Leah, Sophie, CJ, and I had arrived in Southeast Asia two weeks earlier, having flown to Hong Kong from Australia. (Katrina was finishing up her scuba trip with Bevin and planned to meet us in Vietnam after a stop on her own in Singapore.) The density of Hong Kong is striking. Our barely affordable guesthouse was on the thirteenth floor of a highrise. There was a sign near the entrance warning visitors to keep the windows closed so rats would not climb in. On the thirteenth floor! The four of us had a single room with two undersized double beds that took up nearly all the floor space. The bathroom was so small that the easiest way to shower was to sit on the toilet.
The Wi-Fi was good, which made up for the lack of space. Sophie took a criminal justice exam—VLACS progress! As promised, the Tasmanian rental car company sent me an e-mail with a bill for the SUV damage: $1,125.29. In the U.S., many credit card companies will pay for rental car damage if the car was rented using their card. (Full disclosure: This was not the first time I had backed a rental car into a fixed object.) I dialed the number on my American Airlines Mastercard and explained the accident. “This happened to me once before, and the credit card company paid the deductible on my auto insurance,” I said.
“That was in the U.S.?” the woman asked.
“Yes,” I admitted.
“But the accident you’re telling me about was an international rental?” she asked.
“Yes, in Australia,” I said.
“Then we’ll pay for the whole thing,” the woman said without any emotion or inflection.
“I’m sorry?” I said, even though the line was perfectly clear.
“Since it’s an international rental, we will pay for all the damage to the car,” she repeated.
“The whole deductible?” I asked. “Whatever my auto insurance won’t pay?”
“No. All of the damage to the car,” she said slowly and loudly. “Just forward me the claim from the rental car company.”
With one click, the bill for $1,125.29 went away. That was a good budget day.
The fourteenth of January was CJ’s birthday. He opted to celebrate by eating “the best dumplings in all of Hong Kong.” CJ’s fastidious research on TripAdvisor led us to a restaurant with a Michelin star in an ultramodern shopping mall. CJ, now fancying himself as something of a food critic, described the dumplings as “the perfect blend of spice, flavor, and texture.” We bought him a slice of birthday cake at the Starbucks next door.
CJ’s birthday took a sadder turn the next day when we went in search of a used bookstore that we had read about online. We took a ferry across the harbor from the Kowloon side of the city to the Hong Kong side, where the neighborhoods are older and more traditionally Chinese. As we wandered toward the bookstore, we passed many small, decrepit storefronts. Sometimes we could identify the items for sale: fruit, spices, flowers. Often, the stinky, dried objects in large bins were unidentifiable.
Unfortunately, the shark fins were easy to spot. Our time on the Great Barrier Reef had inspired CJ the Eco Warrior to embrace the crusade against shark fin soup, a notorious Chinese delicacy. The shark fins are harvested by cutting them off living sharks, which are then dumped back into the ocean to die. Tens of millions of sharks are killed this way every year. Many upscale hotel chains have taken shark fin soup off their menus, but it is still a common delicacy in Hong Kong and China. CJ grew increasingly distraught as we passed store after store with mounds of dried fins for sale. Eventually he started to cry. “Why do they do this?” he asked as the tears rolled down his face.
“It’s getting better,” I said. This was true, but inadequate in the moment.
From Hong Kong, we flew south and west to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam. Our guesthouse was in a dense tourist area, with scores of restaurants less than a hundred paces from our front door. On the first morning, I wandered down the chaotic little street and had a delicious breakfast for $4: fresh fruit, great coffee, and a baguette with jam and butter. I will not defend French involvement in Indochina. I will point out that they left a legacy of great food, particularly the pastries and baguettes. I was also optimistic that Southeast Asia would be good for our budget.
The homeschooling efforts were in a decent place, too. CJ and I watched War Horse to finish up his study of World War I. Sophie finished a paper on The Crucible. Before Saigon, I had tried to give Sophie and CJ an overview of the Vietnam War, but I found myself struggling to explain the complexity of the conflict. It is hard to explain the rationale for a failed war when the impetus for that war, the rise of communism, is no longer a threat. That changed dramatically once we were in Vietnam. Our first outing was to the War Remnants Museum, which tells the story of the war from the Vietnamese perspective. (Prior to the normalization of relations between the United States and Vietnam in 1995, it was called the Exhibition House for Crimes of War and Aggression.)
We opted to walk to the museum, giving us our first exposure to Saigon’s frenetic streets. Every square inch of sidewalk is packed with stalls and parked motorbikes. If the city were an amusement park, the feature ride would be the Street Crosser™. “Do you have what it takes to cross four lanes of Saigon traffic?” The dominant form of transportation is the motorbike; there are often ten or fifteen riding abreast. Rarely does the traffic come to a complete stop. As a result, crossing the street requires a leap of faith: step off the curb; walk predictably; and hope that all fifty motorcycles will steer around you, like a school of fish swimming around a fixed object. And never, never stop or turn around.
The War Remnants Museum shook us even before we entered the building. The courtyard has a collection of captured American tanks, planes, and helicopters. One realizes almost immediately that the Americans who flew or drove these war machines likely ended up dead or in Vietnamese prisons. The smallest details had the biggest impact, such as the stickers on the planes offering safety warnings: DO NOT STEP HERE and FILL THIS TANK FIRST. I could envision American soldiers adhering to (or ignoring) these little warnings as they fought a war nine thousand miles from home. And then one day their luck ran out.
My conversations with CJ about Vietnam made the work we had done on World War I feel more relevant, too. The defining feature of that conflict was the folly of it all: the alliances that precipitated it, the gruesome trench warfare, the punitive Treaty of Versailles that made future conflict with Germany more likely. CJ and I had watched films like Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory and read books like All Quiet on the Western Front that were brilliant because of the way they portrayed the human costs of World War I, just like the War Remnants Museum does for Vietnam.
At the same time, we were surrounded by the miracle of postwar Vietnam. The vibrant streets are testimony to how the nation has been transformed in the decades after the war. One must marvel at the resiliency of the place—the remarkable fact that less than fifty years after that gruesome conflict we could return as American tourists. Will there be tourists in a vibrant, thriving Syria in less than half a century?
The ABC Bakery (that’s really what it was called) became my morning ritual. After months of counting every penny, it was a luxury to buy a heaping tray of pastries—baguettes and croissants and chocolate-covered things—for only a few dollars. And if I wanted a second cup of coffee while I was writing, I could go back and get one! I made my way to the ABC Bakery every morning to write for an hour and a half or so. After that, I would take a bag of pastries back to our rooms, where the rest of the family was just waking up.
We made a day trip from Saigon to see the Cu Chi tunnels. During the war, the guerrillas built underground encampments: sleeping areas, cooking areas, and ammunition depots, all connected by narrow, maze-like passages. Part of the tunnel network has been preserved, and it offers a fascinating, if horrifying, snapshot of the war. For example, the U.S. Army had soldiers known as “tunnel rats,” whose job it was to drop into the narrow tunnels and destroy everything inside while avoiding mines, booby traps, and enemy fire. We were invited to crawl through a stre
tch of tunnel; it immediately gave me claustrophobia and I turned around. I could not imagine doing it in the dark with people shooting at me.
There were displays of the spiked pits that were used during the war to impale the unlucky soldiers who stepped in the wrong place. Our guide took great pleasure in describing the gore of each booby trap. I found it strange, and eventually annoying, that both our guide and the video we were forced to watch at the visitors’ center described only “Vietnamese patriots” and “American invaders.” There was no mention of the South Vietnamese Army. One can argue at length about U.S. involvement in Vietnam, but the conflict was first and foremost a civil war between North and South Vietnam. Many of the soldiers falling into the gory traps that our guide took such pride in describing were members of the South Vietnamese Army, which suffered enormous casualties at the hands of the North. My quibbles notwithstanding, the Vietnam War no longer felt like a chapter in a U.S. history textbook.
Once Katrina arrived in Saigon, we all boarded a bus for the five-hour trip to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It was the beginning of Tet, the Vietnamese New Year. The holiday is celebrated for a week during which young people travel to visit extended family—like Thanksgiving and Christmas rolled into one. Every seat on the bus was full; the cargo hold was packed with electronics and other gifts. I settled into a tiny seat, made even less comfortable by the bags of coffee beans wedged where my feet were supposed to go.
After several hours, we crossed from Vietnam into Cambodia. The Cambodian countryside has a unique rural beauty: glimmering rice paddies; water buffalos plowing the fields; myriad shades of green and brown; ponds with pink and lavender lily pads. As we rolled toward Phnom Penh, the setting sun cast a warm light on these bucolic scenes, as if they had been painted by French impressionists. Even the view from the men’s room at our rest stop was bucolic, as the bathroom was open to the fields beyond. I was so taken by the lovely view from the urinal that I snapped a photo.
The rest of the family was buying snacks when I returned from the men’s room. Katrina has the best photo sense of the group. I showed her the display on my camera. “Look at this artistic photo,” I said. “I’m calling it, The Cambodian Countryside as Seen from the Men’s Urinal.”
“That’s disgusting,” she said.
“It’s actually kind of pretty,” Leah offered.
“Don’t encourage him,” Katrina admonished.
Cambodia offers up both wonder and horror. The wonder is ancient: Angkor Wat, the stunning complex of temples built in the twelfth century as the capital of the Khmer Empire. The various temples of Angkor Wat are spread over an expansive territory, often miles apart. Some are so enmeshed in the jungle that they have only recently been discovered. Despite that, the entrance to the main temple, the one that shows up on posters and postcards, is chaotic and crowded. “We can rent a tuk-tuk for half a day to escape the craziness,” Leah advised.
The tuk-tuk whisked us to the more remote temples, like hiking into the Grand Canyon rather than standing on the observation platform. With that, the experience was transformed from a battle against the tour bus hordes into a peaceful family adventure. Many of the temples were made more interesting by the way huge trees have grown up, around, and sometimes through the ancient stone structures. We climbed and explored at our own pace, pausing for reflection in some of the quiet, solitary spots. CJ and Sophie appreciated the Indiana Jones quality of the ancient structures nestled in the jungle. Katrina and I tried to take photos that captured the light playing on the stone and moss and tangled trees.
If Angkor Wat reflects the wonder of Cambodia, the genocide—sadly, far more recent—is the horror. In the 1970s, the nominally Marxist Khmer Rouge killed several million people—roughly a quarter of the Cambodian population. Led by the notorious Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge emerged from the jungles and ultimately took over the country. To the extent that the Khmer Rouge had any coherent ideology, it was an emphasis on agricultural self-sufficiency that targeted educated, urban elites as the enemy. At the height of the insanity, anyone with eyeglasses—a sign of education—was at risk of arrest or murder.
The most effective memorial to this murderous period is the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, which was built on the site of a notorious Khmer Rouge prison. The prison complex was a high school before the guerrillas took it over. Some reminders of that more pleasant era are still there: three-story buildings with outdoor hallways that surround a green courtyard with flowering trees. When the Khmer Rouge moved into the complex, they converted the classrooms into torture chambers and prison cells. A gallows was erected in the courtyard for hanging prisoners.
Each prisoner was photographed upon arrival at Tuol Sleng. Those photos are now part of the museum: hundreds of black-and-white headshots posted on the walls of the old prison cells—row after row of those who fell victim to the place. When I looked closely at the photos, I was certain I could see fear in the prisoners’ eyes.
I wish I could report that exposure to these horrors prompted the young members of the Wheelan family to reflect on their privilege and good fortune. In fact, Cambodia was the site of CJ’s most epic meltdown. He and Sophie had been squabbling for some time over petty things, such as whether CJ had blocked Sophie’s path to the bathroom with his backpack. “Figure it out yourselves,” Leah and I said in unison when they tried to raise their respective grievances. However, CJ’s bad mood escalated during an outdoor dinner at an Indian restaurant. We were seated at a table on a patio beneath an overhead fan. The temperature was near-perfect and we were enjoying our outdoor meal. The overhead light attracted some black bugs that looked like grasshoppers and were jumping around in an unpredictable way.
One of these grasshopper-like bugs landed on CJ’s plate. He jumped out of his seat, screaming and waving his arms. He was unable to calm himself. Instead, he became hypersensitive to the other insects buzzing harmlessly about. Soon his hysteria became unbearable, and the rest of us came to a unanimous decision. “You’re out,” I said, waving my thumb like an umpire.
“What’s that’s supposed to mean?” CJ asked.
“You’ve been evicted from the table,” I said.
Leah concurred. “Take your plate somewhere else,” she said.
“You can’t do that!” CJ protested.
“We just did,” I said.
“Where am I supposed to go?” CJ asked.
Leah pointed inside the restaurant. “There are plenty of tables.”
CJ picked up his plate and walked away. When we looked in the restaurant ten minutes later, he was eating happily with an older English couple.
CJ’s ridiculous behavior inspired some humorous healing. The rest of us wanted an apology. Also, we were looking for a way to remind the friends and family following our trip that life on the road was not all roses. I offered up the idea of holding a videotaped “press conference” in which CJ would abase himself for his actions, like a disgraced politician. The next day, with one of the Angkor Wat temples as a backdrop, CJ read from a script while Katrina filmed the statement with her phone. I used my camera to make clicking noises to approximate a press conference. He looked somberly into the camera and said:
I deeply regret many of my actions yesterday. At times, my behavior did not conform to the high standards I set for myself. Mistakes were made. I have now seen the error in my ways. I realize that the presence of small crickets should not be a cause for hysteria at dinner. I should not have used foul language when Sophie moved my possessions to clear a path to the bathroom. I am committed to better behavior today, tomorrow, and for the remainder of the trip. Thank you for your attention. I will not be taking questions at this time.
We posted the clip on Facebook (where it has over eighteen hundred views).*
Our plan was to visit northern Vietnam, which has a distinctly different culture and history than the south. The most efficient way to get there was to return to Hanoi and then travel north. (In a region characterized by impenetrable jungle—other than f
or opium traffickers—the fastest way between two points is not always a straight line.) We had booked a “sleeper bus” from Saigon to the coastal city of Nha Trang. If the overnight buses in South America were like business class on a fine airline, the Vietnamese buses were more like a convict ship. The “sleepers” were not seats that reclined to a comfortable position. Rather, they were fixed bunks, an upper and a lower. One line of bunks ran the length of the bus along the right side, one ran along the left side, and one was squeezed in the middle (where I was). Lying down was the only option; passengers were essentially stacked on the bus. Just as I managed to fall asleep, the bright fluorescent lights snapped on as we stopped for a bathroom break.
At the end of the trip we were dropped on a dark street corner in Nha Trang at five-fifteen a.m. We had all slept poorly on the cramped bus. Now we had another problem: no hotel room. Leah had not been able to find any rooms online because of the Tet holiday, which is Vietnam’s busiest travel period. As we stood in the dark, she laid out our options. We could travel on; this would require booking an overnight bus on to Hoi An—two sleepers in a row. Even that was not a sure thing, however. With all the Tet travel, there was a good chance that the bus would be sold out, in which case we would end up sleeping on the beach. Or we could search for a hotel in Nha Trang—but the longer we waited to buy onward bus tickets, the more likely they were to be sold out.
“We need to buy bus tickets immediately,” Katrina declared. “We’ll never find a hotel room.”
“Why wasn’t I consulted about any of this?” Sophie asked accusingly. Under different circumstances, this would have been laugh-outloud funny. Sophie had not been consulted on any decision in the last five months, nor had she expressed any interest. CJ was surprisingly calm and quiet, perhaps because of the predawn hour.
“Give me a little time,” I pleaded. There were large hotels in every direction. All we needed was one cancellation. Also, the thought of two overnight buses in a row was miserable.
We Came, We Saw, We Left Page 19