The Road South

We departed at 9 AM so as to let the 6 hour rush hour subside. John and I very much enjoyed the broad, tree-lined avenues of this city. As we headed south we talked about what we had seen piled on the bicycles and motor bikes that swarm around us. Often there would be a mom or dad delivering 3 or 4 children, dressed in their uniforms, to school, all on one bicycle. There was a man with 10 ft pipes somehow lashed down, and another with even longer large bamboo poles lashed into a vertical column from his bicycle. Two people went by holding a window casement around their waists on a bike. Large rolls of rolled matting of a diameter of about 5 feet went by on a series of bicycles, obviously a large shipment. One bicycle had several hundred inflated balloons clustered on it headed for HCM for Sunday night festivities. One of the best was a full-size mattress going down the street of HCM City on a bike. John saw 4 full sized pigs on the way to market on one bike, two in front and two in the rear, hanging upside down from poles. I saw about 40 live chickens on one. They go to sleep when you hand them upside down. When school is over for the day, about 11 AM, swarms of uniformed children head home all over the country, often two or three to a bicycle. There are thousands and thousands of them all over the roads. 

As we cross bridge after bridge leading south, it is clear that there is much more water here than land. Houses are built on the dikes, and the rich soil produces in abundance. It is said that in the MeKong Delta, one cannot leave ones broom outside at night, or it will take root and grow. Now we were on Highway 1 south. It started out smooth and wide as we head south to Tan An. There are no road markings or center lines. The road would make 3 good lanes if anyone paid any attention. There are few, if any cars, but lots of old buses and trucks. The large vehicles run in the center of the pavement and contend with each other with much blasting of horns. The bicycles stream by on both sides in both directions by the thousands. The buses and trucks are ancient, clunking things, and they know they are the biggest things on the road. Clearly, this country has an idea of the use of power one has to make one's way. It was so with the corrupt politicians and military when I was here. It is the same. Often, we would see a big truck in the middle of the road coming right at us, for we were in the middle of the road as well, but there would be a bus passing the truck on each side and bicycles scattering in all directions outside that. All three big vehicles would blast their horns and charge on as if everything was our fault. This happened so often that I stopped looking. 

Each time a bus or truck goes by, our car gets a spit of water across the windshield. These ancient ones have lost radiators, water pumps, and the like, and all carry 55 gallon drums of water on top of the cabs. There is a tube coming down the side and into the drivers window, under the dash, and to the motor block. The water goes through the motor and is spit out the side of the left front wheel well right onto windshields of oncoming cars and bicyclists. Every road in the Delta is a dike, so they stop every hour and re-fill the drum. 

Somewhere around Tan An, the road narrowed and the waiting lines for ferries across the 9 rivers (dragons) of the MeKong became long. Peddlers swarmed over buses and our car trying to sell us fruit and drink. Drinks are sold in little plastic baggies with straws and a twist tie, since the glass bottles and cans are valuable. Continuing toward My Tho, the bridges became tiny, one laned affairs, which the driver couldn't see over. The road in places degenerated into narrow, rough stone and travel takes time and patience. We stopped for a break in My Tho, where the restaurant sports cages for the animals around the diners tables, the better to choose your meal. Two ferries in Vinh Long province bring us to the heart city of the Delta, Can Tho. This is the area of John Paul Van's CORDS operation and the site of the most intense Riverine operations. The LST mother ship was anchored in the Song Co Chien, as I remember. These were the guys who were taking 40% casualties per year as they were ambushed continually from the trees along the canals and rivers of the MeKong. Admiral Zumwalt made the decision to defoliate, and the casualty rate dropped way down. The Admiral did not know that Agent Orange was harmful to humans. His son was a Lt. on a gunboat and later died of several cancers attributed to the chemicals. The stuff was most likely to get in the food chain in the Delta, and I expected to see birth defects down there, and so we did. There is a man with multiple thumbs, a boy with no eyes, just a smooth face, a boy with fists and finger nails, but no fingers. Enough. 

The government after 1975 considered the Delta to have a huge potential and set up collective farms everywhere on the Russian model. They failed miserable, so the government changed policy and allowed people to rent or buy the land and use it as they would for fun and profit. Since then it has returned to being the rice bowl of VietNam, as it should be, making this country the 3rd largest rice exporter after Thailand and Texas. 

All along the roads in the MeKong we found the driveable width greatly restricted as the locals spread their soy beans on the pavement to dry in the sun. Drivers didn't seem to mind driving on the beans, however.

Listen to:  Stories in the Dark