My Indochina tour guide years
We settled back in Australia, the kids started school and preschool, and the adults found work. I was contacted by the tour operator and asked if I wanted to lead some groups doing full Indochina tours, at the end of 1989. It was convenient so I agreed. At the time, tourist efforts in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam were organised along socialist lines, based on the Soviet Intourist model. There was Phnom Penh Tourism, Laos Tourism, Hanoi, Hue & Danang, Ho Chi Minh Tourism. Only groups were allowed and the program tightly scripted, with a local guide on each leg of any tour. I had led tours when I was living in Phnom Penh before but those were only short 7-day, six-night efforts. As conditions eased, it became possible to visit all three Indochinese countries on 14 day tours.
I flew to Bangkok in December 1989, met the group and we headed for Laos. We had a two days in Vientiane doing the sights then off to Luang Prabang by air, any road trip out of the question due to Hmong guerilla activity in the surrounding mountains. As a former capital and site of the Royal Palace before 1975, the town was an eclectic mix of traditional Lao and colonial French buildings. The numerous wats were well-endowed and quite stunning. We took a 15km trip up the Mekong by pirogue to visit the Pak Ou caves, where thousands of Buddhas have been placed. Returning to the capital, we flew to Hanoi. After Laotian informality, the northern Vietnamese were impatient, curt and not particularly welcoming. It was also quite cold. Our guide corralled us from contact with the locals as we visited the Temple of Literature, the lakes, Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, the water puppet show, and skirmished the old quarter and colonial Hanoi. A (very long) day trip to Ha Long Bay followed; not enough time to visit the remoter areas on the boat, was the justified grumble. Next day, our flight South in a crowded Ilyushin-76 started badly; we were late to the airport, the bus sped across the tarmac, we climbed the stairs and the door closed behind us. Still gathered at the entry, the engines roared, the plane taxied to the runway and we were airborne before any of our group had even found seats.
The Saigon Tourist visit list was similar to my visit 18 months earlier; Cu Chi, the war museum, My Tho. Economic activity seemed to have picked up and our group had time to poke around the markets. A range of nightclubs and bars were beginning to open though these closed early and were under scrutiny by the authorities. From the airport we flew to Phnom Penh with a one day trip to Siem Reap. As well as Angkor Wat, this time we were able to visit the Bayon temple and Angkor Thom complex. At Phnom Penh, S-21, the Toul Sleng prison and interrogation centre, had upgraded the displays. The blood on the floor from prisoners being dragged after being tortured to their cells, was fading; it was starkly visible at my first visit in 1986. As well, the Choeng Ek mass graves, where the bodies of murdered S-21 prisoners were dumped, had changed. Unearthed from pits in the ground, the remains of ten thousand of an estimated eighteen thousand victims had been placed in rickety wood and bamboo shelves, blood-soaked clothes, kramas and shoes formed piles all around. In a project for the 10th Anniversary, a massive stupa with perhaps twenty levels was built to hold these victims' bones.
I went with the group back to Bangkok, said farewells and has just under two weeks until the next tour. I headed to the northeast for a bit of solo travel. I caught a bus to Nakhon Ratchasima province and went to the Phimai ruins. In Thailand, these and many other 11th and 12th century ruins are termed "Khmer style", but the reality is they were part of the Angkor empire that was dominant in SE Asia for hundreds of years, prior to Thai ascendancy. After a day there, I went south to Phanom Rung, in Buriram, where the Hindu temples sit atop a high hill said to be an extinct volcano; a magnificent avenue and set of wide steps leading to the complex. I went to Surin province and met a local involved in aid to the refugee camps along the border. He offered to take me some 50km south to see more ruins. We passed through Thai army camps and left the rice growing areas, entered a wide stretch of pampas grass then approached the treeline. Individual soldiers, KR in new Chinese uniforms, walked along the track. They were unarmed and heading to their camps in the forest. We arrived at Prasat Bay Kruen, cleared the final, heavily fortified Thai post and arrived at Ta Muen Thom, very close to the Dangrek scarp and in quite dense jungle. We left the vehicle and were advised to only walk on the marked path. We arrived at major ruins covering maybe 50m x 50m, a way-station and temple complex situated on the main route from Angkor to Phimai, then the administrative centre of northern Angkor territory. My guide mentioned there were more structures a bit further on, then announced "Special Tour" and we walked to a clearing with a Thai Border Police camp, ringed with barbed wire. We ventured another 200m, arriving at another camp with huts, a Khmer Rouge camp that was right on the edge of the scarp. We could see Cambodia through the trees, several hundred metres below; it was completely forested. We talked to a KR soldier; he was from Takeo province south of Phnom Penh, homesick but unsure what was happening with the peace initiative. He was also one of Ta Mok's men, Mok the one-legged butcher, a mass murderer, leader of the forces that purged the Eastern Zone and pushed Heng Samrin and Hun Sen into Vietnam in 1978. We visited the grave of a commander whose request was to be buried on Cambodian soil. There were other soldiers around but they stayed away, it was clear we were talking to their leader.
We went back to Thailand and returned to Surin, and the next day I traveled east on a development road deep in Isan and toward the Mekong and Laos. I was heading for Preah Vihear, a set of massive Angkor-era temples built on top of a 500m cliff on the eastern edge of the Dangrek scarp. This scarp is a natural border between Thailand and Cambodia and the difference between the two sides was dramatic; Thailand was developed, agricultural and at peace, Cambodia was forest or jungle, underdeveloped and at war. At Kantaralat, I found a pickup and headed some 30km south through a succession of villages. The bitumen ended and the land began to rise, we came to a checkpoint, then another and passed through 15km of scrub. Finally, at a place called Pha Mor E Daeng, a cleared area where infrastructure had started to appear; a hut, some signs in English and Thai, a rudimentary carpark and a few Thai tourists. No souvenir shops, though, nor any drink stands. I was allowed to walk up to a heavily sandbagged observation point, beyond which were two massive sandstone steles, or pillars, and then to the border. I could see the temples in the distance and the Cambodian flag flying but were not allowed to cross. I wandered to the cliff edge and looked out over slumbering forested Cambodia. As the temples of Preah Vihear, or Phra Vihaan in Thai, are on the top of the scarp and much more accessible from the Thai side, there have been border disputes as to which country held sovereignty; an international ruling and now UNESCO listing of the site has it firmly in Cambodian territory.
I returned to Bangkok and met up with the next group of tourists at the assigned hotel. This second trip was very similar to the one a month earlier, except that Ha Long Bay was closed and so we had two days in Danang and Hue on the way south. This also meant a day trip to the Mekong delta was cut, a relief as that side day-trip was insufficient to see much other than experience hours in a bus on a dangerous highway. Hue was a gem, though much destroyed from the Tet uprising against the Americans two decades earlier. Danang and its beaches were spectacular. After this second tour, we said our goodbyes and I returned to Australia.
In April 1991, I signed on to lead another tour. This time, after meeting the group in Bangkok, we first flew to Ho Chi Minh City. It had been sixteen months since I was last there and the difference was noticeable, with economic activity ramping up a notch; the proliferation of motorbikes and cars make the streets noisy and dangerous. We then flew direct to Siem Reap and had three days there. Not only were Angkor and Bayon open, but visits on the Petit and Grand Circuits were possible. Only Banteay Srey, some 30 Km to the north, was inaccessible. We visited the Rolous group, early 8th Century temples some 20km west and took a boat ride on the lake, passing scenic villages on the way. More tourists visited, backpackers were beginning to appear, several guides spoke English, buses were airconditioned.
Phnom Penh was also changing, the Russians had left, the possibility of a lasting peace was becoming more likely. Those that had fled as refugees were beginning to return. Hotels and restaurants had opened and group travel limitations had recently been dropped. Our group visited the usual sites, a museum of genocide is hardly an attraction, then we returned to HCM and on by plane to Danang. A new place had opened, Hoi An, and everyone perceived this as an authentic experience, with our visit there before mass tourism descended. Danang milked its American war connection but seemed pushy with touts starting to make the experience unpleasant. Hue had more charm and interest. We were treated to some significant cultural experiences such as a salon featuring authentic folk music and artistry, including the most famous singer in the country. The history revolves around the citadel, the pagodas and mausoleums, and its river setting is magical. We also made a 50km drive into the mountains and close to the Lao border to see sections of the (in)famous Ho Chi Minh Trail. The next leg of the trip was meant to be a highlight but became a nightmare; we had tickets on the express train to Hanoi, sleepers had been booked. However, the train came from Saigon and departed Hue close to midnight. Our berths were occupied, the guard was obstructive, and everyone was more than annoyed. We got crappy 2nd class seats and told to like it or lump it. The group was mutinous. We rolled into the night then most of the next day across the northern Vietnam plain and Red River valley, arriving at Hanoi mid-afternoon, dirty, hungry and grumpy. We did the rounds of Hanoi and a trip to Haiphong and Ha Long Bay, mercifully with an overnight stay. Then to Hanoi and a flight to Laos. The local tourist office was cagey and after the usual visits around Vientiane to the palace, the wats, the river, the market. The news that Luang Prabang was cancelled was met with a groan; insurgency had made the entire region dangerous and most likely the government didn't want us to see any military response. They did offer an alternative, the Plain of Jars. I jumped at it, and we flew there the next day, a brief in-and-out day trip. Scenically, it was just a high plain with a subsistence agriculture and some market towns of little charm. Its attraction was the remoteness and the enigma of the jars, which are thought to be megalithic stone urns used in funerary practices and are scattered across the upland valleys. Few sites were accessible as the entire area was heavily bombed by US forces in the 1960s; the B52s out of Okinawa that didn't achieve their bombing targets over North Vietnam dropped their loads on Laos before flying to bases in Thailand. We were among the first groups to be allowed to visit this area since the mid 1960s.
I was happy to finish up at Bangkok and didn't see a career developing. The experience was hard; the expectations of what is usually a disparate group very tricky to anticipate let alone satisfy. The stand-outs: an American who announced on Day 1, "I don't eat Asian food", the Swede who kept a diary of sexual conquests by country (he was too early by a year or so), the German who wanted to eat every exotic forest animal and fish, the flake who sold her Picasso print for the trip and, when I turned her down, accused me of being a Male Chauvinist Pig, the lonely widow who wanted 2 hours of chat a day. The hardest was the American, a Hungarian Jew and tattooed Auschwitz survivor, when we visited Tuol Sleng extermination camp. The nice ones; those that gave $100 tips and those with whom I kept up a correspondence in the years following.
Travel across borders:
1. SYD - BKK 11 Dec 89; BKK - Laos 14 Dec; to Hanoi 19 Dec; Hanoi - SGN; SGN - PNH 25 Dec; Siem Reap; PNH - 27 Dec; BKK 29 Dec 89; NE Thailand solo travel, BKK - Laos 11 Jan 90; to Hanoi 15 Jan; to SGN, arr PHN 22 Jan then Siem Reap; PHN - BKK 25 Jan; BKK - SYD 26 Jan 90
2. SYD - BKK 01 Apr 91; BKK - SGN 04 Apr; Siem Reap, PNH, SGN 10 Apr; Danang, Hue, Hanoi, Laos, arr BKK 24 Apr; BKK - SYD 26 Apr 91.