M Y O B

. . . except the line here should be “the rockets big bang”. The VC got close enough to be able to lob mortars into the city center, and did so, beginning May 1. It became so routine, I did not even write home about it until it had been going on five days. I figured if a mortar hit my apartment, I was done-for, and only a direct hit was likely to carry me off. The closest one to land near me was about a city block away. These usually did so little damage, I often could not figure out where they had struck.

Monday, 6 May 1968

Dear Everyone again~

After writing my letter yesterday, I took a shower and a nap, then went to mail the letters and meet a friend I’d seen earlier and made plans for dinner with. (Sorry about that sentence!) It was about five to seven when I went out, and when I got across the street to the Rex I found a sign announcing new curfew hours of 1900 to 0700. That shot the dinner engagement, leaving only time to drop by the friend’s house (to find that he’d gotten the news on the radio) and get back to my apartment. So I ate out of cans here, twiddled my thumbs, wrote a few letters, etc, read, and finally turned in early. Of course, the change in curfew hours goofed up the Long Binh bus schedule. Apparently it arrived about its usual time, just before 7AM, although where it went I’m not sure, since Pasteur St. was at that time still blocked off. I went to the Rex for breakfast, meeting one other person from LB there, and together we investigated the Military Bus situation (there is usually one going to LB), but so far today only emergency runs by the Mil Buses have been observed, hence I didn’t get there.

Have stayed pretty close to home today. There have been three major engagements with VC in Saigon today, in sections of town known as Go Vap, another near Tan Son Nhut, and another in the general area of the Phu Tho race track. Late today there was a bombing-straffing raid there: it looks as though maybe it’s been decided to get the VC out of there for once and for all, as it has been a stronghold for them ever since Tet. Their HQ is a revered Pagoda they comandeered, and ARVN has been reluctant to destroy it. If my direction sense is correct, the action I saw there today would leave little of the Pagoda standing, but my vantage point here is much poorer than when I was living nearer to Cho Lon.

Shortly, I shall wander down Tu Do Street to the only newsstand that ever seems to have the Nat’l Geographic: they said it may be here today (the April issue). Then I shall take supper at the Rex and come back home for the evening. What tomorrow will bring in the way of transportation I don’t know. I DO know that Workmen’s Comp does not cover people who get injured or killed when out of quarters during a curfew period, hence I WILL not leave before seven, regardless of what time the bus leaves. There being absolutely no communication between Long Binh and the buses we ride, this sort of timing problem occurs frequently, so no one worries about it.   ////   I’ll write more later, or tomorrow.   ////   Later, after supper: Looks like I may be stuck here a while, though it’s hard to tell. As the enclosed clips show, an area that I normally pass through every day was the scene of considerable activity yesterday, and again today: that’s the area along Phan-thanh-Gian just short of the first bridge on the Xa Lo Bien Hoa. Traffic, I understand, is limited to military vehicles. I shall make an attempt to go to LB tomorrow, if only to get mail, but may not get through. Not much there for me to do anyhow, so I don’t really worry much about it. It is now past 7, curfew is on, and only mil vehicles are on the streets. There still is a fight going on near Phu Tho, and it is likely to go on all night. We can expect more rocket and mortar attacks, I suspect, but these usually don’t come until the small morning hours. Will add to this in the morning, before I mail it.   ////   Later: about 8:30, and all quiet. A storm, complete with electricity and rain has come and is about over. It seems so strange to sit in my front window with nothing on more than my shorts watching a driving rain: I’m so used to rain being accompanied by cold! It must be about 80° F now, and of course it is humid, but in no way really uncomfortable. One can get drenched by these rains, and be dry an hour later, without ever having been really uncomfortable. What a welcome change from the typical SF cold rains! Below me I hear the piano strains of Bach’s Invention No. 12 (if I recall correctly): the barber in the shop below is not a half-bad pianist, and though I have not made her acquaintance yet, I shall.

All for now,
Bruce

The National Assembly Building took a direct hit during the rocketing of Saigon. The sentry in his little box was not enough to ward off the rockets!

________________________

Tuesday, 7 May 1968

Dear folks~

About 9:30 PM last night, just as I was drifting off to sleep, there was a terrific bang nearby. I got up, but could see nothing, so went back to bed and slept well until about 4AM, when the noise of a considerable battle in the direction of Cho Lon woke me up. I’m still not sure what all was going on, but it was quite a battle, and was still going on as late as 8 AM. The explosion last night turned out to have been a rocket which landed precisely in the middle of Nguyen-Hue, about two long blocks (but around the corner) from me. I surveyed the scene this AM: three autos were totally demolished (one burned), about six others heavily damaged, and eight or ten others damaged somewhat. Several windows in buildings on the West side of the street were blown in as well. Apparently, no one was injured, but it made quite a mess. Since breakfast this morning, three similar rocket-blasts have been heard fairly near by, but I haven’t ventured out to see where. I did see the LB bus on its usual route, about 7:40, but they didn’t happen to see me, and I was in no particular mood to  go to LB anyhow. Looks as though I should be able to make it tomorrow, though, when I shall be able to get these letters off; at the moment I am out of stamps, which I cannot get here in town anywhere that I know of, and I’m also low on paper, though I can pick that up in the “Nguyen-Hue PX” (the local euphemism for the black market street vendors).

Radio reports of last night’s activities in Cho Lon are sketchy at best. I probably will never know what happened. My contact with the bamboo telegraph is temporarily broken as my number-one friend is out of town for three days. All I could learn yesterday was that there were boo coo VC in Cho Lon, which is hardly news; many of them were said to be women.

So, it is one more dull day here in Saigon with little to do. The chap I was to have had dinner with Sunday evening could not get out to CMO yesterday at all, and there was considerable question this AM when I saw him waiting for the bus, as to whether it would be able to get through today. I haven’t seen him since I finished breakfast, so maybe they were passed [through] after all. Will add to this if anything eventful happens today, otherwise will mail it tomorrow at LB.

Luv again~
Bruce

________________________

Long Binh, Wednesday AM, 8 May, 1968

Well, we got through on the bus this AM—all six of us who ventured out, that is.

The Phan-thanh-Gian bridge, while damaged as you see in accompanying picture, is still passable, using the left lane only. Traffic was very light, except for an in-bound convoy that was miles long.

Yesterday, a large area just across the Saigon Canal from Tran-Hung-Dao Blvd., about a mile and a half from where I am, was intensely fired-upon by US helicopter gun-ships and other aircraft. The area around Phu Tho race track was similarly worked over, as were scattered parts of Cho Lon. All afternoon I watched the action from the top of the Rex. Pockets of VG infiltrators were trapped in the area near me, and considering the beating the area received, I doubt if many got out alive.

The night was reasonably quiet; about 4 [AM] a few rockets landed in the general down-town area, though none as close to me as the previous night. Then about 5:30 (I was in the bathroom at the time) there was a TREMENDOUS explosion very close-by which really startled me because of its suddenness. After a few minutes I went out on the porch to find that we were amidst another electrical storm, and the explosion had only been a close lightning strike! Whew! (Or, as Snubs would have said, “Now, what do you know about that?”)

So it goes. The offensive is presumed to be over except for clean-up, though of course no one really knows for sure!

Luv to all,
Bruce

______________________

Here I wrote a lengthy letter and sent it to a long list of friends who had not been on the regular distribution list. So, this one may be a bit repetitious.

Wednesday, 8 May 1968 2000h

To all~

I have just finished watching, for more than an hour, one of the most spectacular electrical storms I’ve ever witnessed. Throughout that time—and indeed, still, as I write, the various flashes came more freouently than 1 per second! The display was fairly distant, so not much thunder was to be heard, but what beautiful pyrotechnics!

The arrival of the monsoons (mua mua) came much more rapidly than I expected. The first storm I actually got caught in was here in Saigon two weeks ago, when I went out to do a bit of shopping at the PX. Several inches of rain fell in the space of a couple of hours, resulting in much localised flooding and many stalled vehicles. Yet, it was over as suddenly as it began, and within an hour or so the streets were almost dry again.

Needless to say, there has been much more to see than electrical storms here in Vietnam. Yesterday, for instance, I watched from the top of one of the taller buildings (6 stories!) as US helicopter gunships “worked-over” and area about a mile and a half away; the scene took me back, of course to the Tet offensive days, just after I arrived, for I had watched similar scenes then, too.

You will probably have read of the current offensive by the time this letter reaches you. It seems to be about over, but another 25000 people are homeless (not that “home” was much to start with). Ironically, there is a great tendency for the Vietnamese to blame this situation on us: the reasoning goes that if President Johnson had not limited the bombing, the North could not have re-infiltrated the South so quickly following their setbacks in the Tet offensive. The tragedy of our ever having gotten mixed up in this part of the world really is that we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t—and this frustrating position stems, I believe from a fundamental flaw in our approach.

There can be no doubt that the ideals we espouse and try to practice at times sound good, and may even impress some well-educated and thinking people. It is, for instance, very magnanimous of us not to bomb Hanoi, in the interests of “humanitarianism”. Yet, we are dealing with an enemy who has no qualms about using all its strength against Saigon, and has no compunctions whatever over murdering non-combatants (wives, children, reporters, foreign attaches, and even medical personnel: in this last drive, the third Field Hospital near Tan Son Nhut was attacked unsuccessfully). Whether humanitarianism is being served, in the long run, will only become clear when the fate of the thousands of infiltrators and tons of materiel that have moved into SVN since the change in bombing raids has been settled—and when the last of those who have to defend the South from this attack have been laid to rest.

I often wonder where these humanitarian drives of ours were back in the days of saturation-bombing raids during WWII: I’m not far off when I recall figures like 80,000 people killed in Dresden in one night, and far larger numbers in Hiroshima and Nagasaki somewhat later. In retrospect, the claim of humanitarianism has often been made for the latter, in that the war was essentially ended because of those staggering losses. The feeling is building up here that the same reasoning should apply in Vietnam, and that a quick, staggering blow to Hanoi-Haiphong complex might be just what is needed to place a new perspective on the “peace talks” presumably about to begin in Paris. It is pretty clear that Hanoi is using this same reasoning by showing its strength right now.

Our involvement in this war has consistently been viewed through lenses curiously tinted with a mixture of false optimism and sheer underestimation of the determination of the enemy. The origin of this tint can easily be traced directly back to the consistently violated (by both sides) Geneva Convention, 1954. Somehow, from this vantage point, I cannot see how we could have more consistently acted in ways calculated to drive Ho Chi Minh away from our way of thinking and directly into the hands of the Communists, who are, after all, the only others to whom he could possibly turn. In 1954, Ho was the rightful heir to control of all Vietnam, and most experts agree that he would have been elected unquestionably. Our paranoid fear of Communism can be the only reason for our refusal to allow this election to take place: without that paranoia blinding us, it seems to me that we might well have seen a united Vietnam long ago, acting together with its neighbors to resist any onslaughts the Chinese might take a notion to make: the Chinese are, after all, the traditional enemies of the entire “Indo-chinese complex of nations. Our initial mistake, long since compounded over and again, quite possibly irrevocably now, was in not uniting Vietnam under Ho and helping to guide it into alliance with Cambodia, Laos and Thailand into a bulwark against expansionism in China.

If one accepts this assessment of the current situation, the next question, of course, is: what do we do now? Do we dare to pronose in Paris to rectify the mistake, unify Vietnam, depose our puppet Saigon government in favor of the long-delayed general elections (which Ho Chi Minh could quite possibly still win) and show a genuine willingness to bolster the entire country against China? Or shall we content ourselves with another “solution” like Korea, where no real solution yet exists, and indeed, a state of war, technically, still hangs over that country? Or shall we show our brute strength by obliterating Hanoi and taking over the whole country by force, thereby fueling the “Yankee Imperialism” fire that already rages over much of the world?

Well, it is a dilemma we have got ourselves into, and I for one would like to see us get out of it in the first way I’ve suggested above; yet the history of this conflict would hardly let one dare hope for a solution that is basically honorable and certainly within the realm of possibility. To succeed at this would require a degree of diplomatic sophistication hardly evidenced in prior diplomacy; it would require a certain amount of “eating crow” that our Ministers of State are unaccustomed to in their diet. And, most importantly, I think, it would require that we—at last—should begin guiding our foreign policy by some of the same ideals we espouse, instead of by very shortsighted expediency.

On the personal side: I am well. The warm weather agrees with me. I have succeeded in making some good friends among the Vietnamese people, whom I find, for the most part, delightful, humorous, and unfailingly polite and respectful, a group of oualities notably lacking among the American civilians here. While I work at Long Binh, 10km out of town on the Bien Hoa Hiway (1A), and could arrange billeting there, I prefer to commute and live in Saigon primarily to be able to leave behind the boobs I have to work with all day. For the most part, they are a group I would not ordinarily associate with under the worst of circumstances, so I feel better leaving them to their drinking and wenching while I try to get some ideas of what it is like to be Vietnamese in Vietnam. This tends to be a slow process, of course, complicated by the unfamiliar language. Yet there is a reciprocal interest in getting to know an American in circumstances other than horizontal. I’m picking up the language little by little, and vice versa. What with curfews and the uncertainties of day to day living, the process is painfully interrupted regularly!

Saigon itself, though it shows evidence of having once been a beautiful city, is now a pretty bleak place: colorful at times, but not always pleasant. Many of the so-called essential services (water, garbage collection, sanitation, beautification) are consistently neglected mostly because of a sheer lack of manpower and money. The economy is badly inflated, though there are signs that this trend is slowing down and may soon reverse itself. And of course, the city is hopelessly overcrowded—even without the roughly 1/8 of a million refugees from the Tet and current offensives. It is this overcrowding, that enables the VC to infiltrate the city so easily, and to move tons of weapons and explosives into the city with comparative ease. The standard of living for many thousands is piteously low, yet outright starvation is quite possibly less prevalent than in america—in part because of our huge giveaways, in part because of our incredible stupidity in allowing thievery on a grand scale to go unnoticed, and partly because SVN is rich in agricultural potential.

For those of you who may have been in Saigon, the stately trees lining Dai Lo Le-Loi, Duong Cong-Ly, Duong Pasteur and Dai Lo Tu-Do have all been removed in order to allow for re-allignment and widening of these boulevards and streets. Although Tu-Do is often referred to in the US press as a honky-tonk street, it has far less the appearance of same than many real honky-tonk streets in nearly any US city of comparable size (over 3 million, now!). Native crafts are abundant and oriental, of course, though, Americanization can be seen creeping in here and there (mass production techniques, for instance; so-called carvings that are really molded composition, and so forth). Imports from Japan are numerous, as well as from Hong Kong: surprisingly little from Thailand or Cambodia is available here. The inevitable street-vendors (indigenous in the orient) are everywhere, though the wares tend to be US goods which find their way by devious routes from the PXs. There is excellent Vietnamese (and some French) food available, although the curious concoctions available at the numerous street-stand operations are unwholesome in the extreme, no matter how tempting some are in appearance!

This letter, soon to be concluded, constitutes the first (belated) of the occasional reports I offered to send in my farewell letter of January 23rd. To chronicle all the events since then would be dull end unrewarding: I hope that I have managed to sum up the high points, and give you my version of how it is here. I hope this letter finds you all well, as am I, and in good spirits, as am I, generally, if not actually optimistic. I appreciate the notes you sent responding to my farewell, and promise to keep in touch frequently: let ine hear from you from time to time as well!

Fondly~
Bruce

I have to apologize for the lack of photos in the blog so far: I did not carry a camera when working in Saigon, so I have very few images. Once I departed for Cambodia, I took more pictures.

NEXT

Bangkok, Thailand October 4 1968

Dear all~

I shall again begin this letter today—& heaven knows when—or where—I shall finish & mail it. Received Dad’s letter of 15 Sept/10 Oct this afternoon—the first word I’ve had from home in nearly 2 months. When I first thought PA&E was going to surplus me, I ordered mail forwarded from SF to Robb; in the ensuing weeks of confusion I never changed that, so mail dried up even before I left Saigon. Probably will get things from Glendale tomorrow.

I wrote a letter to Todd & mailed it today. I was a bit caustic, I fear, regarding Bangkok, since my camera and watch (no money) had just been stolen the day before. So far I have retrieved neither and have little hope for it. But even before that happened I was disappointed by Bangkok and its people. The contrast between Cambodia and Thailand is phenomenal; where the Khmers are so wonderfully friendly, spontaneously warm and helpful, the Thais are sullen and cold, not particularly accommodating, and greedy—a bit more-so I think even than the Vietnamese. Prices on nearly everything are frightfully high, and gouging is as frequently encountered as in France—if not more often. If Bangkok today represents the result of close cooperation with (actually, inundation by) America, then I have to agree more strongly than ever with Senator Fullbright—and I have to agree completely with Prince Sihanouk, who wants more than anything else to keep Cambodia Khmer.

BACKSTORY: Bear in mind that I was in Bangkok in 1968. It was, then, on the infamous “R&R” circuit for american soldiers fighting in Vietnam. The Thais built an industry around the R&R concept, designed to part soldiers from as much money as possible and from whatever shred of virginity a few of them might have had left after “20-p alley” encounters in VN. Consequently, since I was the right age, it was assumed I was a soldier on R&R, even though I was riding a motorcycle and entirely on my own. This led to many disappointing encounters, chief of which was the night I treated two youngsters to a “night on the town”. It was, of course, a “set-up”, and the truth is, I was “rolled”. The further truth is it was my own fault, as I had consumed more Singha (delicious Thai beer!) than I should have done. I remained mindful enough to put my wallet, passport and so forth out of reach, but left my trusted pocket-watch in my pants and my camera in plain sight. After we three had had rather desultory sex, we fell asleep—at least, I did. I was awakened some time later when the sound of my room’s door being closed sank through the fog, and I awoke to find the boys gone. Along with my watch and my camera. Shit!

I got the Honda back from the shop yesterday. It has been running well, but the work I had done in Saigon was pretty hap-hazard, what with no parts available for the larger models. (And, that was done 3000 km ago. The bike has over 12000 km on it—it was used when I bought it.) Here, at the Honda branch-factory, everything was at hand. Surprisingly, new cylinders, pistons, rings, bearings & valves, and assorted other small items came to only $57—and it runs like new; in fact, I shall have to break it in all over again. But, as you point out, Singapore is quite a ways from here—about 2500 miles as nearly as I can gather.

I surely shan’t stay in BK ’till the 15th, though, and may depart in the next couple of days, probably missing a little mail thereby. My actual plans are characteristically vague. I shall not replace camera or watch until I reach Penang (a free port); my only retribution against the Thais for the most inhospitable way I’ve been treated here will be to take no photos in their land—and I shall warn everyone I meet who is heading this way to be very careful. I would like to find a small resort with reasonable off-season rates somewhere in Malaysia where I can get the sun I missed in Sihanoukville, but have no particular spot in mind. If I could find a suitable place, I might stay several weeks there. And when I once reach Singapore, the question arises as to where to go from there? Todd once discussed the idea of meeting me in Australia early in the year—but I probably won’t have enuf money left by the time I get to S’pore to do that. Instead I shall probably hop a freighter bound more-or-less for Glendale by Christmas.  This is subject to change—don’t count on it until I get a little closer.

BACKSTORY: When I entered Thailand, I’d received only a ten-day visitor’s visa. It became apparent I would over-stay that without an extension. A chap I had met who was helpful in some ways assured me he could arrange for the extension—for a price. Instead, one morning I consulted my map, found out where Immigration Department was, found out which bus-line would get me there, and set out. The building was old (it has recently been replaced), and I could not read any signs, but by dint of approaching people politely, I was eventually guided to a chap whose desk was in the hallway! He extended the visa as requested, without charge, and sent me on my way. The extension thus cost the few baht on the bus, and the chap who had wanted to get the extension for me was royally pissed when he learned I’d done it myself.

Entry visa, Bottom; Extension Top.

I’ve been delightfully ignoring world news on this tour. I gather Nixon is out-foxing Humphrey for votes—which is not surprising. In a restaurant the other day I picked up a copy of the Bangkok World & read that Long Binh had been hit by 40 VC rockets—must have been spectacular, but “damage was described as light”. If I vote absentee, it will have to be at one of the embassies en-route, and I shall try to manage it.

While I think you are essentially right that Humphrey’s record has been essentially liberal through the years, the effectiveness of his support leaves a lot to be desired as far as I am concerned. The vastness of the task of overhauling so many of america’s policies—so badly needed—exceeds both his capabilities and those of Mr. Nixon (even both together, I think!) There are many people in this part of the world who regret that neither candidate is really committed to the sort of changes that are desired. Many people I’ve talked with are really mystified by America’s policy towards mainland China. Our ostrich-like behavior is widely ridiculed, and the usually-given excuse that “China’s government is not a democratically elected one” is laughed at (as well it might be) because in the context of our recognition of such countries as Russia, Spain, and many others (South Africa, even!) the excuse is simply not germane at all.

I wish you could have seen the current issue of “Kambuja” (Cambodia), the official Cambodian news-magazine. It is, of course, 100% propaganda, except for the last 20 pages of political cartoons reproduced from all over the world. In the context, those dealing with assassination & lack of gun control in the US, and with the abortive Resurrection City incidents in Washington, are particularly devastating. The world is a whole lot smaller place than most americans seem to think, and our little foibles can no more be swept under the rug than can anyone else’s. Many people in this part of the world are far-better read on the US than most people in the US are about this part of the world—and with few exceptions I find people quite impatient with us for not getting on more quickly with the tasks of putting our house in order at home. I wish (and many people have expressed the same sad hope) that either of the current Presidential candidates were more firmly committed to doing just this.

I went to see the first movies I’ve seen on nearly a year last night. “2001″, in Cinerama, in a fine theater here. I thought the price—$1.00—quite reasonable, and found the reason—¾ hr of filmed commercials—after I got inside!! The story-line of the movie I found a bit obscure, as did others, but the photo & model effects are breath-taking and made the movie entirely worth seeing. “Man For All Seasons” is also here & I may take it in, too since the price is reasonable (one can get a seat for 50cts).

Bangkok has the same “over-employment” problem I observed in Denmark. There are always more people than necessary to do a job. The busses have a driver and 2 (sometimes 3) collectors. Delivery-vans never have less than 3 people aboard. Even small restaurants have a half-dozen waiters, and larger places veritable hoards of waiters, assistants, bus-boys, and so forth. The restaurant in the Thai Hotel next door must have a payroll (with cooks, musicians, bar-tenders, waiters, cashiers &c &c) of close to a hundred per shift—and it could not serve any more people than that at one time; the Thai Hotel is not really a tourist hotel on the “circuit”. BK has also developed the american-ism of youth-worship far beyond the extreme to which we have carried it. Whether this is wholly imported or to some extent an expression of some Thai cultural traits I can’t discern. And a new deal (with Krupp, Germany) has just been signed for diesel locomotives to replace the wonderful wood-burners still operating on the Royal Siam RR—alas!

At this point of my letters, probably through remorse that I was not still there, I returned to my wonderful visit to Cambodia, and especially the temple complex. Remember, I am writing in 1968: I’m sure it has radically changed!

You—all of you—must put Angkor on your itineraries for future travels—hopefully soon, before Cambodia is destroyed by “development”. I can heartily assure you that the lack of diplomatic relations with the US will not hinder a trip to Cambodia in any way. There are flights from BK and Phnom-Penh direct to Siem Reap, and there are several excellent hotels. The Auberges Royal des Temples is directly across the moat and road from Angkor Wat, & not ten minutes from the airport. The Grand Hotel is nearer the town & a little cheaper, perhaps, though no less touristy. The Hotel de la Paix where I stayed is just on the fringe of town, & while not luxurious, is clean, comfortable, has good food, and is cheap! Personally, I enjoyed the 6 km ride from town out to Angkor Wat (& the rest of the park); what with trees & such, one arrives at the south portal of A-W very unexpectedly—just all of a sudden, there it is! Arriving from the airport it is visible for the whole distance, & somehow not so impressive, though one does come in at the main (west) gate. The very best time of year, I’m told, is January, when the jungle is still moist but rains are finished. Later as the weather warms up it gets dusty & some sort of pollen apparently settles on everything, making it quite dirty. The view from the Phnom Bakheng is splendid (as it was intended to be!) & worth the climb up, though if desired you can rent elephants to make the ascent. And if it should rain when you are there, go directly to Ta Prohm (do not pass GO!) and experience the incredible eeriness of a jungle-surrounded temple in the midst of a deluge. It is an experience you will never forget, & worth a thousand words. Drive all around the West Baray, also; stop frequently for views from the banks. This is an artificial lake over a thousand years old, created in part to supply the moat for Angkor Wat and mostly for irrigation. It is still in use, though about half of it has been reclaimed by the jungle. The perimeter is 35k m [60 mi], hence in a sense it is one of the largest undertakings of the old Khmer empire. The East Baray, a similar artifice, is only slightly smaller. There are immeasurable fine walking tours to take, to say nothing of climbing about in the temples themselves. And some interesting trips to slightly out-of-the-way temples, too; be sure to see Banteay Srei (a marvelous, though minor temple) and Banteay Samre, notable for its state of preservation (as is Banteay Kdei). Do not spend less than a week in this place—you’ll always regret it if you do, & be sure to wander about the town of Siem Reap (it’s small—you can cover all its major streets in an hour), which is a very typical Khmer town & very little affected by tourism.

Here’s a picture of Phnom Bakheng as it was in 2006:

As the letter continued, I found time for a dig at my step-mother:

Tommie: I find printing hopelessly slow. Sorry you have some trouble deciphering my letters, but at least you have something to decipher. I don’t recall having the opportunity of deciphering your own expert hand much since I left the US.

I did go to see “Man For All Seasons” last night, and found it well worth the praise & awards it received. One (or at least I) comes away from it wondering just how much social progress the world has really achieved since those days—the trappings are different, but human-nature is piteously slow to change.

6 October 1968

I wandered through the Erewan Hotel the other day. Had to do it. Of course, I wore shorts for the occasion! It was built about the same time Todd was here. One wonders whether or not that crazy music-review might not have been fact: the chamber-music room of the Erewan now sports a quite new Yamaha grand. The hotel is dated, but spacious—and expensive.

Through a curious set of circumstances, I have recovered the pawn-ticket for my camera, so on the way out tomorrow (today being Sunday) I will pick it up—’twill cost me 70 baht ($3.50). The watch fell into the hands of a thoroughly detestable expatriate american Negro “fence” by the name of Tony Rocca. I’m sure I could buy it back, but I shan’t do so. With american examples like this character around, Thai attitudes are perhaps a bit more understandable—though no less reprehensible.

At all events, I leave Bangkok tomorrow—hopefully forever—thereby perhaps missing a letter form Todd, but it will probably be returned. Since this letter has already developed into 7 pages, I shall mail it tomorrow as I pass the RR Station.

Love to all, of course,
Bruce

BACKSTORY: I was surprised to find the two thieves where I had met them initially—Lumpini Park—and found them seemingly contrite. They admitted stealing the camera and using up the film taking photos of themselves; the film was being developed. They also agreed to take me to the man who had purchased the watch from them. I was able to find a policeman willing to accompany us. But Tony Rocco was a smooth operator, and what with the language barrier, the policemen was no help: what he wanted was a pay-off, and what Rocco wanted was for me to buy back my own watch! By this time I was disgusted with all the players, and unwilling to part with any more money, so I dropped the matter. But the boys had given me the pawn-ticket for the camera, so I was able to retrieve it. Lumpini Park was—and I believe remains—the place for “trade” in Bangkok, much of it rough.

By the way: before leaving BK, I went for one last ride on the old streetcars: I waited in vain, and read in the paper that night that the day before had been their last. There was quite a ceremony, all of which I missed. Damn! Anyone who doubts Bangkok once had streetcars can learn more here.

Bangrak Museum: Street-Car

Coming up: I head south, and find wonderful steam locomotives!

NEXT

June 17, 2009

Before continuing, I want to remind my readers (if any) of the name of this blog: “MYOB”, which stands for “Mind Your Own Business!”  Nowhere was this exhortation driven home to me more forcefully than in VietNam!

Saigon 1968 Street Scene

CONTINUING WITH LETTERS FROM VIETNAM

Looking back over these letters written 41 years ago, I am struck by my belief that we were safe in VietNam. In part, this was deliberate, trying to keep family from worrying about me. But it was also because I had CA’s council, and he knew far more about the country than I. For example, our compound on Phan-than-Gian street was large, and the hotel portion was behind a big old mansion: the hotel could not be seen from the street at all. The VC, CA said, weren’t looking for us in any case, and probably did not even know we were there.  Additionally, directly behind us was a garrison of Korean soldiers.

In addition to Americans, there were in VietNam soldiers from Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, and Filipinos who were non-combatants working mostly in hospitals. Of these, the Viet Cong  feared the Koreans most  because they had a policy of never taking prisoners: they ruthlessly shot anything that moved when on patrol. They rarely went on patrol, however, and spent most of their time running the bars and brothels in Saigon. They also controlled the PX, which meant they had first dibs on anything that came into the country destined for anyone who had access to the PX (which was almost everyone except the Vietnamese). CA explained that the VC would not even consider taking on the Koreans bivouacked behind us.

It is also worth noting that, having arrived on a Saturday, some of us got to our duty-stations on Sunday the 28th, others on Monday the 29th for initial briefing. I got to Long Binh on the 30th. But there were rumors that “something was up”, though no one had the faintest notion of the scale of of the offensive, which began officially on the 30th, the first day of the lunar new year. It was recognized that zillions of fire-crackers going off would make fine cover for gun-shots, so we were requested to stay put “until Tet was over”.

Another thing to mention by way of background is that folks at home probably had more up-to-date information on what was happening than we did — we who were right in the thick of it! Locally, all there was in english was Armed Forces Radio, and they told only what the brass and local government wanted told. Most of the time they played pop music, which seemed quite inappropriate. Once mail began to flow, I got clippings from my folks, weeks out of date, which described things I’d had no inkling of as they played out around me.

So, here goes with the next letter: unable to send it out, I simply continued it from day to day as events unfolded.

Tuesday, 30 January 1968
1st day, year of the monkey

Dear folks,

By the time you receive this letter, you’ll all have heard a lot of rumors about what is happening here in Saigon, Unfortunately, as of this writing, I can’t fill you in too much. We are under an unofficial curfew. Today in Saigon two american civilians were killed—under what circumstances we don’t know. Additionally, during a heavy attack on Qui Nhon, two PA&E employees were also killed, although they were—for unknown reasons—quite far from their installation.

As you know, the “truce” was officially ended this morning. For reasons known only to themselves, the VC launched numerous attacks on VN installations today; as I write I can hear distant heavy artillery, even above the incredibly numerous fire-crackers that are an integral part of the Tet celebration.

This Tet business makes our “safe and sane” fireworks into a laughing stock. So many fireworks have already been set off that the streets are literally deep in the red paper remains. I saw, for instance, whole packages of firecrackers strung together from the top of a three-story building down to the ground, waiting to be set off at the bottom. Each package is about 50 of the little crackers we’re accustomed to, and there must have been about 50 of these packages strung together!! There are also available fire-crackers about 3 inches long and an inch wide that pack quite a wallop—to say nothing of rockets, sparklers, etc. There may be a few evil people left after all this, but certainly no evil spirits!! Tet lasts until next Thursday night, so there are two more nights of this “siege” (which lasts far into the night) for us. Very few of the populace work during this period, so everything really slows down. We have no idea what other difficulties the next few days will hold . . .

I visited the site of my assignment today—Long Binh. PA&E installed some while back a “water laboratory” on the Long Binh post. Apparently, through mismanagement & other circumstances, it has been largely unable to perform any useful function. My job—presumably — will be to get it under way again. The “presumably” is in there because there are some political overtones in the situation that may come into play. This remains to be seen. . .

The next few days will be spent in final processing at the PA&E CMO [Contract Management Office] at Tan Son Nhut; following the completion of Tet, I’ll be able (on Sunday) to locate quarters which will be in Saigon, there being none on the base, which is OK because it is a pretty bleak place. It is, incidentally, an 85,000 acre installation, so you can imagine the size and complexity of it. The complexity of the administration of it staggers the mind, and the paperwork involved is overwhelming!! I’ve already filled out so much paperwork it would probably stretch from here to Long Binh (laid end to end), a distance of about 22km (12 miles, give or take).

Having re-read this epistle so far, I think I may have accidently given rise to some fear for my security. Please don’t be alarmed. The situation is very far from normal in any respect: the Tet celebration has no equivalent at home. During all this carrying-on the town is over-run by “white mice” (the local euphemism for Saigon local police; a very slightly derogatory allusion both to their diminutive stature and their “colorful” uniform). VC infiltrators generally are not aiming at us civilians, but the fire-crackers bit already described serves as excellent cover for sniping, in which innocent people may become involved if they place themselves in a position to become so: I shan’t do so.

Saigon is essentially regarded as a town under siege. The perimeter is lit with flares all night long, and everything is heavily patrolled, both by white mice as described, by VN security police, by US MPs, and others. Essentially, trouble comes only to those who go looking for it—and of course, there are some people so inclined.

Of course, some very well publicized incidents have occurred, and some more are bound to before all this comes to some sort of conclusion. From my present quarters I can see the burned out hulk of a hotel allegedly set afire by the VC; the ammo dump at Long Binh has been blown up twice (no injuries); the Brinks BOQ has been bombed; the town itself has been shelled from time to time. But still, the odds on my surviving for several years here are very excellent—especially as I am one given to the use of good common sense to a greater degree than many of the expatriates here. Furthermore, I’ve been very fortunate to be billeted so far with a gent who has spent a previous TD [Tour of Duty] of 4.5 years here—and I’ve been able to learn a great deal of the “ropes” through him. My personal safety on Saigon streets—when I do venture out—is virtually assured. Please don’t worry—I don’t!!

So, that’s the news from the “Paris of the Orient” right now —

Love to all,
Bruce

Note my reference to “surviving several years” in Saigon. American civilians working for PA&E (and other contractors) were generally on eighteen-month contracts, largely because in those days Americans who stayed out of the country for that length of time owed no income tax on their earnings. After my run-in with the IRS, the idea of avoiding taxes for several years was attractive, and at this point I was ready to re-up for a second stint if it became possible.

The letter continues:

Next day, Wednesday, 31 January 1968

Continued

Well—there’s nothing like being right in the middle of the action! The irony is that we know as little as anyone as to just what is actually going on. The first reports this morning on the storming of the [American] Embassy reported that it was taken by the VC and that it was re-taken by paratroopers landed on the roof who worked their way down floor by floor. Later reports conflict this, and say only that the VC held the compound for a while, but did not enter the building.

After completing last night’s letter I went to bed but slept only fitfully. I heard much of the distant action as well as some closer by. Tan Son Nhut AFB was temporarily entered by the VC, and sustained slight damage. Since PA&E’s CMO [Contract Management Office] is there, we might normally have been on hand. Today, we’ve been confined to quarters, however—there is no one at the CMO, and for all we know, there may not even be one left!!

Since we cannot venture out of our hotel, I couldn’t mail last night’s letter, & so decided to add to it instead.

Enemy positions about a mile from our hotel were strafed, rocketed and mortared this afternoon, setting off quite a fire. At least four other fires could be seen from here [by going up on the roof of the hotel]. The air is alive with US helicopters, keeping their eye on what little movement of the population has been allowed, and occasional gun-fire and mortar rounds can be heard from the general down-town Saigon area. Things are relatively quiet now, but I suspect tonight will be pretty active—and is likely to continue through Thursday night, when Tet ends. After that is anybody’s guess, but the feeling seems to be that things will quiet down again & the siege will lift. Just how soon we can return to our processing and assignments also remains to be seen.

9:30 PM

The above was written about 2:00 PM. Since then, our street has been completely cordoned off and all traffic has stopped. About an hour ago there were some shots fired, apparently because someone who moved failed to halt on demand.

Meanwhile, Tan Son Nhut AFB has been receiving heavy mortar fire from enemy emplacements in the Delta, and the New Port facilities, which were afire most of the afternoon, have been re-kindled. Long Binh is under siege, I’m told, but I cannot confirm this.

11:00 PM

Things are a little quieter; the heavy offensive against Tan Son Nhut appears to have been repulsed, but since no planes are going in or out, we assume the runway has been damaged heavily. Except for a helicopter that crashed on top of a nearby building earlier (no apparent casualties) we’ve observed no loss of planes.

Going to bed now with hopes of sleeping – more tomorrow.

Love,

Bruce

All 16 of us were holed up in the Loc Building, two to a room. I was bunked with CA, whose familiarity with the country I found most useful, even comforting. I was ready to “go with the flow”, as he recommended. Others in our group, despite receiving the same council from CA (we all ate dinner together) had different reactions, running the gamut from “ho hum” to “what the fuck is going on?” to “get us outa here!” I was the youngest of the group, there were several in their mid thirties, several approaching mid forties, and CA was the oldest, well past 55. Several chaps were attempting to phone the CMO almost every half hour, but there was no response. It was clear that some of the guys were afraid, but unwilling to show it.

Throughout these days, the hotel staff managed to feed us well and bring in a constant supply of Ba-mui-Ba beer. Beer “33″. It was horrible stuff, and I could not stomach it (not being much a beer drinker anyway). But regular drinkers managed to swill it down, with predictable results. Most of  our group, except CA and myself, were regular drinkers.

We discovered before too long that our group had been extremely lucky to have been billeted in the Loc Building: ordinarily, PA&E used the Tourist Hotel, right down town, which was a pretty awful place by then. It seems every war we start involves taking over at least one local hotel for purposes of housing Americans coming and going, for whatever reason. Travelers housed in-coming and out-going PA&E personnel, foreign correspondents and many others. More about the Travelers as my tale unfolds.

Again, unable to get mail out, I continued the letter begun on the 30th:

Next AM, Thursday 1 February, 1100 hrs

Remainder of the night was relatively quiet. This AM Pres. Thieu had declared Martial Law, and we are still confined to quarters. Some traffic was allowed past our hotel for a while, & much of it was carrying D & W (dead and wounded) from the area to the west [Cho-Lon] where we observed heavy strafing and rocket attacks. We will never know the extent of the casualties, but they obviously had to be heavy.

The 11:00 am news carried the first reports of last night’s heavy action we observed on the outskirts of town, but only sketchy descriptions. Tet ends officially at midnight tonight, and we hope things will calm don thereafter—there’s no guarantee of this, of course.

There’s a lot of wild speculation about the meaning behind the widespread coordinated attacks by the VC at this particular time. For one thing, it is almost a tradition that a lot of terrorist activity takes place during Tet, because it affords such excellent cover for it. Privately, I’m inclined to feel that the intensity of this year’s offensive is Ho’s [Ho Chi Minh] answer to our refusal to halt bombing raids in the North. The truth may never be known.

So here we sit, awaiting orders from the PA&E management on what happens next. The second-in-command side-kick to the Contract Manager lives here in the same building, so we’ll doubtless get the word as soon as anyone. Although there is no official reason why we can’t leave, there are at least a couple of dozen trigger-happy guards in the street—we still hear occasional weapons fire there (mostly warning shots)—who are a very strong deterrent, so far as I am concerned!! More later . . .

4:00 PM

You may—or may not—hear it referred to as “The siege of Saigon”, but that’s just what it is. An estimated 2000 VC are within the city, and no one knows how many outside it. Streets have been completely cleared all day except for mil. personnel & ambulances. From our particular vantage point (not a very good one) we can hear—but never see—street skirmishes in all directions. Several major fires erupted, one of which may have been the main PX—as of now we really don’t know. Six BOQs [Bachelor Officers Quarters] have been assaulted in one way or another; 2 VN police precinct stations last night were attacked.

Strangely, today has been quieter, though, than yesterday. The ARVN has been active today, with the “Free World Forces” (i.e., U.S.) very lightly deployed. This is certain to change with nightfall, as our more sophisticated equipment will take over, and I rather imagine tonight will be quite a show.   More later . . .

Next AM – February 2, Friday

The show I expected (locally) didn’t come off. The night was fairly quiet, with a heavy curfew enforced. We had ARVN soldiers in the building, watching for snipers from the roof-tops. A few mortar rounds fell fairly close (a couple of miles) and occasional street skirmishes were heard all night. The curfew applying to us is still in effect; it might be lifted at noon, but we doubt it.

I hope you aren’t too worried about me—except for boredom, there are no real threats here. I can’t get any mail out, so there’s no way to reassure you except to chronicle these events—dull as they are, really—and get this to a PO as soon as the curfew is lifted. The package I mailed ahead is waiting for me, along with any letters that may have gotten through—assuming that CMO HQ is still there!! We simply have NO news.

The local radio station—AFVN—is heavily censored by the local government. As soon as I can, I will get a short-wave set which will pick up VOA [Voice of America] from Manila, which gives much better coverage. But no one in the building has an all-wave set, so we sit here right in the thick of it with practically no idea of what is actually happening. By now, you at home probably know more about it than we do! Well—the orient has its own way of doing things!! More later…

10:30 AM

A “banana chopper” came by this AM to take away the helicopter that crashed day-before-yesterday on the building a few blocks away. It was a typical “ooops!” operation however. Instead of making a direct lift-off upwards, they dragged it off a bit sideways. Unfortunately, a broken-off  tail section was attached by a secondary sling, and that caught on the railing of the building that had fouled up the ‘copter in the first place; the result was they lost the whole thing down on to whatever was below. This may have been a street, but was probably low buildings. All we saw was a cloud of dust . . .

Not a half-hour later, two VC snipers were captured in the street in front of us after quite a bit of gun-play. There are now ARVN soldiers and white mice stationed atop our building and many others nearby. “How about that?” as Snubs would say. More later . . .

6:30 PM

A major pitched-battle 2 long blocks westward of us routed & killed quite a number of VC this afternoon, & touched off a fire that consumed a number of houses. Air action has been very limited, and sniper activity since this morning in our area is essentially non existent.

We have been entirely confined since Tuesday afternoon. Prior to that time, I’d made only two or three trips away from here—and hence have seen very little. Went to the McCarthy BOQ twice for meals—it’s right down town and is one which has since been attacked by VC.

Got over to the 5 Oceans BOQ [with CA] once for an excellent steak dinner; it has also seen some action since then. When I was out, before the 24 hr curfew was clamped on, there was less of an “armed camp” atmosphere than there is now. But all the streets are littered with concertina-wire now, and heavily armed ARVN and white mice are literally everywhere.

Amidst all this, Bougainvillea blooms in profusion, and in a variety of shades I’ve never seen: many are orange, rather than the brilliant magenta we usually see at home. Some sort of tropical tree with very lovely 5-petaled flowers is also to be found everywhere, and potted “mums” in all shades line every drive and walkway in the more prosperous sections of town.

I’ve had to stay indoors more today than yesterday because of a bit of facial sunburn I got then, which gets uncomfortable whenever sun befalls it again. But the weather has really been fine, and such a welcome change. Well, more tomorrow unless we can get to a PO tomorrow, which seems unlikely.

This letter was continued over several more days, and it will appear here on future pages. In the meantime, here are a few snapshots taken in Saigon soon after we managed to get “out and about”: I have no pictures taken during the Tet Offensive, since we were confined to barracks as it were.

Police confiscate a seller’s cart for some infraction (probably selling black-market items)

Saigon Police Load Confiscated Street Vendor’s Cart

A typical scene at the Saigon port. No deep-water vessels could get near, so everything came ashore in lighters.

Pandemonium at the Port. No doubt the folks there knew what was going on, but the general appearance was one of confusion.

Vegetable Sellers on the Street in Saigon.

More of the Tet Offensive and the part I played in it (which was nothing) will follow.

PeeYes: Anyone wondering about this line: “How about that?” as Snubs would say” in my letter can write me at [email protected] for an explanation.

NEXT

The red arrow points to Sydney, Australia

MELBOURNE

As previously described, I arrived in Sydney after flying many hours through several time zones. Phone calls to friends in Melbourne were successful, so I hopped on a TAA flight to Melbourne, arriving there in the late afternoon. I was dead on my feet, so quickly found a hotel and went to bed. It was Saturday night. I awoke in the wee hours of Sunday, ravenously hungry, to find that on Sunday Melbourne does not wake up. There was nothing to eat at the hotel (no room service, not even a “Mr. Coffee” (it had not been invented yet) in the room. I slept fitfully and finally got up and out around ten: there wasn’t a soul stirring anywhere, everything was closed. I wandered around aimlessly, but suddenly heard the unmistakable rumble of a street-car. Following the sound, I spotted a lovely MMTB “M” and decided to take a ride—I didn’t care where it went. Now, I don’t remember where it went, except that somewhere along the way I spotted a cafe that was open and I managed to get some food.

The red arrow points to Melbourne

The luggage tag on my bag full of dirty clothes

Style “M” tram crossing the main drag

MTB trams used a zone system

My friends picked me up at my hotel that afternoon and we went to their home in the outskirts: we used the wonderful interurban system, and while at Flinders Station I spotted some wonderful old red cars. I simply had to ride in these the next day, and wound up at St. Kilda Beach.

Great old electric train-sets still running

Soon to be retired, however.

Another panorama shot, repaired

St. Kilda Beach, Melbourne

To say that I was underwhelmed by Melbourne is an overstatement, and the prospect of working there for any length of time really did not appeal. In particular, the lack of ethnic diversity struck me forcibly, since I had just spent over 10 months in and around SEA. Melbourne was distressingly “white”. But my friends felt they really needed my expertise on the Bay Project, so they wined-and dined me, took me to a game preserve to meet some unusual critters, and did their best to make me feel at home. But it didn’t work, and after just a few days I was anxious to move on. The itinerary I planned called for stops in New Caledonia, Fiji, Tahiti, American Samoa, Western Samoa and Hawaii, arriving back in the states in time for Christmas.

I returned to Sydney, once again simply transiting and changing planes. Before long, I was in Noumea, Capital city of New Caledonia.

Transport to TAA

Off to New Caledonia

Noumea, 4 December 1968

Dear all~
Well, after spending nearly 11 months in South-East Asia, I find I am experiencing “withdrawal symptoms”, or perhaps one could say I an SEA-sick. In any event, I find I miss the calm and ingenuousness of the people [there].

Without quite realizing it ’till I got there, I wound up in Melbourne as far south of the equator as San Francisco is north of it (well below the Tropic of Capricorn even), so the weather was much the same as SF right now, except that summer is approaching in MB while winter lies ahead for SF. Through the good offices of Don & Marian, we went on Sunday to Healesville Animal Preserve, which is an elaborate sort of zoo with at least as many beautiful beasts on the outside of the cages as on the inside. Because of good weather, the place was crowded with people, and the kangaroos were so sated with hand-outs all they could do was lie in the sun & let the children maul them! Emus wander about the place in numbers. A nice feature of the place is its huge walk-through bird-cages where you are inside the cages with the birds. Got to see a lot of animals I’d never seen before, and they even have a platypus on display—quite difficult to achieve because the platypus is extremely sensitive to humans—and a lyre-bird pair and chick, though my only view of the he-lyre-bird was at a great distance as these birds are even more shy than the platypus.

I don’t remember what this was

Unusual beasts: echidnas

There’s a Koala in that tree

A Wallaby. Looks like a good pet

On Monday (2nd Dec) Don & I conferred with various departments of the MMBW (Melbourne & Metropolitan Board of Works) on aspects of the Environmental Study of Port Phillip Bay, to which I would be assigned if I decide to return to do so. Although Australia is about the last place on my list of choices to work, a temporary assignment of 6 to 8 months might not be too bad (starting in January the weather gets very warm). Melbourne itself is a huge metropolis—actually, it is nearly all suburbs—with some good points: the architecture is very victorian, they have a good street-railway and an excellent (but ancient!) interurban train system. The cost of living is surprisingly low, roads are excellent, and there are lots of interesting places to go in the interior: gold-rush towns, etc., etc. But the population is so bloody white and all the customs so british! Movies, including those shown on TV, get a censorship-board rating (inexplicably, “Star” gets an “AO”=Adults Only rating!) which (on TV) is superimposed over the title at the beginning so one can hustle the kiddies off to bed before settling down to an evening of surreptitious thrills. Except for a few (visiting) Asians, people of color are rigidly excluded from Australia, so one has to get used to seeing the uniformly sickly pallor typical of the english (“slug” as Stephen Potter would say). As for my working for the MMBW, they seem quite agreeable, and I did file an application, but the decision awaits further investigation of alternatives by me, and frankly I hope some better alternative presents itself!

Luggage tag to Noumea

Tuesday morning I took a TAA flight to Sydney, where rains have extinguished most of the brush-fires, and on to Noumea. New Caledonia is a curious island, being just a cigar-shaped mountain-range about 250 miles N-S and +/- 30 mi E-W. The west coast is quite un-tropical and very dry; the predominate tree is a variety of eucalyptus, which burns well—there are several fires burning here, too—in fact one just up the little hill behind my hotel which broke out a few moments ago. The east coast, where all the rain falls, is said to be typically tropical, and I hope to go over there tomorrow. It is colorful here, though—frangipani, and some sort of flowering tree [Poinciana] is brilliant orange here, and bougainvillea are everywhere and very beautiful. The town shuts down from 11:15 to around 3 PM. I will take in the aquarium this afternoon, and I swam at Anse Vata [beach] this morning. Just around Noumea alone there are a dozen or so good beaches, and of course there’s 500-600 miles of shoreline all dotted with them. Noumea “dies” completely on weekends, though; nothing is open. So Friday morning I depart for Fiji where I hope the same is not true. I hear that Tahiti is so commercialized now it is hardly any fun—so I may decide to go to Tonga instead,and fly home direct from Samoa. Or I may go to both places for briefer stays. Don’t know yet—will wait and see what I learn in Fiji.

The red arrow points to Noumea on New Caledonia

[Later]

The aquarium is, as all the pamphlets say, small: but oh, my what gorgeous things they have! The fish, and more especially all the other animals they have on display (corals, sponges, anemones and so on) are just not to be believed. The owners and developers of the aquarium (it is privately owned) discovered some years ago the “luminescent” (i.e., fluorescent) corals that glow under UV light, and have what is claimed to be the only display of them in the world. They glow only if they are alive, so the dozen or so tanks they have devoted to these are really fascinating, and unimaginably beautiful.

Typical tank in the Aquarium in Noumea

Australia, has, incidentally “ATV”, a single government-run non-commercial station. On it [while in Melbourne] I saw an excellent documentary called, appropriately enough, “Toward Tomorrow”: it is about C-B-R warfare, and shows in actual photos how far along we and particularly England are with this charming branch of study. Man’s capacity for evil may be exceeded only by his lack of judgement; in any case, the research in this area is a multi-million dollar investment already (cf. previous letters, this topic) as the movie more than adequately shows. Shown also is the lack of judgement, so evident in many of the interviews with people involved in the work. The american viewpoint is lengthily discussed by some Major-General whose appearance (and most of his pronouncements) is almost imbecilic. While one or two of the workers lament their involvement in what is obviously an offensive job, none appear to have enough strength of conviction to get out and find a less offensive job; one wonders what fascination compels them to remain? The most pathetic to me was one “scientist” whose only excuse was that he felt the “quality” of the work being done (in england) was “very high”. The fact remains that biological warfare a) is already in use (in VN and apparently in Yemen); b) is capable of mass demolition of humanity that makes Hitler’s pogroms look like child’s play; and c) is contemplated by military authorities with no less enthusiasm than other currently “conventional” methods of destroying adversaries. KQED might get hold of this film—I hope—but if you get to see it, take tranquilizers first. It is one of the most unpleasant things I’ve seen in years.

05 December 1968

Alas, the east coast will have to wait—the local transportation is not good enough to make a one-day return trip to “the other side”. Another time, perhaps. Instead, I shall take a boat ride this afternoon to the 100 year-old light house, on an island off-shore a ways, and see what else there might be to do there. I depart for Fiji at 7:15 AM (!!) tomorrow.

I took a few photos in Noumea, but in the main I was not impressed with the place.

Noumea was a deep-water port

Anse Vata beach near Noumea

There was a fire on the hill behind my hotel

Noumea was nothing if not colorful!

The flame trees were spectacular

My letter continues on the next page, as I move on to Fiji.

NEXT

I returned from Australia mid-1970, somewhat foot-loose. I bought a single-cylinder BMW “thumper” to get around on, and did some odd jobs for friends to earn a few pennies. As summer approached, my brother Todd asked me to look after his studio in the Sierra foothills while he scoped out prospects for summer art sales in Alaska. I spent the summer months in Sutter Creek; where Melbourne had been dull, SC was utterly dead (at least for a young gay guy like me). I often drove all the way down to West Sacramento, where there was a sort of tubs I thought might provide some relief, but I don’t recall ever actually finding a trick there.

To keep busy, I undertook some repairs on the facade of my brother’s little shop. One day as I worked at this a tall, lanky blond youngster wandered along looking for work. I hired him to assist, but could not resist putting the make on him during lunch. Typically of my luck, he said he wasn’t interested, and at the end of the day’s work, I paid him off and he disappeared.

The very next morning I was seated at the little desk in the shop when a police car drove up and parked in front of the shop. A uniformed officer got out of the car and came into the shop:

“Are you Mr. Bramson?” he asked.

Of course my mind ran wild: that blond kid must have blabbed, and now I’m in deeeep do-do!

“That’s me.”

“Your friend Ronnie in San Francisco called and asked us to give you a message — he’s forgotten your telephone number. He’d like you to give him a call.” The officer departed, and I heaved a great sigh of relief! The blond must have just been “passing through” — I never saw him again.

I PUT DOWN ROOTS

Late that summer I rode my little thumper down to San Francisco intent on staying with friends and spending a few nights at the tubs. By chance, I drove by the old house my Ex and I had owned, and noticed it was for sale. Now, I had always loved that house: that it held some unpleasant memories was not it’s fault, and I thought if I bought it by myself for myself, I could expunge the bad memories and have a nice hobby and a roof over my head as well.

Built in 1889

However, I had very little money and no job, so buying a house seemed out of the question. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized I wanted that house. I called the realtor, learned the price and terms and explained that I “had no money and no job, but I’ll get back to you.” I then called my old employer: did they have a job for me? “Can you start Tuesday?” was the response. Then I called my brothers, parents, and friends: before long I had commitments sufficient for a down-payment, so I called the realtor back. “I now have a job, I have some money, so I’m ready to make an offer.”

The long and short of it is that after some negotiations, my offer was accepted, based on giving the owners 90 days to vacate.

Meanwhile, through friends, I happened to meet the fellow who had been my immediate predecessor in my Ex’s life—and we found we had much in common. Learning that Johnnie had nearly driven Ted insane came as no surprise: he drove me nuts as well. So I moved into Ted’s house temporarily, until “The Mansion” was cleared out and I could reside in it.

My Ex, you may recall, had made arrangements to sell the house without telling me, so it was imperative that he get a quit-claim for my portion of it. This he got at knife-point, and the rest is history. Since 1964 the house had been occupied by a religious cult that took guys off the drug trip and put them on the God trip. (Out of the frying pan into the fire as far as I’m concerned.) Nevertheless, I knew from a member of the Board of Directors that the building had not been severely trashed, although there were 53 people living in it. This is how I knew they would not be able to vacate in the usual 30 days. Since I was in no hurry, I applied myself to my job again, built up my bank account, and waited.

The house was still not vacant at 90 days, so I informed the occupants they would have to pay rent; they did so for two more months before, finally, in May of 1971, the deal closed and I took possession of the building in which I still reside. I’m still renovating it, though it is in much better shape now than I am!

With all the current flap about toxic mortgages, I find it interesting that I got the house with just over 10% down. But the interest rate on the first mortgage was 18.5%, and on the second mortgage 25%! For the first year I occupied the house, I watched my equity “build” at literally pennies per month!

My house has been a very important part of my life for almost 40 years. I have zillions of photos showing the many renovations that have taken place over the years. I’ll try not to bore my readers with too many of these, focusing instead on other aspects of my life – my travels to distant places and so forth.

40 guys lived here!

There were several projects over the years of considerable magnitude. The first was to replace the roof, which leaked badly. This occurred in 1975, when a second re-finance brought forth the necessary funds. The most expensive part of the job was removal of the old roof, consisting of 4 and in some spots 5 layers of “modern” material over the original wood shingles. To save money, I did the removal myself, aided by a gaggle of Ted’s students. Ultimately, we removed and disposed of 9.5 tons of old roof! Among the interesting findings were burned portions of the spaced sheathing on the north slope of the roof: the 1906 fire burned itself out just half a block away, but clearly owners of my house had managed to put out “hot spots” and saved the Mansion from joining the thousands of others destroyed.

Another problem discovered was that the South stub-wall had shifted out of line rather noticeably, probably in the 1906 earthquake. I did not want to leave it so. When all the weight was off the roof, I used a 12-ton come-along to pull the wall back to plumb, assisted by jacks forcing the ridge-pole up. When all was aligned, two hefty membranes were added to lock the walls in place, and the rafters were further locked with tensioners that had not been installed previously.

Here’s a series of photos, from start to finish, of the first roof replacement during my tenure (it has now been done again):

Once a little area was cleared, the spaced sheathing acted as a ladder, and I could work comfortably. I always used a harness to prevent falling, however!

All the detritus was forced through the spaces onto the attic floor.

We rigged a block & tackle to an old fire-escape, and the trash was sent down to ground-level one garbage-can at a time.

At ground level the trash was put into a wheel-barrow and taken to the front of the house.

The junk was stuffed into an old hulk of a VW camper. In a day I could clear, and the guys could load, one camper-full.

Plywood sheathing was pulled up from below one sheet at at time and stacked in the attic. From there it was maneuvered into position on the roof and nailed down.

With weight off the roof, I used a come-along to pull the south stub-wall into place, assisted by jacks pushing up on the ridgepole.

There were other things to attend to, like repointing a chimney.

The 3/8″ plywood gave a better base than the spaced sheathing for the new roof of composition glass, tar and stone

Here I’m adding a skylight, without which the attic is rather dark.

After all the preparation was done, the professionals moved in! Here is their A-frame used to haul up bundles of roofing material.

All the new material was hauled up and distributed to workers.

It was a long way down to the street!

Growl!  Musta been a tough day up on da roof.

It was one of the filthiest jobs I ever did!

It took me six weeks to clear the old roof, install the new plywood, and do most of the flashing. It then took the professionals less than a week to install the new 25-year roof. It actually lasted far beyond its guarantee, and never leaked. Nevertheless, in 2008 this roof was removed down to the plywood, and a new 40-year roof was installed. This time I let others do the whole job!

Another big project will be described here soon.

NEXT

Sri Lanka had some of the prettiest paper money I encountered on my travels. Somehow, I was able to get decent copies of most of the bills then in circulation. Images enlarge if clicked.

RpSriLanka1000

RpSriLanka500

RpSriLanka100

RpSriLanka50

RpSriLanka20

RpSriLanka10

RpSriLanka5

There were some newer bills beginning to circulate: I did not get as many of them.

RpnewSriLanka50

RpnewSriLanka5

RpnewSriLanka2

Fascinating stuff!

My next page will cover a rather dull stretch of my life, but one which included a lot of work on my house. Stay tuned!

NEXT

BANGKOK to HUA HIN

The arrow indicates Hua HIn

7 October 1968

Dear all~

After tracking down the pawn-shop where my camera was lodged & getting it out of hock—sans the film that had been in it, which I had not begun to use—I departed Bangkok gratefully about 9:30 AM. Times will be approximate from here on out—no watch! Despite a hopelessly inaccurate map provided by Shell Oil Co, I managed to find my way. I’ll have to assume the highway was renumbered (from 5 to 4) after the map was made up. Breaking in the Honda held me down to 30 mph for the first 50 miles. and I was able to then pick up a little better speed as the day progressed. First stop was Nakorn Prathom (the english names for these towns are spelled differently on every map I’ve seen—yours probably are different, so use your imagination!), where I posted mail and viewed the positively immense Wat there. It’s a big stupa that gives the impression from a distance of being turned from a single block of marble. But of course it is not marble at all—it is brick like most of them, hollow, and has a covering of tiny tiles in the peculiar pink-orange shade of red marble. The effect is enhanced (at a distance) by large patches of grey which proved to be places where the tiles are falling off. But the thing is gigantic—easily 100 ft or more diameter at the base. The day was lovely, sunny & warm, and I pushed on through Petchaburi (or Rajaburi—same place) to Phetburi, which has a nice cluster of temples, Wats and stupas situated atop a small hill. The day continuing fine, I moved on—the road degenerating into a more enjoyable 2-lane sort reminiscent of Cambodia—& arrived at Hua  Hin about 4 o’clock; 253 km from BK.

Somewhere South of Bangkok

Now, Hua Hin is a delightful spot, situated on the east Thai coast (or western shore of the Gulf of Thailand). It has miles of white sand beaches, and is backed up by mountains—the end of the chain going up into Burma. The town is also right on the railroad, and the delightful chug of steam engines pervades my hotel room at times. There are a number of resort-type hotels, but of course I’m at a chinese hotel nearer the center of town. Poked about on the beach a while—will swim tomorrow—and watched trains and (alternately) lovely sunset behind the mountains. For a while it was possible to see a spectacular sun-set in one direction and an equally spectacular moon-rise over the water in the other direction. I got no rain today at all—the first such day for some while—although it was stormy close-by over the hills. And of course I am a bit reddish here and there from the sun, though not seriously burned. I remembered to “grease up” fairly early. Although the roads are good, they are dirty, and my shirt was black (from diesel smoke) in places when I got here. I washed it out first thing. Then me—I was black in spots too! Had a pleasant and cheap Thai-food dinner. Happily, I am seeing some smiling faces again, and the atmosphere is getting more rural.

Beach at Hua Hin

Recall I mentioned deterioration of the film which I carried for many weeks before having it developed. This photo is a good example. With about an hour of work, I can enhance it to look like this:

The Beach at Hua Hin, South Thailand, 1968

It looks as though I shall break down and take some pictures of Thailand after all, though I took none—and want none—of Bangkok. There is a nice steam-engine on display here, a 3-cylinder “Superheat” (brand) made in the USA ca. 1920. All the engines I’ve seen seem to be this type. What a delight to see them, and smell hot, wet oil—and burning wood—again.

3-Cylinder “Superheat” (brand) Made in the USA ca. 1920

The Thais maintained these engines wonderfully, even when they were retired and on display.

Between Phetburi and here one passes through an area where a lot of charcoal is made, in curious brick bee-hive-like charcoal ovens. The smell is unlike anything I’ve ever smelled, but is certainly agreeable. Along the beach there are countless small sand-crabs that apparently spend their whole lives digging holes in the sand; that which they displace they make into small balls, which gives whole stretches of the beach a curious “pebbly” appearance. And there are immense jelly-fish, which apparently are harmless, since many people fool with them.

Will probably slow down a bit now that I’m away from BK. The route seems to criss-cross the isthmus several times. My best guess is that I’ll stay, at least overnight if not longer, in Chumpon next, then Ranong or Kapoe, then Phuket (on an island and said to be very pretty). At Kra buri I will apparently be right across the river from Burma. Ranong of course is on the other shore of the Isthmus, but between Krabi and Songhla I will cross back over again through Sadao to Penang (also an island). By then of course I will be in Malaysia. But I rather imagine I shall take at least a week to get there, assuming the “natives are friendly”—or at least more hospitable than in BK. Honda is performing better, but has a whole new group of sounds to get used to. In BK I dismantled the seat, discarding all the springs in it (too stiff) and stuffed a whole foam-rubber pillow into it. Considerably more comfortable than formerly.

Have no address to advise in Singapore. Will probably cable as before. 30 for tonight—early to bed; if I stay here tomorrow it will have to be all day, since the next hop is a long one & will require an early start. But I think I’d better swim here where the weather is good—my experience in Sihanoukville being what it was!

Love to all~

Bruce

________________

Tuesday 8 October 1968

Arose as nearly as I can figure about 7:30 AM. After a leisurely breakfast, I drove around town (which didn’t take long as there is not much of it) a bit, then found a nice beach & went swimming & sunning for the better part of an hour. Couldn’t over-do is as most of me is still pretty unaccustomed to the tropical sun, which will burn very quickly. Poked around the RR station for a while & saw some nice engines. The RR has quite a lot of activity on it.

RSR Locomotive No. 882

A very big staple in the diet of all the countries I’ve visited is dried squid; catching & drying them is a big business here. Fresh from the water they are spread out on loosely-woven mats and these are put anywhere the direct sun will strike them. Drying doesn’t take long, but it is a very odoriferous process, as you can imagine.

Drying Squid in Hua Hin, 1968. Pee-yew!

In the afternoon I found a nice road going back into the mountains. Actually, it goes over the first saddle into quite a large valley, perhaps 2-300 feet above sea-level, & meanders around in this before suddenly ending in a cluster of foot-paths, right in the middle of a farm. It was stormy over the mountains further inland, and later the storm moved near town, though only light sprinkles of rain actually hit the town. I took the opportunity to do a bit of cleaning, tuning and checking of the Honda. I’d forgotten to check the spark-plug gaps before leaving BK, and was sure from the performance that they’d been set at the factory recommended 0.024″. For some reason on my machine this results in poor pick-up at wide throttle; re-setting the plugs to 0.020″ cures this nicely, so now I can be a little more sure of response when I twist the handle-grip. On the roads that lie ahead, this probably won’t be needed anyhow. Except for an annoying rattle inside (hence totally inaccessible) the right muffler, all is well. The rattle developed some while ago, & the only cure is a new muffler, which is hardly necessary. I can put up with the rattle, knowing it is not a serious problem. Depart early tomorrow for Chumpon—unless something interesting deters me; — about 267 km distant. Only a little farther than the BK-Hua Hin stretch, but poorer roads (thank goodness—they’re much more fun) so a bit slower going I expect.

Love to all~

Bruce

Next leg of trip: Chumpon. Lots of steam!

NEXT

I joined a team in Alexandria that was trying to figure out what to do to improve the quantity and quality of drinking water in Alexandria. We had offices and a staff-house in these two large old mansions located in the part of Alex known as Sidi Bishr.

I understand these buildings have been razed and replaced with high-rise apartment blocks. No wonder: they fronted directly on the Cornishe, and the Mediterranean Sea:

In those days (and I have no reason to think it has changed), Alexandria was almost deserted during the winter months, when the weather could indeed be rather raw as it blew in directly from the Med. In the summertime, however, the city became home to millions of Cairenes who came to Alex to escape the summer heat of Cairo. Then, the beach might look more like this:

The water along the beach was frequently polluted by sewage dumped directly, so swimming was not a very safe thing to do, and I rarely did it. You cannot see in pictures like this that women, if they came to the beach at all, did little more than wade fully dressed: swimming as such was reserved for the men. I found it amusing that guys wore bathing suits, usually quite revealing speedos, so long as they were ON the beach, but to go inland only so far as to buy a drink or ice-cream, they would dress first. Those dressing-rooms were often good places to catch guys changing.

Note the blue bus in the first photo: this is one of a fleet given to Alexandria by USAID:  the busses were built in the USA, and were so shoddy that within a few months of arrival, all were finished. The APTA (Alexandria Passenger Transit Authority) had sent operatives to the US factory to explain the conditions of use the busses would be subjected to, but when these guys were ignored, they came home disgusted. What no one in the US could comprehend was that busses in Alex routinely ran at 200% capacity on poorly maintained streets and roads. So, the first time one of these went over a bump with 70 people hanging on the over-head hand-rails, (which had been pop-riveted in place), the rails pulled loose and were chucked out. The doors fell off soon thereafter. These were only slightly glorified school-busses (the company that built them had never built anything else). All this gave the US a major black-eye, and APTA went back to buying busses from France, as they had done for years.

Alexandria had a few antiquities left. It was the site of the famous Alexandria Library, nothing recognizable of which remained.

Alexandria did have a large fleet of derelict street-cars, most of them still running (more or less). Many had been purchased in Belgium. I rode them endlessly, as they were a real hoot!

A train of three ex-Belgium trams MUed

There were also PCC cars (ex-Toronto, Canada) which ran both singly and in trains of three

Here’s another three-car trainset ex-Belgium, the last car of which is a double-decker

There were also old narrow LRVs from Belgium, which ran around the very old part of Alexandria, seen here at Orabi Square

There was not a lot of gay sex going on in Alexandria. I eventually connected with a couple of guys from Luxor. They were pretty tight, but whether they were lovers as we would know the term I never was quite sure. But I enjoyed them both quite often. Ahmed’s friend was one of the prettiest Egyptians I met: for the most part, I was not particular taken with Egyptian men, who tended to treat me as they would a woman, quite brutally.

That’s me with my cat, Soda (which means “black” in Arabic) and Ahmed.

Ahmed’s friend was a real charmer! He knew how to dress to show off his tight bod.

Alexandria had also taken delivery of some brand new Japanese trainsets. These were fitted with pantographs, but the overhead system had not yet been properly fitted for them. When these cars rocked far enough to one side (on the uneven rails) a pantograph could swing past the hot-wire and entangle the hangers, with predictable results: damage and delays. I took the series of pictures below from the verandah of my apartment, and managed to snap photos when the inevitable happened: they got something mixed up with the 600-Volt line, with spectacular results!

As you can see, the “fireworks” drew quite a crowd!

Sooner or later the line-car and crew had to be called out to repair the damage:

Rebuilt from an old Belgian tram.

Then, early one morning, an early out-bound passenger tram collided with the line-car!

Trying to re-rail the line-car. Note caved-in front of car behind

In this old B&W photo, I am one of the “Four Musketeers”. Alas, only two of us are still alive.

The Four Musketeers

There you have a bit of life in Alexandria. Here’s another: this image has been seen all over the world, but I actually saw this happen many times!

Slightly overloaded!

I’ll describe some of my trips around Egypt in future pages.

NEXT

The arrow points to the island of Penang

Sunday, 20 October 1968

Checked out a little history today. The Japanese bombed Penang and Kuala Lumpur for 3 days early in 1940, after which the country capitulated & was occupied for 4 years until liberated by the Commonwealth. That explains the fortifications. And I haven’t left Buddhism behind—it’s just changed from Indian-style (more or less) to Chinese, so the temples look a lot different. Visited the “Pagoda of a Million Buddhas” today, & while it was a bit “touristy”, rather interesting. But the spectacle was the Funicular railway up Penang Hill, which ascends 2200 feet in 2 stages; from the cars and the top of the hill fantastic views are to be seen, & very pretty walks. There’s hotels and other facilities, all the material for which was either taken up on the railroad or dropped by Helicopter (in modern times), there being no auto road at all. Trails abound, of course, & one can take the railway up & hike 8 miles down to Waterfall Gardens, another lovely spot near town. The rail was crowded today, but later in the week I’ll go up once more, after I get some film for the camera; shops are closed today (Sunday) & tomorrow (New Year Holiday) so it will be Tuesday or Wednesday.

Assessing my accounts the other night, I find that, not counting the photo work and the Honda repairs, 10 days in Bangkok cost me just a bit under $200.00; whereas I had exactly $50.00 worth of Bahts when I left BK, which carried me through the whole 10 days traveling to W. Malaysia. You see why I say Bangkok was expensive!!

This letter will be delayed a couple of days by the holiday—sorry about that!

Picked up the Penang Sunday Gazette tonight: Jackie & Aristotle? No doubt she’s lonely, but surely… oh well, everyone else has abandoned the JFK image and ideals, why shouldn’t she?

This may be the cave of 1000 Buddhas

But then again, it may not. If anyone recognizes it, let me know where it is. At this point all I know is, I went there!

Monday 21 October 1968

Another lazy day. Planned to go swimming, but the north beaches were all rather rainy all day, so I went around the other way & took in the Snake Temple and Reservoir Park. The Snake Temple is just a Chinese Pagoda where for reasons known only to themselves they keep a hundred or so snakes lying around! They’re a harmless variety of pit-viper, rather pretty, & growing to 4 feet or so. The place is filled with incense, which makes the snakes groggy—visitors, too, if one stays too long! The reservoir park is just that, very pretty & a nice place to sit & relax a while, which I did. Later went back to Waterfall Gardens, which has some nice foot-paths into the surrounding jungle that I explored. And of course the monkeys here are famous; semi-wild. They come down from the jungle in large numbers & get food from the tourists & visitors who enjoy their amusing antics. Since they are not caged at all, they are much healthier and prettier than the specimens one usually sees in zoos; and many of the she-monkeys carry their child monkey along with them, an amusing sight.

Well, time to close this long letter. Before sending it tomorrow I will try to ascertain an address in K. Lumpur that you can write me at; if I find out one, I’ll add it below.

Hope everyone continues well–I’m having a fine time of course & hope you all can come & see some of these same lovely places someday.

PS: Better skip K. Lumpur—not enuf time. But you can write to Singapore c/o Post Restaurant. I should get there in a month or less; better mark return to sender if not claimed by 15 December.

Love to all~

Bruce

BACKSTORY: On my first trip around the island, I had noticed a large parking area behind a seawall at the north end of the island. Later that evening I rode over there and saw a number of couples seated on the wall: it looked like lovers’ lane to me. I was putting along at idle when I heard a voice say, “hello”. I turned to find a youngster riding his bicycle beside me. I stopped: he stopped.We chatted briefly; would he like a ride on my motorcycle? Yes. He ditched his bike in the front yard of a house not far away, climbed on behind me and I took off. I drove back along the route I had done earlier. At a nice deserted beach we stopped and watched as night fell, standing hand-in-hand, listening to the surf. Then back to the bike, and as it was now dark, he was able to put his hands around me and into my pants. I drove on up the mountain, recalling that at the top was a bus-shelter where we could… The faster I drove, the harder his hand worked, and by the time I drove into the shelter, parked the bike, I was wound up tight. I threw the fellow over the seat and parked my car in his garage—about as violently as I ever screwed anyone in my life! He loved it. He remained my guide and boyfriend for the rest of my stay on Penang.

**********

The chief glory of Penang for me was the Penang Hill Railroad, mentioned in a letter above. I rode it a number of times and took many photos. From the net I learn the funicular is still there, but it has been modernized. In 1968 it was really two funiculars, which meant changing cars at the (more-or-less) half-way point. I understand it has now been converted into a single cable-run, and modern photos show operators in the car, so the motive-power seems to have changed. There is a lot of information about it on the web. My photos are below.

One of the two winding-houses

As originally built, there were in reality two funiculars: it was necessary to change from one to the other. Each had a winding house—I don’t recall which this one is, but they were essentially identical. The operator sat high up where he could look down the line; he responded to the bell over the window, which was rung by the conductor on each car. The dial pointer showed him where each car was located, something he had to know since there were intermediate stations between top and bottom.

The view down the line and to the flatland below

Note the passing-track on a curve! This funicular was an engineer’s dream. The poles along the track carry two bare insulated wires. Each conductor carried a wooden pole one end of which was clad in brass. To signal a change, he only had to touch his wand to both wires, completing a circuit which rang the bell in the engine-house. The codes were the same as steam engines, cable-cars and streetcars: one ring to stop, two to proceed, three to back up.

A car approaching the (bottom) end of the line.

Intermediate stops allowed people who lived on the hill access to their homes. A particularly nice time to ride was in the afternoon when school-kids were on their way home. So much eye-candy!

The approaching car in the passing zone.

Each car had a box used to carry freight or luggage. Empty sheaves to the right will pick up the cable as soon as the car passes downwards. As in all funiculars, the outer wheel-sets of each car had flanges both inside and outside the rail: the inside wheels had no flanges at all. Thus, each car followed the outer track at the passing zone, preventing collisions.

Get your partners for the tunnel!

This is one of the stopping-places along the line, located just before the tunnel (if you are on a down-car), or just after the tunnel (if you are on an up-car). Close inspection of the picture shows there is someone on the path, walking away, so he has probably just gotten off an up-car and we are continuing on up.

On the first lift section

Photo is taken from a car going up on the left track; the balance-car is descending, as can be deduced by the cable lying behind it. The down-car will rejoin the single line just beyond the curve.

Passing track on the upper flight

My car is going up: the cable in the sheaves is attached to the balance-car going down. The weight of the cars, and particularly that of the cable, is so large that the system would never know whether there were people aboard a car or not.

Lower end of the upper flight, and change-station

Approaching (or perhaps departing) the change-station. Winding house for the lower flight is at left, gantry-crane for lifting cars for maintenance is overhead, and repair shops to the right. I understand that the system has been rebuilt fairly recently, and the change-station eliminated. This makes this funicular the longest in the world.

The main departure point at the bottom of the funicular

A pathway, possibly a road passes under the right-of-way, and a crane can be seen used for lifting cars for maintenance. Just visible in the distance are small souvenir shops and a parking-lot.

On our way to the top

An engineering marvel! I hope at least one of the original sets of winding machinery has been preserved. It was 46 years old when I was there, and functioned perfectly. It was approaching 100 when replaced.

Looking out of the tunnel

No way to know if I was ascending or descending when the picture was taken, but either way the ride was spectacular and great fun. I rode at least once each day I was on Penang, and on several occasions twice or more. The views at night were breath-taking.

Funicular with curves!

The British engineers who built this thing knew what they were doing!  The modernization was done by a Swiss mob. In this day when everyone is in such a hurry, I suppose the delay at the change-station had become intolerable.

Modern cars passing

Each car now has an operator: my guess is the propulsion system is now regulated by telemetry, and there is no operator in the winding-house. But there MUST be a winding house: just how the system is controlled now I’m not sure, and I’d love to have someone tell me.

Looking down from the change-station

This view and the next were taking in 1968.

Georgetown seen from the top of Penang hill, 1968

A fairly recent view of Georgetown

Much has changed since 1968!

Somewhere along the round-the-island road

This snapshot was taken somewhere on the road around the island of Penang. No doubt the road has been improved: it’s likely now a 4-lane highway. Time marches on, but I will always remember my stay on Penang with great fondness, and I’m particularly glad to see that the Penang Hill Railway is still operating.

My next stop was Ipoh, Malaysia.

NEXT

Once I was able to get a typewriter, my letters from Vietnam were sent to the family using carbon-copies, so everyone would be up to date. I tried not to send all-carbons to any one address, so different members would have to wade through the 4th carbon fuzziness from time to time. This means that the surviving letters (which Dad kept) are a mix of different “layers”. OCR software works on the originals well; on the second carbons less well, on the third carbons poorly, and on the 4th carbons not at all!

The first letter in this group survived as a fourth carbon, so it had to be keyed in. Due to some annoying problems with my computer, I ended up losing some files, and wound up keying in this letter no less than four times!

Oh, well: being retired, I have the time to deal with these annoyances. So, on with it!

BB

_____________________

Sunday, 23 June 1968

Dear Everyone~

It has been a week and a half since I wrote last, but so little has happened that there was no reason to waste paper! Life continues pretty much as it has right along. The curfews are back to 2100 to 0600 in most areas of Saigon, which allows somewhat more movement. But the VC continue to shell the city from time to time. Presumably, Cho Lon and Gia Dinh are now cleaned out, partly because of the big defection of around a hundred and a half of VC who were surrounded there. You all know as much as I do about the Paris “peace” talks, and for that matter, as much as I do about the election campaign at home. I may be the only “hawk” that votes for McCarthy in November (assuming he’s nominated!)—but nothing any of the other candidates has said impresses me at all. The June Playboy interview with Galbraith I find very enlightening: with men like him in the background of politics, it’s hard to see how we’ve managed to get into this mess.

There is nothing new at the job. I was informed last Saturday by the great white papa-san (Dan Smythe) that I am not in the FY1969 manning table: this really doesn’t mean a great deal, except that there is a good likelihood I might be declared surplus (which would be MOST astute of the personnel dept). Rumors continue that Dan is going for at least a leave July 1: HE says he will be back—CMO says he won’t. We’ll see, but I’d bet on Dan anytime against CMO, which is about as totally disorganized an organization as you could ever hope (or have the misfortune) to find.

I spent the better part of today fussing with my Honda—it had begun rather abruptly to run quite badly. It seemed to be a carburetor problem, so I cleaned that thoroughly: no improvement. Then I go indications the battery was weak, so I replaced that: no improvement. Went back to the carburetor, and suddenly found that an extra spring had been added to the throttle arrangement—for reasons unknown—that interfered with proper operation: threw out the spring, and voila! Runs like a Honda ought. Friend and I tried to visit the Botanical Gardens/Zoo in the afternoon, but couldn’t get near the place. It is closed, and under heavy guard, as it offers a nice infiltration route (from across the Saigon River, which it borders). Xin Loi—another time, perhaps!

Some hip-nik burned his draft card in the park in front of the Assembly Bldg a couple of days ago. He was speedily arrested by a heavily armed Sgn Police detail. He was shortly thereafter released. The news papers report that the american Vice Consul had determined that his residence visa was about to expire, and “would not be renewed”.

There is nothing the Vietnamese fear more than a withdrawal of US forces: in the long run, there is probably nothing that would do them more good, however, since it would then be up to them to preserve the country—if enough of them decide it is worth it. The Thieu government is all too ready to “let George (the US) do it”—until we do something they don’t like. Our exclusion of the Sgn government in Paris is seen as a heavy-handed slap in the face, and recent talks about recognizing the NLF is almost more than Thieu can bear. If we keep it up, he may ask us to LEAVE!!!

That does it for the week: Love to all, of course~

Bruce

The situation in Iraq is redolent with the flavor of that last paragraph, written from Vietnam 40 years ago!

Temple at the Saigon Zoo

I did eventually get into the Saigon Zoo. This temple was part of it, but closed.

Monkey at the Saigon Zoo, 1968

This might have been a VC monkey! We’ll never know!

Sunday, 7 July 68

Dear Everyone~

Two uneventful weeks have passed since I last wrote. There have been no further rocket attacks on Saigon since 11 June: thank goodness those who suggested this represents a “de-escalation” by the North have been silenced. It is no such thing! It represents intensive efforts by all concerned to sweep the 6-8 mile perimeter of Saigon to destroy all rocket launching sites and caches of rockets. Am impressive number of them were turned up—over thirty in one cache alone, found July 3, all with fuses inserted. It was assumed these were to have been fired as a fourth of July “celebration”. . .

The government asserts that all persons made homeless during the Tet Offensive now have been re-located. So have many—but not all—of the May 5 campaign’s victims.

Dan Smythe ACTUALLY left the country on July 3—but he will be back in two weeks. I spent a Saturday a week ago at CMO trying to locate the bottleneck in the lab program—and uncovered so many that there is really no reason to hope for anything. The entire company seems almost paralyzed right now—everyone is in fear that he might get surplused, and so much time is spent pulling strings and doing all sorts of finagling to avoid getting dumped that no other work gets done at all.

For reasons beyond comprehension, the Qui Nhon Area portion of PA&E’s contract with the [US] government was split off this year and made an entirely separate affair. Because it was put out for bid, the company bid very “tight” in order to keep the contract: but this meant reducing salaries, which they did (illegally)—and promptly lost nearly one third of their people. As usual, the people with any brains at all “pulled the pin” (i.e., quit), while the dead-beats who didn’t realize what was happening stayed on. . .

Now, PA&E’s R&U contract in the remaining areas of VN is a “negotiated” contract: these are the best kind, because they’re not put out for bid, but are simply renewed (with some changes) from year to year as long as performance meets some sort of (usually low) standards. So the contract under which I was hired apparently has been renewed, but the changes are mainly in the manning table (from which my job has been deleted). It still remains to be seen what effect this will have, as the CMO is still snowed under with processing out the QN people. It may well be another month or two before I learn anything. Rumors are legion, of course, but most of them aren’t to be believed. To help keep busy I’ve been helping Personnel out with some of the mounds of paperwork that changing contracts entails. Technically, everyone is terminated and re-hired, which requires the preparation of a supporting document. We have somewhere between 1400 and 1500 Vietnamese employees at LB—and that’s about as close a count as one can ever get from the paper, because there’s a constant turnover.

There’s really not enuf more news to justify another sheet of paper—and it’s late, so I’ll close this and prepare for beddy-byes—and for another dull day. Cheers to all, wherever you are.

Luv~
Bruce

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Sunday PM, 14 July 1968

Dear all~

A nice cool rain has just stopped falling outside as I begin this letter. This has been (I’m told) a very dry year—usually by this time we should be having rain nearly all day and night. But thus far it has been only one or two short storms each day, and the real drenchers are yet to come, I guess.

The situation in Saigon is tense. There seems to be a good deal of intelligence to support the theory that another attack on Saigon is imminent. There was a short bit of gunplay near here last night, but it turned out to be a group of inebriated Philipino soldiers settling an argument, and had nothing to do with the VC. Similarly, a large fire last night in a powerplant apparently was unrelated to the war. Several days ago, however, an american was killed by “sappers” in Cho Lon, so it is confirmed that there are still terrorists in the city: how many or how well armed is anybody’s guess.

There have been a couple of worthwhile articles in recent magazines that (if you haven’t read them) I recommend. In order of appearance, the Galbraith interview in June Playboy was, I thought, excellent: I marvel that with people of his erudition lurking in the background of politics, we nonetheless manage to get into messes like this one here. Then there is the article (I believe it was in Sat Eve Pest, maybe Look) by Wm. Lederer—the title was something like “The other war in Vietnam”, but I’ve forgotten it exactly. And then there appeared the Fullbright interview—no, article—in the July Playboy. There is a lot of meat in what he says—and the hopeful sign to me is that he is saying it!

The Lederer article is unnerving. Every bit of it—and a whole lot more  is true. Without trying, even someone as ingenuous as I has managed to stumble across many examples of the “smaller potatoes” sort of hanky-panky that goes on over here. But the un-real part of it is that, as Lederer points out several times, the official reason given for condoning corruption here is that “we are guests here, and do not want to ‘offend’ the Vietnamese”. Now, as a policy I think this is admirable enough—if it were actually applied. But instead, it has resulted in our not “offending” only the crooks and profiteers, who constitute a tiny segment of the population, while DEEPLY offending the larger part of the populace who, in the end, suffer inflation and other ills as a direct result of it all. Our policy has resulted in protection for an undesirable element in VN that we OUGHT to be trying to eradicate. Of course, who are we to cast any stones at VN racketeers when most of the training has come from us?

Even worse, the policy of not offending the VNese, fails almost totally to filter down to the rank-and-file population—the average “Nguyens on the street”—who every day are victim to some of the most outrageous behaviour. Unfortunately, our deeply rooted racism, under so strong attacks at home, has been transported here intact. The results are frequently appalling. I suppose it is an impossible task to screen military and civilians over here to determine their suitability to being temporarily transported into an alien culture: there is also almost no attempt to assess the behavior of those who are here, and return those who don’t measure up to some sort of standard. There aren’t any standards, either—unless one considers the largely ignored UCMJ.

Item: a couple of weeks ago, as we were proceeding to Long Binh in our leased Vietnamese bus, some idiot american riding in the back of a jeep tried to force his way past our bus by, first, shouting obscenities at the occupants, and then brandishing his .38 at our driver, who (understandably) nearly dumped us all in the ditch when he ducked. This slob hadn’t reckoned on americans being on that bus, and I expect he was surprised later that day when the MPs picked him up (traced by his vehicle number) with no less than four signed “reports” on the incident. The only logical place for this sort is the front lines: but unless they send him home (which is doubtful)—and heaven knows another trigger-happy nut is just what is needed there—he’ll probably get a reprimand and maybe a pay cut.

Item: last week, one of our VN employees was returning to Saigon after work, riding his motorbike, when he was flipped off into the ditch by a GI driving a 2½T truck. Unlike most GI’s who do this, this one obligingly stopped his machine—and went back to the injured man, whom he threatened shoot, and then left the helpless man as he was and drove away. MPs subsequently got the poor fellow to a hospital (it will cost a small fortune of the US tax dollars to patch him up), but could not get the GI, as the man had not been able to see the vehicle number.

The above are strong examples, repeated daily. Then number of lesser inconsiderateness—simple impoliteness, rudeness, etc., etc.,—couldn’t be calculated, but one has to be blind to fail to see dozens of examples every day.

Rocky has just announced his “four points for peace”—but has not made clear how he intends to secure the cooperation of the NVN and VC in the enterprise. At this juncture, I am much inclined to feel that unless we are willing to make fundamental changes in our modus operandi here, a pullout would really be better: either way (that is, if we do leave, or if we stay under the present circumstances) the local population is going to suffer great hardship. The parallels between French imperialism and american imperialism are so clear that multitudes of people might welcome communism—if only in the feeble hope that it might be different.

Confucius is reputed to have made up the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words: many more than that could well caption the “joke” in July Playboy showing the baby crawling in front of the TV set.

It is curious that the last rocket attack on Saigon coincided exactly with Westmoreland’s departure. His parting words were that there was very little that could be done to stop it. Yet, under Abrahms it has been stopped (perhaps not permanently, though this remains to be seen). An intensive and expensive sweep of the 6-8 mile perimeter around Sgn has netted a prodigious quantity (in excess of 1700) rockets, mortars and similar weapons. Westy’s exit flourish (the rocketing is not militarily significant) was incredulously received here, because it was obvious to the Vietnamese (but apparently not to Westy) that the rocketing was not really a military operation anyhow; rather, it was intended to be a psychologically disruptive maneuver. As such, it was remarkably unsuccessful; there was little panic, no sudden capitulation, no collapse of government. Perhaps the VC gave up the rocketing because it was too expensive in light of the lack of results, along with the pressure imposed by capture of many of their weapons. At any rate, it appears that getting Westy out of the picture was a wise move, as he seemed to have become blinded to some pretty obvious facts.

My trip to and through Cambodia has not been entirely abandoned. I find there is no trouble at all in getting the necessary tourist visa, good for three weeks. A simple form (only ONE copy!), a photo, and a valid passport will get one in less than 24 hours. I am only waiting to see if PA&E won’t make it possible to make it a one-way trip. Intelligence seems to indicate that they will before long. It’s a waiting game, and I may not be able to wait it out, but only time will tell, I guess.

That wraps up the latest report from Vietnam.

Cheers to all~

Bruce

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I’m not getting much feed-back from this blog: perhaps readers are as bored with it as I was with my “job” in Vietnam! Comments are welcome at [email protected]

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