From Saigon
by Tom Hutchings
From L’Indochine, 30 April 2006
On Friday, April 28, and 1400 kilometers away over the humid Bay of Bengal, a monsoon swirled and sent some of its energy to the four corners. One of those corners influenced by the storm was Viet Nam. On that day, Ho Chi Minh City, along, received nearly 4 inches of rain over a period of about 8 hours. A deluge of rain continued to pour onto the city and as each bolt of lightning seared the sky a cauldron of thunder poured down into the neighborhoods, resonating through the warrens and mazes of neighborhoods. It was a good day to open all the doors and windows and take a nap. It was also a good day to start the rainy season.
The following day, friends and I went on our motorbikes to ride around the city and find a coffee shop to relax in for an afternoon. My friends were off from work for the holiday. It was thirty-one years before that Vietnamese troops surrounded Saigon and waited for the final push into the capital to complete liberation of the South on the 30th of April. I was the only one in the group who remembered that day. My friends, thankful for a nation now at peace, merely wanted to find a nice, peaceful coffee shop. Areas areas around the banks of the Saigon River promised some good pickin’s. We settled in at the Café Song Bong; The River Bank Cafe.
After locating a table on the cantilevered deck over the water, we leaned back in metal-framed canvas lounges, sinking deep into the fabric, lower than the sand barges that drifted downstream. We slowly drank our sweetened, iced milk coffees and listened to soft Vietnamese music. My friends began peeling the lotus seeds they had moments before bought from a lady sitting at the busy roadside at the entrance to the cafe. They peeled the seeds, separated the halves and plucked the bitter green shoot from inside. I mentioed Tennyson’s poem about lotus-eaters and Odysseus’s epic journey and his contact with the Lotus Eaters of Northern Africa. Eating lotus seeds was said to produce a euphoric effect. Daydreamers are sometimes thought of as “lotus eaters.” My friends said they throw the bitter start of the shoot from the seed, but those who consume it feel drowsy, lazy and happy. That’s okay. I told them not to waste their extra energy pulling the halves apart for me. I didn’t mind being indolent.
So, I sat and watched barges filled with sand float downstream under a blue sky billowing white with piles of clouds; the boatmen squatted on the pilot house roof and watched for river traffic. It was a lazy time for me as I just completed over a year’s work on a novel tentatively titled “Tears of Tay Ninh,” a story that is set in Viet Nam of 1966 and 2005. The easy part was over; the hard task of finding a publisher or agent now begins.
On May 1, International Worker’s Day, some other friends and I decided to visit the Saigon Zoo and Botanical Gardens. Visiting a park in Viet Nam is an all day affair. We arrived in the morning and very casually strolled around the large park and zoo. Families came to spend the holiday, some had apparently traveled from the outlying districts of Ho Chi Minh City. They brought picnic baskets filled with food and drink, and while children played games, adults strung hammocks between trees for an afternoon rest. We found some empty benches and I took a short nap under the shade of tamarinds, frangipani trees and coconut palms. There was no rush to go from exhibit to exhibit. Oddly enough, being nearly the only foreigner at the zoo, I received more attention than the hippos, chimpanzees or the elephants. Another mid-afternoon rain cooled the already-cool air at the zoo. My last trip to the Saigon Zoo was in 1970. Little has changed.
When not writing or visiting with friends, I’m still teaching at the government’s University of Technical Education in Thu Duc, about a thirty-five minute motorbike ride from my home in Saigon. When the semester is over in late-June, I’ll be heading to the southern part of the Central Highlands to spend a week visiting ethnic hill-tribe villages and I’ll stay at a Catholic convent. A social worker is taking me to visit for a couple reasons; one to document and photograph the ethnic conditions of the hill tribes and, two, as research for the next book I intend to write. In July, I’ll be heading back to Siem Reap, Cambodia with my Nikon D50 to take more photos of the ancient temples and to visit with an old friend, Chomm Samithy. September will find me visiting the U.S. as I reunite with my buddies whom I flew with during the American War in Viet Nam.
Someday, if you find yourself in this part of the world, give me a call and we’ll eat some lotus seeds and drink some sweetened, iced coffees on the banks of the Saigon River. You can even take a nap, if you wish. --Tom
From L’Indochine, 30 April 2006
On Friday, April 28, and 1400 kilometers away over the humid Bay of Bengal, a monsoon swirled and sent some of its energy to the four corners. One of those corners influenced by the storm was Viet Nam. On that day, Ho Chi Minh City, along, received nearly 4 inches of rain over a period of about 8 hours. A deluge of rain continued to pour onto the city and as each bolt of lightning seared the sky a cauldron of thunder poured down into the neighborhoods, resonating through the warrens and mazes of neighborhoods. It was a good day to open all the doors and windows and take a nap. It was also a good day to start the rainy season.
The following day, friends and I went on our motorbikes to ride around the city and find a coffee shop to relax in for an afternoon. My friends were off from work for the holiday. It was thirty-one years before that Vietnamese troops surrounded Saigon and waited for the final push into the capital to complete liberation of the South on the 30th of April. I was the only one in the group who remembered that day. My friends, thankful for a nation now at peace, merely wanted to find a nice, peaceful coffee shop. Areas areas around the banks of the Saigon River promised some good pickin’s. We settled in at the Café Song Bong; The River Bank Cafe.
After locating a table on the cantilevered deck over the water, we leaned back in metal-framed canvas lounges, sinking deep into the fabric, lower than the sand barges that drifted downstream. We slowly drank our sweetened, iced milk coffees and listened to soft Vietnamese music. My friends began peeling the lotus seeds they had moments before bought from a lady sitting at the busy roadside at the entrance to the cafe. They peeled the seeds, separated the halves and plucked the bitter green shoot from inside. I mentioed Tennyson’s poem about lotus-eaters and Odysseus’s epic journey and his contact with the Lotus Eaters of Northern Africa. Eating lotus seeds was said to produce a euphoric effect. Daydreamers are sometimes thought of as “lotus eaters.” My friends said they throw the bitter start of the shoot from the seed, but those who consume it feel drowsy, lazy and happy. That’s okay. I told them not to waste their extra energy pulling the halves apart for me. I didn’t mind being indolent.
So, I sat and watched barges filled with sand float downstream under a blue sky billowing white with piles of clouds; the boatmen squatted on the pilot house roof and watched for river traffic. It was a lazy time for me as I just completed over a year’s work on a novel tentatively titled “Tears of Tay Ninh,” a story that is set in Viet Nam of 1966 and 2005. The easy part was over; the hard task of finding a publisher or agent now begins.
On May 1, International Worker’s Day, some other friends and I decided to visit the Saigon Zoo and Botanical Gardens. Visiting a park in Viet Nam is an all day affair. We arrived in the morning and very casually strolled around the large park and zoo. Families came to spend the holiday, some had apparently traveled from the outlying districts of Ho Chi Minh City. They brought picnic baskets filled with food and drink, and while children played games, adults strung hammocks between trees for an afternoon rest. We found some empty benches and I took a short nap under the shade of tamarinds, frangipani trees and coconut palms. There was no rush to go from exhibit to exhibit. Oddly enough, being nearly the only foreigner at the zoo, I received more attention than the hippos, chimpanzees or the elephants. Another mid-afternoon rain cooled the already-cool air at the zoo. My last trip to the Saigon Zoo was in 1970. Little has changed.
When not writing or visiting with friends, I’m still teaching at the government’s University of Technical Education in Thu Duc, about a thirty-five minute motorbike ride from my home in Saigon. When the semester is over in late-June, I’ll be heading to the southern part of the Central Highlands to spend a week visiting ethnic hill-tribe villages and I’ll stay at a Catholic convent. A social worker is taking me to visit for a couple reasons; one to document and photograph the ethnic conditions of the hill tribes and, two, as research for the next book I intend to write. In July, I’ll be heading back to Siem Reap, Cambodia with my Nikon D50 to take more photos of the ancient temples and to visit with an old friend, Chomm Samithy. September will find me visiting the U.S. as I reunite with my buddies whom I flew with during the American War in Viet Nam.
Someday, if you find yourself in this part of the world, give me a call and we’ll eat some lotus seeds and drink some sweetened, iced coffees on the banks of the Saigon River. You can even take a nap, if you wish. --Tom
posted by thomashutchings at 3:30 AM
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