Cycling Indochina: Part I (Vietnam to Cambodia)

Next on our itinerary was a 12-day cycling trip with gAdventures, a travel-adventure company we now affectionately refer to as the red-headed step child of Backroads given its slightly rustic conditions and accommodations.

Our trip started in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), continued through Vietnam and Cambodia, and ended in Bangkok, Thailand. We road about 30-40 miles of riding per day through the villages and back country of Vietnam and Cambodia.

The trip also included a three day stop in Siam Reap, Cambodia, home of Angkor Wat, the largest religious complex ever constructed. All in all, the trip was to be a mix of cycling and transfers by mini-van with several stops at historical sites. We were excited to get some exercise and see this part of the world!

Arrival in Vietnam
We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City early on a Saturday morning with an extra day to explore before our tour officially started. After spending three weeks in India and Nepal where daily life seemed to be quite crowded, chaotic, and, dis-orderly, Saigon (still referred to by the locals) seemed to be comparatively organized and orderly. But beneath the surface, however, it was similar. Sidewalks were practically non-existent, horns were honking everywhere, and feeling cramped and claustrophobic was inevitable. That being said, we had a casual but delicious dinner in a bustling evening neighborhood where we were told the city never sleeps.

The preferred mode of transportation in Vietnam is motorbikes, and there are a lot of them! In city of about 10 million, there are over 5 million motorbikes given the rising middle class and a 200+% tax on automobiles. There were a sea of scooters wherever you looked. The good news is that the government had enacted a law that requires the use of helmets.

Vietnam
The Socialist Republic of Vietnam has a population of about 90 million people with Hanoi (in the north) being the capital and Ho Chi Minh City (in the south) being its largest city. It remains a comm­­­­unist state with a per capita income of approximately $2300/year. ­­Vietnam had been colonized by the French in the mid 19^th century and the Japanese temporarily during World War II. Vietnam ousted the French in 1954 and subsequently became divided into North and South Vietnam. The escalation between North and South continued and in the 1960’s the United States entered the war on the side of South Vietnam in an effort to prevent the spread of communism coming from North Vietnam. The controversial war ended in 1975 with the fall of Saigon and victory for the North Vietnamese. Vietnam was unified under a communist government and stayed isolated from the rest of the world until the mid-1980’s when some economic and political reforms helped integrate Vietnam back into the world economy.

Sadly, our guide spoke to us about the Vietnamese “reeducation camps”, which were a euphemism for prison camps operated by the communist government following the 1975 Fall of Saigon. Thousands were tortured and abused. The term is evidently also used to refer to the prison camps operated by China during the cultural revolution.

Saigon
Prior to meeting the gAdventures group, we took some time to explore Saigon. We took a half day tour that took us to a local market, a temple, and most importantly, the War Remnants Museum. While we refer to this war as the “Vietnam War”, the Vietnamese refer to this conflict as the “American War” and the museum is dedicated to its history.  The perspective is presented from the point of view of the Vietnamese (the original name of the museum was “Exhibition house for US and puppet crimes”). Without getting political, this museum provides a very visual reminder of the horrors of war. Daphne was particularly affected by the exhibit on the effects of napalm and Agent Orange on both soldiers (many American soldiers have been affected with cancers and other illnesses) and civilians who came in contact with the chemicals.

After absorbing the information presented at the War Museum, it’s hard to believe that the Vietnmese have any appetite for Americans. But we were told that today’s generation of Vietnmese love Americans and the economic growth, prosperity and ideologies the United States has to offer. The years following the American pull-out from Vietnam did not deliver the economic progress that the victorious communist rule promised; many Vietnamese say they saw the dark side of communism. Vietnam is now considered a socialist-oriented market economy and with the internet making information available to all, the younger generation continues to push for more reforms.

Later that night we had an orientation meeting for our cycling trip and met the three other people on our adventure: a couple from Germany (Marta and Doritt) and Tom from New Zealand. This group was relatively small compared to the usual size of such trips. Our gAdventures CEO (Chief Experience Officer) was Cham, a very nice young man from Cambodia, and we were also accompanied through Vietnam by a local specialist, Vu, who was from Saigon. Interestingly, Vu and Cham did not speak each other’s language and had to communicate by speaking English.

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) to Ben Tre
We started the next day bright and early with a short drive to the outskirts of the city. We hopped on our Trek mountain bikes and we were off.

We could tell we were in the country-side, as the villages that we passed through seemed much poorer than Saigon. The people were friendly and we were greeted with smiles — the kids loved to scream out “hello”  and “hi” every time we passed by. The roads were a mix of paved and off road dirt, but generally fairly wide.

It didn’t take us long to make our way to the rice fields where we saw women in their bamboo pointed hats laboring in the heat. Rice is a very labor intensive crop and the Vietnamese export only a small amount of what they grow. It is used in most daily dishes.

We also took a break to visit a rubber plantation. Vietnam is a major exporter of rubber, which is harvested in the form of latex from the rubber tree. Here we saw the “tapping” of the trees, where the milky substance is collected in vessels. Our guide enjoyed showing us the “stretch ratio” of the harvested material.

While the green rice fields and plantation trees were beautiful, I’m not one to stop too much on a ride (especially since field after field looked the same). But we were on a travel tour and several people wanted to stop often and take pictures. I was not used to going so slow and stopping so much; I missed my road bike and it was only day one!

The Cu Chi Tunnels
One thing we did enjoy was a visit to the Cu Chi tunnels south of Ho Chi Minh city. These are a vast set of underground tunnels used by ~5000 Viet Cong (North Vietnamese fighters); it was fascinating to see how incredibly resourceful these Viet Cong were. These tunnels were used to hide, to protect, to establish supply routes, and to provide medical support and living quarters to the Viet Cong.

We saw what it was like to maneuver in these tunnels; they were amazingly dark and tight. Bats were flying around in one of the rooms — good thing we had gotten our rabies vaccine! Our guides, Vu and Cham, who were very vocal about some of the problems with the current government in the bus, warned us that there would be another “communist” guide at the site. They warned that they would have to stay on script and not mention anything controversial as it could be dangerous for them.

We ended our day and transferred to Ben Tre, in the Mekong Delta, a stretch of the southwestern-most land in Vietnam critically important to agriculture and fishing. The next day we continued our biking through the Mekong Delta, seeing many more green rice fields. We ended our day with a boat ride on the Mekong River to a quaint little homestay where a local family hosted us with room and board. That night, we learned how to prepare traditional Vietnamese fare and had a fun evening with our hosts.

Daphne awoke the next morning with a stomach bug – the Delhi belly that she managed to avoid in India suddenly hit her in Vietnam. Unfortunately there was no “staying at the hotel” when on a bike trip. Daphne was forced to move with the rest of us, although she opted out of the biking activities for a couple of days.

The first activity when we left the homestay the next morning was a boat ride to see a “floating market”, where people buy and sell products from their boats on the river. I was struck by the warmth and kindness of spirit I felt from these people, in spite of the fact that they were likely very poor.

Next, all of us with the exception of Daphne, we were back on our bikes. Our Vietnamese guide, Vu, provided insight into the daily life in the villages we passed as well as all of the changes that Vietnam has gone through as they have entered the global economy. From my view, the world that we were passing was vastly different from our own. It was very impoverished and gave me an appreciation for all of the comforts that we have in the western world.

The day continued with a couple hours of riding on paths that were a little wider than the width of a bike tire. The sides of the path were covered with moss. Our guides warned us to “be very careful”. I went ahead at times to stay out of the fray. At one point I waited for what seemed like forever and found out everybody, including Vu and Cham, had crashed along this path. I was amused. Everybody was scrapped up but nothing serious. We stopped and took some fun pictures and everyone was in a good mood and happy with our day.

With Daphne still resting, I went out with the boys, Cham and Vu, that night for dinner and gained a little more insight into their worlds. Both were married and well educated. Guiding was definitely considered a well respected profession and they seemed happy with their lives. I asked about dog meat in Vietnamese cooking and Vu explained that there were restaurants that advertised that they use dog meat in their cooking; he pointed out that dogs are raised for consumption. Cham chimed in that he stopped eating dog meat because when he passed by the normally friendly dogs in his village they would become very aggressive, they could sense that he was “eating their friends”, as he put it.

Transfer to Cambodia
Probably top on the list from an amusement standpoint was the immigration and customs transfer when crossing the border from Vietnam to Cambodia. It was a land border crossing and we started by piling all of our luggage onto a motorbike and our guy zoomed off with our luggage over to the customs area on the Cambodian side.

This cost us a dollar, as did most everything else on this adventure. There was an endless array of checkpoints and booths that were required to pass into Cambodia. All required payment and a few extra dollars would speed up the processing time — wink, wink. At one point, we went from booth to booth handing out dollars for various immigration fees. One guy was the health checker dude (he was there to make sure that we weren’t bringing in any deadly diseases into the country). He had a little device that beeped as held it against our neck. I commented that the device was really probably used to count all of the dollars he was collecting as we passed through. Cham pointed out that these government positions at the border were highly coveted as the row of Mercedes in the parking lot all belonged to government employees who worked in immigration. Apparently you have to pay about 30 grand to “apply” for one of these positions.

We boarded our new bus, met our Cambodian cycling guide, and after our tiring border crossing, decided to make a few stops to enjoy a variety of local “delicacies”. Cambodia, in particular, was a place where I enjoyed many unusual foods. Daphne, on the other hand, having just come off Indochina’s version of Delhi Belly, chose to pass!

Cambodia
In addition to eating, it was fascinating to learn about Cambodia. The Khmer are the indigenous people of this country and their lands at one point spanned across parts of Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam in addition to today’s Cambodia. Their ancient capital city was Angkor Wat. Today, however, Cambodia is small and is one of the more under-developed countries in the region. It suffers from a recent turbulent and tragic history.  In spite of that, we found the people to be some of the warmest.

Cambodia is a country of 15 million and lies between Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. 95% of the population practices Theravada Buddhism and Phnom Penh is the capital. The kingdom is a constitutional monarchy and Prime Minister Hue Sen has been in power since 1985. Although there are elections, the Prime Minister (widely viewed as a dictator) has no problem using military force to keep himself in power as he did in the latest elections as he was at risk of losing. Sadly, Cambodia is considered to have one of the most corrupt governments in the world and this was evident as we crossed the border.

Cambodia, similar to Vietnam, was occupied by the French in the mid 1800’s, and eventually gained independence in 1953. It became involved in the Vietnam War when the Viet Cong moved into Cambodia and the Americans bombed Viet Cong strongholds in Cambodia for several years. The American’s tried to prop up a government in the early 70s, but after the American withdrawal from the Vietnam War and the region, a vacuum allowed for the takeover of the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge took power in 1975 and committed genocide against its own people with at least 2 million people being killed over a 4 year period until the Vietnamese took control in 1979. These were very dark days for the Khmer people.

The Vietnamese left in the early 1990’s and the U.N. governed briefly. Cambodia has been part of the world economy since then but still struggles with widespread poverty, corruption, and human rights issues. We saw quite a bit of real estate development, which made us believe economic progress was happening. But unfortunately, due to corruption, progress remains slow.

The Khmer Rouge
Led by Pol Pot, The Khmer Rouge (which was formed in the countryside of Cambodia and was a communist offshoot of the Viet Cong) marched into Phnom Penh with support of the proletariat in 1975 and took control of the country. What ensued was a devastation for this country — a totalitarian dictatorship that was horrific towards the people that believed in the rhetoric that was fed to them and, at the end of the day, many lost their lives in brutally awful ways because they put their faith in a megalomaniac. A lot can be said about this, but Pol Pot survived and in one of his last interviews, after at least 2 million Cambodians were killed under his regime, he continued to proclaim that he loved the Cambodian people and that nothing heinous or egregious ever happened under his rule.

We toured two heinous Khmer Rouge sites, the killing fields, and the S-21 prison, where Cambodians (women and children included) were tortured and killed in unbelievable ways, and all of this happened in our lifetime. Our guide told the story of his relatives that disappeared. In sum, 25% of the population was killed directly or by starvation as Pol Pot rounded up any and everybody that might threaten his rule. Teenage soldiers were brainwashed to carry out his mission. And the intellectuals were a clear focus of the Khmer Rouge’s torture, leaving the country in need of rebuilding a strong educated class.

Phnom Penh
After an emotional (and filling) day, we arrived in Phnom Penh, checked into our hotel, and subsequently went to check out the local market. After all, it had only been a few hours since I had eaten scorpions.

In contrast to Ho Chi Minh City, Phenom Penh was full of cars (lots of Honda CR-V’s which I drive at home), mainly due to a low tax on automobiles. Surprisingly, the city was very modern with lots of development going on, mostly from Chinese investment into the country. That night we took a touk-touk tour of city where Daphne ended up having a tug-of-war fight with a local trying to steal her iPhone. That good karma that we had in Nepal must have remained with us in Cambodia because she won the iPhone war.

The next day, we did more cycling around Phnom Penh, visiting a village that had been displaced from the capital in an effort to make way for development. Eventually made our way to Siam Reap, the home of Angkor Wat and the highlight of the trip, especially for Daphne, where she finally came back alive from her bout with Delhi belly. She loved Angkor Wat so I’ll let her take talk all about it in another blog post, “Cycling Indochina: Part II”. For now, here is a happy pic of the two of us in front of the famous Angkor Wat Temple.