple so far, which is good, and I understand it’s pretty easy to keep them out of one’s quarters if a determined effort is made.

Love to all—

Bruce

Statue of a Soldier, Saigon 1968

This hideous statue of a VN soldier stood in the middle of Le Loi Boulevard between Nguyen Hue and Tu Do Streets. His gun was aimed directly at the National Assembly building, at the photographer’s back. The Rex BOQ (formerly Hotel) is to the right.

2 February 1968

Dear Everyone~

Today is Washington’s Birthday (here), and although I guess I could have gone to Long Binh as usual and sat on my hands at double-time, I elected to stay home & look for an apartment. Spent most of the day at it, without finding anything. So I’ve decided to take a single room here at the Loc Building, 318 Phan-thanh-Gian. (In Vietnamese that comes out approximately “fantanyan”). It’s a comfortable place, clean, well kept, and secure. About a 20 minute walk to downtown, or a 20p – 10 min cab ride. I’ll take most of my meals out, though there is a restaurant here, of sorts.

I found out why I’ve been having GI [gastrointestinal] trouble— found three daphnia (a small water-flea typical of polluted water) in a bottle of Bireley’s orange drink here the other day! Although it is supposedly “pasteurized”, it’s probably done in bulk, before going into the bottles. At any rate, I’m off Bireley’s. Cokes are bottled at the same plant—so I guess they’re out, too. I’m beginning to see why “33″ is so popular—nothing could possibly live in that “pickling bath”—but I’ll drink water only before I’d take that stuff again!

The formula for US Army iced tea is as follows: fill one bucket (preferably with lots of rust) with water. Add a tablespoon of Clorox to sterilize. Add ice to chill. Serve. One tea-bag may be added for color if desired.

There are so many marvelous little changes here that few people bother to observe, but which contribute to what little charm the place has left. For one thing, everything is scaled down in size to fit the population’s general smallness. (cf. previous letters) Elevators, for instance, are tiny. The one in the Rex [BOQ, formerly hotel] was rated by Otis [India] for 8 persons. 8 americans got in it one night, and it plunged all the way to the basement. (The Rex has no basement). So now it is posted for 4 persons (or, as some pfc, no doubt, added, “2 Officers”). Chairs and tables in restaurants tend to be miniscule, as do seats on busses. The long Binh bus (a Mercedes) seats 80 Vietnamese comfortably—about half that number of americans, UNcomfortably. I practically have to crawl in and out of it—a good case of “Flebus” would help immeasurably!

Oddly, the beds here in this hotel, though slightly narrower than US standard, are longer—and quite comfortable for me. The bathroom fixtures, on the other hand, are sort of “sports-car” equipment, and one has to assume some unaccustomed positions to use them. And since Vietnamese are almost totally devoid of body-hair, they put very fine screens in the floor-drains, which plug up immediately when I take a shower!

Under separate cover, I’m sending a bundle of newspapers that I gathered up, mostly, after others were through with them. You may be the only house in town with the Saigon Post in the stack with the New York Times! But since you are still plagued by the SF strike, I thought you could use some news!!

I’ve decided to get an 8 mm movie camera. Bell & Howell has a very nice one that’s virtually automatic and not too expensive. Hence, you should look around for one of those small 8 mm viewer contraptions. It will be month or so before I get it, but it will enable us to share a few experiences, visually at least.

You’ve probably figured out by now that when you get to Hawaii for  your long-awaited trip, you’ll be about 1/3rd of the way to Bangkok—why not plan to fly over for a week—with luck & plenty of advance notice, I could probably get there at the same time. On the other hand, you could doubtless get an entrance visa to Vietnam itself if you should feel compelled (!!) to view Saigon University. I pass it every day—it’s out of town a ways on Hiway 1—right smack-dab in the middle of Charlie territory. Several large buildings are completed, but idle . . .

I’d marginally planned (or hoped) to spend Christmas in Australia. On talking to an Aussie this morning, though, it seems that December & January are holiday months there, and prices skyrocket. So I’ll probably plan that for next February or so. Any leave I take before then will be to HK or BK, I suspect.

My new immediate spvsr at Long Binh is a much better man than his predecessor and think there is a much better chance, with his help, I can get a program started. It’s obvious that I’m going to have a brief personality-clash with the [Post] Installation Manager—but I think I can handle it in such a way that it won’t happen more than once. Among the milder remarks by others that I’ve heard about him are the following choice items:

“There is nothing like a good Post Installation Manager, and Mr. Smythe is nothing like a good  Post Installation Manager!”

“Mr.  Smythe suffers from delusions of adequacy”

“In a recent popularity poll, Mr. Smythe came in just slightly above Ho Chi Minh!”

The rest of the comments don’t bear repeating. All I can say from my own personal experience is that so far, he has yet to show me any indication of real management ability. We shall see!! He makes a big thing about the fact he’s been a PIM longer than anyone here (which he likes to intimate is because he’s such a good one). The fact is, he’s been demoted twice, and is so genuinely disliked by so many people that it’s all he can do to remain a PIM. He broadcasts his insecurity every time he opens his mouth. Cèst la viê!!

The chap I’ve been billeted with here was supposed to go to his assignment in Qui Nhon, today, but it’s a 50-50 chance that the transportation  actually works out and he gets there. I’ve been fortunate to learn a great deal from him, and he was always in good humor and pleasant, with  a great sense of camaraderie, and a long collection of amusing anecdotes.

Time to go to bed soon. There’s an unusually pretty sunset right now. One doesn’t see them too often. Morning half-light here lasts only about 15 minutes, and against the lightening sky the clouds (usually present) are a curious black color. The length of days doesn’t vary much here, and the sun rises and sets quickly. Sunsets are brief and usually not spectacular, twilight is short, and darkness overtakes the city almost suddenly. Against the present reddish clouds, there is already a flare aloft to light the way for some sort of action, or to allow surveillance against infiltration or strikes…

Last night around midnight there was a good deal of action due North. At least 3 Charlie emplacements were lobbing mortars and rockets in all directions, and despite heavy “FWF” attack, were still lobbing them out at a great rate when I crawled into bed at midnight. The action was, as best I could judge by timing the flashes & sounds, about 15 miles away.

On that delightful note, I’ll close. As Walter Cronkite would say, “that’s how it is…”

Love to all~

Bruce

My narrative will continue as soon as I can find time to transcribe more letters.

NEXT

June 29, 2009

BEFORE I COMMENCE MY TALE

June seems to be “Pride Month”. I think it is misnamed.

Being homosexual for me has never been anything I’m proud of. I’m not ashamed of it, either. It’s simply part of who I am, or at least who I have been all these years. Although I have no qualms about telling the few people who ask that I’m, “gay”, I often now say I “was gay”: at 73, my homosexuality is physically no longer much of an issue. Mentally, I’m still as queer as I ever was, possibly more-so, judging by the time I spend surfing the net for photos of good-looking guys!

Anyway, back to “pride”. I take pride in many things, not the least that I have tried all my life to get through it without hurting anyone. I haven’t always succeeded, often due to ignorance or conditions beyond my control, but avoiding making other people feel bad has always been one of my goals. I wish it were a goal shared by everyone! There seem to be some who live for the opposite: to hurt as many as they can. I’ve been the victim of a few of these, but have learned to avoid them.

But “proud” of being queer I am not, and never have been: homosexuality and pride are concepts that simply do not fit in the same category as far as I am concerned.

ONE MORE THING:

I’m recovering rapidly from the gall bladder operation. I’ll stay away from my work the rest of this week, there being a holiday Friday anyway. I have the first post-op visit with the surgeon Thursday. All is well!

SHRINKAGE

As my depression deepened over the failure of my hopes for a life with Cornell, I had the sense to realize I needed some help. My doctor put me on Dalmane to assist with sleep, but recommended a psychiatrist. I spent nearly a year in “fifty-minute hours”, initially several a week. At first, whenever I tried to tell him what happened, I just fell apart and cried, but eventually he began to lead the discussion, and led me to some discoveries about myself.

One of these was how I interpreted Cornell’s behavior in bed. He always “came” as result of frottage: I never did. I thought anyone who could induce me to cum that way would have to be someone very special indeed. Ergo, I believed he found ME someone very special indeed. This was not the case at all: it was his MO, the way he always got off, no matter who he was with! I had very little to do with his orgasms: I was something convenient to rub against. Period. It was an ego-deflating notion, but it explained the facts. It was the first step in getting over this guy.

Cornell probably had his first orgasm sitting on an uncle’s knee, or being bounced of someone’s leg, or just rubbing himself on his mattress at night. Whatever, it came to be his preferred method of getting his kicks. I eventually met others who had encountered him, and they told the same tale: frottage was “it” for him.

A psychiatrist never cures anything: he leads one to new discoveries. We talked about the various categories people fall into, and I realized I am a classic “nest-builder”. I suppose it was because of my happy family life as a kid, that I would want to re-create this as best I could with a lover. (Nowadays, we see gay guys raising families: nest builders!) Unfortunately for me, Cornell was not a nest-builder. He was a classic “home-wrecker”. There had been no possibility of a “long term relationship” between the two of us from the get-go.

The psychiatrist agreed that I was ready to end our sessions after a year, and I felt far better than when I’d begun. I see it as the way to go, when depression sets in or the going gets tough.

EPILOGUE

Oddly, Cornell’s star was crossed with mine whether he liked it or not. I kept running into him in unexpected places, usually at professional conferences (we were in somewhat similar lines of work). Years later in Manila (of all places!) I glanced up from my breakfast and saw a back-side in the lobby I recognized instantly: it was Cornell, picking up a colleague who was staying in the same hotel I was. We got together over drinks at the Peninsula Hotel that evening. That’s where I learned he had AIDS. (I had to assume he had learned another way of getting off). He told me no male member of his family had ever lived past 55, and he did not exect to do so either. He didn’t.

ONE MORE THING:

A reader asked me what I look like: it’s gratifying to know someone wants that information. Here’s the first passport I ever got, at the tender age of 20. Unlike most passport photos, this one was a pretty good likeness.

Me at 20

Thank you for asking! [email protected]

Coming up next: I get into it with the IRS

NEXT

ORGANIZING MY DEPARTURE

Once I had resigned from PA&E, I had to firm up my plans in a hurry.  It was necessary to get an Exit Visa from the Vietnamese immigration authorities. I left this to PA&E, since they had functionaries who dealt with immigration all the time. I  filled out a form in long-hand, gave them  my  passport and took a receipt. All other preparations for departure I undertook myself, distrustful of PA&E’s ability to handle my exit which was so different from those of their other employees. I put off my actual departure until the Thursday flight to Phnom Penh, scheduled out at 4:00 pm, to be sure I had time to get everything ready.

Meanwhile, I closed down my apartment, sold off whatever I could not carry, and moved to a hotel. A suitcase full of clothing was packed and sent unaccompanied—one could do that in those days—to Bangkok. There remained only one problem: that .38 revolver given to me by the fellow who freaked out soon after our arrival had been stored in the bottom of my suitcase. I had to dispose of the gun. I could probably have turned it in to some authority, but which of the many “authorities” available could deal with it? What kind of questions would they ask, and what amount of hot-water would I get myself into?

In the end, I wrapped the 6 bullets in newspaper and stuffed them into the holster with a stone: I tossed this into the Saigon Canal, confident that the numerous bugs in that polluted water would chew up the holster in a hurry. The stone and bullets would sink into the muck, never to be found. The gun itself I dropped into the elevated wall-cistern for the toilet in my hotel room. I figured that by the time anyone discovered it, it would be a mass of rust beyond any hope of use. For all I know, that gun may still be there!

PA&E, on the other hand, was slow in preparing my paycheck and getting the exit visa. Good thing I left extra time!

DIARY ENTRY:  Wednesday, 4 September 1968: Well, PA&E nearly fucked up the works, but through perseverance I managed to get nearly everything set to go tomorrow. The paycheck wasn’t ready until after lunch, which left precious little time to get travelers checks and plane tickets. Whereas I had to wait 4 hours just for two signatures to be applied to my final paycheck, I got the travelers checks and airplane tickets done in just under two hours—and that included three separate calls at AIR VN & @ the bank! They talk about orientals being slow??? Have to get some form or other @ Air VN regarding my bag—certifying it can go through Customs locked; have to get passport @ Australian Embassy, & have to get to TSN tomorrow—all should be relatively easy. Of course, I won’t really be sure this scheme is going to work until I & the Honda are safely ensconced on the plane!!

There was a charming young lady at Air Vietnam who explained in detail exactly the steps I had to take to buy a ticket for myself and for the motorcycle and to purchase travelers checks. The machine had to be weighed: she told me exactly where to go to get that done, and it went without a hitch. (Of course, I rode the bike to all these places: it would not actually be prepared and drained until the very day I left). Buying and paying for the tickets and checks was complicated by the restrictions on money, and involved several trips to the bank—a branch of Bank of America!—but in the space of an afternoon all of this was done. As always, I found that by following directions and smiling a lot, I had no problems.

I was told the bike had to be “drained”, that is, no fuel in the tank when it went on the plane. But this meant that at the other end I would have no idea where to purchase fuel and hence how to get the bike back on the road. So I took a small bottle of gasoline tightly sealed in one of the saddle-bags, and these I carried on with my satchel. The form from Air VN certifying that my bag need not be inspected allowed me to get away with this little subterfuge.

On my last night in Vietnam, I had a nice dinner at the only fancy restaurant going at the time: it was french cuisine (not my favorite), but did have white table-cloths and good presentation. Afterwards, I had one last quickie with my friend Nguyen, which helped me sleep.

Come morning, I would be off on a new adventure! With my passport in hand. . .

Passport

. . . I had my visa for going INTO Vietnam “voided”, on the theory that I might run into someone who objected to my having been there. . .

Voided visa

. . . and I had my visa for Cambodia:

Cambodia visa

The chop in upper left is my departure stamp, which took some doing to get! Stay tuned!

NEXT

MONEY

I try to retain a few good examples of the local currency from the places I visit. The Cambodian bills were very lovely, printed in Germany, and featured numerous scenes for which the country is justly famous. I saw a good many of these places in actuality.

12 September 1968

Hello again~

Who would believe this trip? Amid threatening clouds, I left Kep (after a restful day there—swimming at 7:00 AM!!) bound for Bokor. As expected, I got into rain fairly soon, and to put the end at the beginning, I drove through rain all the way to Sihanoukville!

BACKSTORY: I met a young fellow in Kep who reminded me of why I enjoy formerly-french countries! He was completely unabashed about sex, and we had a fine romp. However, when I told him I planned to visit Bokor, he assured me I should not go there. Unfortunately, the language barrier made it difficult for me to know what his objections were. (There’s usually no language barrier where sex is concerned!)

The road to Bokor is unbelievable! It goes up 1000 meters in about 22 kilometers, hacked through dense jungle all the way (except along the top of the mountains, where it is quite bare). Wonderful switch-backs and so forth, about 12 feet wide and paved fairly well.

The Road to Bokor

See below for a much later photo of this “road”, when it had become just a cow-path!

The rain on the way up was not bad, and perhaps the jungle is at its best when wet. I stopped (both ways) many times to shut off the machine & listen to the marvelous sounds—and occasionally to inspect the various animals crossing the road: mostly bright pink land crabs, but some spectacular snakes & things, too. The sounds are like nothing I’ve ever heard (naturally) and while one itches to take up a machete & go in search of the sources, without a guide & so forth that’s hardly recommended! By the time I got to Bokor itself, the storm was a veritable blizzard, visibility less than 30 feet. But amidst all this, the Auberge Royale was open and I got a good hot meal (about 9:30 am). After a quick tour of the casino (doing a thriving business) I set forth once again, this time to Popokville, about 4 km away. The rain let up slightly for this leg of the trip for which I was thankful. Just as the road (paved about 1/2 way) petered out into a couple of muddy ruts, and I was going to turn back, I heard the roar of water & saw a “parking” sign a little further on. So I thrashed on through, there to find the famed falls of Popokville (I wonder if Todd made this same pilgrimage?). Now, with all the rain, there was lots of water. The river is about 1/2 the size of the Merced at high water; the falls are a couple of hundred feet, in several stages. Very spectacular, very wet, and in the jungle setting, truly wonderful. There was not another soul around, although there are nice little pathways, rickety bridges & so forth (a la mist-trail [in Yosemite]) which I poked around in (carefully!) for about 1/2 hr.

Recent shot of the he famed falls of Popokville

I found this picture on the net, taken many years after I was there. These visitors had better weather!

When the rain re-commenced, I remembered the road I had to traverse back to pavement, & decided to push on. Back down that wonderful road. More sounds, more animals, rain. Some views were blocked by clouds, but I got some good looks down to the delta & sea 2-3000 feet below. Alas, no pictures—too little light [and too wet].

The remainder of the trip was uneventful, but very wet. At times the road was nearly flooded. The rainfall varied from moderate to very heavy. My poncho leaked, and when I finally reached S-ville I was soaked through. My luggage leaked slightly (as you can see by the stains made by some carbon-paper I foolishly brought along!) but I had dry clothes when at last I found the center of S-ville and a hotel.

Sihanoukville may turn out to be the only disappointment of this trip. The weather has not helped—it has rained steadily through today and shows no sign of stopping: tres inclement! But the city itself is not much. It has recently been turned into a free port, but until the railway to the interior is finished I doubt this will make much difference. There are a couple of ships at anchor and the town is full of a sorry lot of French merchant seamen. There is a rather lurid “strip”, a couple of strings of shops, the inevitable central market and information center—and that’s about it! The setting, though, is splendid and the beaches extensive and inviting—given proper weather. I should imagine that in 5 or 10 years this could be another Riviera.

You will not believe what this trip is doing to my diet!! Every now and then I order the Plat du jour, not always knowing just what to expect. In Phnom Penh I got as an entré one night some sort of small fowl, roasted (whole, I discovered) with petit pois & sauce. I will never know what it was (too small for pigeon) but it was not bad. Today, here, I had “orderves” (fresh crab, paté fois gras, sliced ham, chick-peas & onions) followed by a dozen clams on the half-shell (I know you won’t believe it but I ate them all), followed by fresh diced pineapple & café au lait; all for 80 riels (about $1.50).

Assuming it is raining still in the morning, I’m heading for the interior again—Kirirom. The weather there should be better. This cuts two days off my planned stay in S-ville, but without being able to swim & sun on the beach, there’s really almost nothing else to do; besides, constant rain depresses me. Hence,

More later!!

Bruce

So much for my planned sun and swim on the beaches in Sihanoukville (formerly, Kampong Som). I’m not really a swimmer: I was more interested in seeing skimpy bathing-suits on the local guys! Of these, there were none, the weather being foul as mentioned. Indeed, it was off-season, and there was only one hotel in Kep that was anything like “open”, and that barely. No restaurant. But there was a restaurant open in the town, where I had the meal mentioned, and where I cruised up the trick also mentioned (above). In Sihanoukville, the seamen were mostly drunk and probably after girls, but the locals had locked up every youngster (with good reason: with the french and ME in town, none of them was safe)!

I’ve since learned that Bokor was built up by the French as a refuge from the heat of the dry season, Although one web-site says it was abandoned after WWII, it was going strong when I was there in 1968, and it was quite a sumptuous place. It was abandoned (and looted) soon after the K-R took over, and now stands derelict:

Bokor Bokor

I understand that Bokor is now a nature preserve and is patrolled to prevent poaching, but it is likely a losing battle: development as some sort of resort seems inevitable. The grand old Auberge will unquestionably be demolished, along with the Catholic church in Bokor and perhaps a Royal Residence as well.

By the time this picture was taken (found on the web) the “road” to Bokor had been over-grown by the jungle:

Cows on the Road to Bokor Now

A later picture shows it as even worse, open only to dirt-bikes!

But, time marches on. And the next day I decided to visit Kirirom. Stay tuned!

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