by Di Morrissey
‘And don’t forget there was one in the pagoda with the little nun in Halong Bay,’ Anna reminded her.
‘Now that I can understand. It’s probably been there for a hundred years, an heirloom given by a family perhaps. Well, let’s hit the beach before the rain comes.’ Sandy pointed at the gathering clouds. ‘Might be a wet drive over the mountain to Hue.’
Sandy had rented a car to drive the few hours over the Hai Van Pass to Hue. They started in steamy humidity as they drove back towards Danang. Clouds gathered over the tips of the Marble Mountains, making them appear dark and sinister.
‘Those peaks are said to represent the five elements of the universe – water, wood, fire, metal, earth,’ said Sandy. ‘The largest one has some of the finest Buddhist cave sanctuaries I’ve ever seen.’
Anna once again sighed in wonder at the contradictions of the vista that filled the windscreen. The dark and rugged mountains produced the material for magnificent gleaming marble artifacts and as they drove past they saw rows of marble shops stacked with statuary and headstones.
From Danang they drove up Highway One towards Hai Van Pass. Anna gazed down at the stunning scenery to where a beautiful beach glittered in the curve of the green peninsula. Lushly forested ravines rushed down the mountainside towards the South China Sea. Then suddenly the coast was out of sight and a faint mist began to swirl down from the peaks.
They continued in silence as Sandy concentrated on the narrow road. At the top of the pass they stopped to relax with a coffee from a tourist cafe but the car was instantly surrounded by women and children offering souvenirs.
‘Postcards and pearls,’ said Sandy. ‘Let’s get a coffee.’
‘Pearls up here? Are they any good?’
‘They’re farmed off Danang. Not in the same league as pearls from Broome. But you might find some with a decent lustre. They’re cheap enough.’
While Anna bargained for a pair of simple pearl earrings, Sandy ordered coffee and talked to a tour guide driver who had just driven up the range from Hue. He told her that the weather was worsening and bad storms were predicted.
The strong coffee dripped from a filter into the small cups half filled with sweetened condensed milk. They drank quickly, anxious to get on the road before the weather got too bad.
‘What’s that on the rise over there?’ asked Anna.
‘An American command post from the war. It was a radar station. They could monitor three Indochinese countries from there,’ said Sandy. ‘C’mon, let’s hit the road.’
‘I want to take a photo but the cloud has wiped out the view.’
‘Buy postcards,’ said Sandy, waving goodbye to the cafe owner and tour guide.
Anna held up a plastic envelope of scenic views from Hai Van. ‘They threw it in with the earrings,’ she laughed.
Normally there were tour buses, private cars and guides ferrying tourists to the pass, but it was deserted as the rain began to pour in a constant stream. Sandy drove carefully, unsure about the condition of the car’s brakes. They didn’t speak for a while until Anna asked, ‘When are we going to visit the orphanage? It’s not far from Danang, is it?’
‘It’s just inland from the coast. We’ll visit it after Hue because I want to take some of the girls to the coast before an informal celebration for the older girls. You know, acknowledgment of reaching puberty.’
‘A rite of passage thing? You’re really emotionally attached to the orphanage, aren’t you, even though you’re not working for HOPE anymore,’ said Anna, glancing at Sandy who was concentrating on the mountain road.
Sandy’s face softened and she smiled. ‘It’s been wonderful to see the place grow and get a school going and have better facilities for the kids. It’s rewarding when you see something positive happening. A lot of the time you never get to see projects finished.’
‘I can understand that. Sands, you’re obviously very attached to Vietnam. Is that why you don’t want to go home?’
Sandy didn’t answer immediately. She’d gone past the living with the folks at home stage. ‘Of course I’m going home. To visit. Then I’ll apply for another position somewhere else, I guess. It’s hard just to walk out of this country and sever the ties overnight.’
Anna knew what was running through Sandy’s mind. Her mother was sweet, but she was a woman dominated, sometimes crushed, by her husband’s moods. Sandy and her father certainly also had their moments. Anna suspected Phil Donaldson disliked his daughter working here helping the Vietnamese people. Anna felt uncomfortable with him as well. While he had always accepted Anna as Sandy’s friend and the daughter of his best mate, she knew he had never warmed to her. Occasionally she had caught him staring at her with a cold hard look that she didn’t understand.
‘You should be proud of what you’ve done here,’ said Anna.
‘Thanks. I’ve tried to be a good humanitarian. By and large the ordinary people are wonderful, hard working and quite ingenious, but it’s hard when you see so much money is being wasted by inefficient bureaucrats, and knowing corruption exists and seeing the degradation of the countryside.’
‘But the orphanage is a success. So you’ll keep in touch with the woman running it even when you leave Vietnam?’
‘Yes. I might try setting up some sort of support group at home to raise funds to send back.’ Sandy stopped talking as a strong gust of wind hit the car. ‘Hai Van separates the climate between north and south, so it’s a bit unpredictable around here,’ she said.
‘Oh great,’ said Anna nervously. ‘Look, we’re almost down. Let’s hope the weather is better in Hue.’
They decided to splurge and checked into a refurbished French colonial hotel.
‘Get the floor,’ giggled Sandy as they stepped into the elevator to go upstairs. The green carpet decorated with a border of bamboo leaves had ‘Good Afternoon’ woven into the centre. Sandy glanced at her watch. ‘One-fifteen. Do you suppose they’ll change it tonight?’
‘We’ll find out.’ Anna stepped out of the lift and began walking down the passageway, pausing to look at the old photographs of the original French owners and famous guests taken in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
‘Look at the Lounge Bar. I feel I should be wearing a tea gown,’ said Anna as she pushed open the heavy doors with etched glass panels.
‘How 1930s!’ exclaimed Sandy. ‘It’s immaculate. It must all be original furniture. A bit gloomy though. Don’t think we’ll be eating in here.’
‘It looks like it’s only for cocktails. Though the view of the bridge over the river is pretty spectacular.’
‘Great, the rain’s stopped. Let’s get a cyclo across to the other side and find some place to eat. I was only here once before for a meeting and didn’t have time to see much.’
*
Settled in a small restaurant with some maps and brochures they planned their itinerary for the next two days.
‘Why don’t we go to the area Jean-Claude told you about?’ said Anna. ‘Where his grandfather lived.’
‘It’s amazing any of the old colonial residences escaped the wars. His family must have been wealthy French officials. Having Mandarins to tea and negotiating exports and so on,’ mused Sandy.
‘Is he rich then?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘But you like him,’ persisted Anna.
‘I hardly know him. But yes, I think he’s nice.’
‘Other than the Canadian, have you had many romantic flings while you’ve been over here?’ asked Anna. ‘All the red-blooded idealistic volunteers flung together in an exotic country, helping to save the world, finding themselves in coups and hot spots.’
‘You read too many novels,’ said Sandy. ‘It’s hard enough finding a casual root with a western bloke let alone a committed root.’
They both burst out laughing.
‘Limited fraternising with the locals?’ asked Anna archly. ‘No wild parties?’
‘It’s frowned on. And certainl
y no sex, drugs and rock and roll. This country is serious about drugs. Do drugs and you’ll wind up on death row.’
‘Carlo would never make it working in a place like this,’ said Anna. ‘Or me. Feeling – or knowing – you’re being watched all the time.’
Sandy looked surprised. ‘Carlo doesn’t do drugs – does he? Jeez, Anna, be careful.’
‘No! Of course not, I didn’t mean it like that. He’s such an entrepreneur, he’d feel restricted by the atmosphere, the government rules, the cultural subtleties, the odd way they do things.’
Sandy didn’t press the point of Carlo’s entrepreneurial methods and activities. In her view Carlo was more talk than action.
Anna also wanted to shift the conversation away from Carlo, knowing how Sandy felt about him. ‘If you feel attracted to someone, such as Jean-Claude who’s intelligent, nice and definitely good looking, why not go after him? Even for a fling.’
‘What’s the point of a fling, as you put it? A waste of time and emotional energy,’ answered Sandy.
‘Maybe you wouldn’t feel so lonely, and it’s good to feel loved and wanted, even briefly.’
‘Look who’s talking. Anna, you’ve clung to the same man just because he’s there. You know I think you could do better. You should shop around more, have a few flings yourself!’ countered Sandy.
Anna looked cross. ‘I’m not like that. Okay, let’s change the subject. Where are we going this afternoon?’
Sandy noted, not for the first time, that when the subject of Carlo came up, Anna changed it. ‘I’d like to see the tomb of Emperor Tu Duc: it’s supposed to be beautiful. And maybe we can squeeze in the Thien Mu Pagoda while the weather is holding up. The hotel has a tour guide with a car that’s very reasonable.’
The driver suggested they go by boat to the pagoda and dropped them at a landing where dozens of brightly painted wooden dragon boats offered sightseeing trips. He said the river trip was really worthwhile, would take only fifteen minutes or so and he’d meet them at the pagoda.
The trip down the Perfume River was as pretty as promised. The scenery and the river traffic enchanted Anna and she snapped photos of bulky sampans laden with building supplies and of smaller boats filled with rural produce being paddled by women. She particularly liked a shot she got of a sampan with a man paddling at the stern, a woman cooking over a small fire on the bow and children and a dog peeping out from under the woven rush canopy.
The Thien Mu Pagoda was crowded with tourists as Sandy and Anna followed the guide up flights of steps, pausing to admire the seven storeys of fine traditional architecture and the high octagonal tower. The guide reeled off in reasonable English the pagoda’s history, explaining that it had been destroyed and rebuilt several times.
They walked around the grounds but the young boys training as monks, their hair cropped and shaved, took little notice of the visitors as they chanted their lessons. While it was an impressive and fascinating place, Anna suddenly remembered the near-blind nun back at the Temple of Nowhere hidden on the tiny island in Halong Bay. I wonder how she’s going, mused Anna, contrasting the size and atmosphere of the two pagodas.
When they came to a chamber where a reverential group stood before a battered little blue car Anna caught her breath.
‘It’s the car of that monk – the one who burned himself to death, isn’t it?’ she said softly. Anna was surprised at how moved she felt and noticed the same reaction from those around her, especially the Vietnamese who lifted their hands in prayer and bowed their heads. On a wall behind the car was a framed photograph of the dreadful incident that Tom had told her about in Hanoi.
‘Let’s go inside and light some incense,’ suggested Sandy. Anna nodded and the girls stepped out of their shoes and went into the main temple to pray at the altar under a Buddha’s benign gaze.
During her moments of silent reflection, Anna was conscious of an emotional stirring that defied immediate explanation, but it was accompanied by images of the old nun and the island temple far to the north.
In the late afternoon, as the sun beamed from behind the remaining clouds, they drove through several villages to arrive at the beautifully landscaped grounds of the tomb of the Nguyen monarch who had reigned long and in imperial luxury.
‘Emperor Tu Duc chose this as his resting place, which he designed and enjoyed for fifteen years before his death in 1843,’ said the guide as they entered the grove of pine trees interspersed with large frangipani trees, which were smothered in fragrant flowers.
‘There’s a palace for his concubines and wives, his own palace . . . and look at that gorgeous setting,’ said Sandy as they came to Luu Khiem Lake. ‘Look! The path is made of ceramic tiles like the ones at Bat Trung – where we visited Mr Thinh.’
The pretty lake was covered in lotus flowers and an airy pavilion was built over the water facing a romantic island in the centre where wild game was hunted. They wandered among the other royal tombs and temples, marvelling at the elaborate complex.
‘Nice to know where you’ll spend eternity,’ said Sandy.
The guide nodded emphatically, then gave a conspiratorial wink. ‘The biggest surprise is his mausoleum. This way, please.’
They walked between the honour guard of stone elephants, horses and diminutive mandarins and guards, all shorter than the very short emperor, and came to an open-sided pavilion sheltering a massive stone tablet.
‘The emperor wrote the story of his life,’ said their guide.
‘One way to make sure only the good stuff goes down in history,’ commented Anna.
They entered the emperor’s walled sepulchre where a giant stone tomb was mounted on a plinth.
‘This is the surprise. His remains are not in here,’ said the guide, looking pleased.
‘Where are they?’ asked Anna.
He shrugged. ‘No one knows. He is buried with a large fortune so they were afraid of grave robbers and kept it secret. The two hundred servants who buried him were beheaded. He had no children and so his dynasty ended.’
‘You wouldn’t want to have been a servant,’ said Anna.
‘Yes. Must have been hard on their families,’ agreed Sandy.
On the way back to the hotel Sandy pulled Jean-Claude’s business card from her bag, and showed the driver the address he’d written on the back.
The driver nodded. ‘I can go there before the hotel. It is where there are many old French homes. They were not destroyed in the last war. But too much of Hue is gone from American bombing in the 1968 Tet Offensive.’ He shook his head. ‘The communists took the city for nearly four weeks and many, many people – merchants, monks, Catholic priests, academics – all were murdered. A very cruel time. Some of my family died. Then US and South Vietnamese bombed Hue, so much of the old citadel, the Forbidden City – all destroyed.’ He shrugged. ‘Now people come here and wish to see what was here before the wars.’
They pulled up outside a three-storeyed white house that, while in some disrepair, still had an elegant air of grandeur.
‘That’s a mansion,’ said Anna. ‘Stand outside and I’ll take a picture.’
Sandy reluctantly posed, wishing Anna wasn’t such a shutterbug. But she couldn’t help wondering if Jean-Claude had ever had his picture taken outside what was once his family home.
The guide glanced at the house as they got back in the car. ‘French people built some beautiful places in Vietnam. Some French people very good people, but it is not good to have foreigners run your country.’
As they returned to the hotel, Anna sighed, ‘Been a full-on day. I’m on information overload. Thanks, Sandy, it’s been great.’
‘For me too. It’s such an interesting country. So many contrasts.’ She laughed as they stepped into the elevator and pointed to the floor where the carpet now read ‘Good Evening’.
The next day they spent at Thuan An Beach, some fifteen kilometres from Hue, exploring the near-deserted island at the mouth of the Perfume River. It was too rough from
the previous day’s storm to swim so they found a small kiosk, bought some food and went beachcombing.
On the way back to Hue they stopped in a small village for Anna to take a picture of the massive brown ceramic jars stacked against walls of houses.
‘Nuoc mam, the local fish sauce, is marinating in them,’ explained Sandy. ‘Vietnamese tomato sauce. They put it on everything. Some villages are famous for the soy bean sauce they ferment in similar jars.’
But what fascinated Anna most were the elaborate mausoleums, graves and family crypts strung along the ocean side of the road. ‘It’s like the city of the dead!’
‘It’s keeping up with the Joneses, Viet style. They all try to outdo each other. A lot of boat people left from here and send money back to maintain and build them,’ said Sandy. ‘I’ve heard some wild stories from villagers.’
‘Like what?’ Anna settled back in the car as Sandy relayed another of the titbits of information she’d gathered during her time in Vietnam.
‘Most families bury their dead relations in coffins, at the edge of rice paddies. Then after three years the bones are taken out, cleaned and put in ceramic jars and placed, if they can afford it, in a shrine or mausoleum.’ Sandy smiled. ‘One villager told me how they went to dig up the coffin and heard banging inside as it swilled around in the water, so he got a gun and pumped bullets into it.’
‘What was inside? Sounds gruesome.’
‘For starters, ten fat dead catfish that had swum into the coffin.’
‘The fish were banging around?’
‘Yeah, along with several frogs that had dived into the eye sockets with their legs sticking out. They had got so fat on the fishes’ remains that they couldn’t get out, so they swam around dragging the skulls with them.’
‘That sounds gross and not very reverential.’
‘There are many different customs. The Buddhists prefer cremation. But this village man told me their custom was that the reburial had to be done in the early hours of the morning before sunrise, when the spirits aren’t around. Can you imagine creeping round the rice paddy in the dark, digging up and burying bones?’