Vietnam, Feb 4 – 18, 2006 By: Wendy Uncles
Background … Towney spent a lot of time in Vietnam in 1969-1970 in not too great situation. There was a war going on. He was flying helicopters, Hueys, in the Central Highlands of what was then South Vietnam, close to the town of Pleiku, a rural settlement with no more than 30,000 residents. The area was surrounded by ride paddies, hills and almost mountains, and a lot of the population around was Montegnard villagers, hill tribes with their own culture, language and way of life. The area is not far from the borders of Laos and Cambodia.
At a reunion of the 189th Assault Helicopter Company near Washington DC last fall, we met a man named George who was not only a member of the 189th, but a travel organizer. He had a dream to go back to Vietnam. We signed on right away. The price was right, and it was an opportunity that happens only once in a blue moon.
So, with passports, traveler’s checks and a travel diary in hand, we left Burlington on February 4 for a flight to Los Angeles via Chicago. We spent the night at the Hacienda Hotel, close to the airport. Not much to sightsee around there, but we were there for Superbowl Sunday, and the local watering hole was fine for that.
We flew Cathay Pacific across the big pond (aka Pacific Ocean). The flight was just after midnight, but the check in was very confusing and time consuming, but we did make it onto the plane, a 747, and settled into our seats at the back of coach (window seats, but just the two of us, and the Bunnies!), watched the movie, ate amazingly good airplane food (two meals!), drank their wine … and landed in Hong Kong. This is the new airport north of the city. Kai Tak is gone, and the landing is much less exciting than before. There are mountains close by, and water, but it is far from the city. We were there for a couple of hours, so did some shopping and relaxing before getting the next flight to Ho Chi Minh City (but still called Saigon by everyone but those who are official … so that’s what I will call it from now on!)
We arrived in Saigon just before noon. We made it through immigration (lots of returning Vietnamese), got our luggage, then through customs … finally the group managed to get together and we got onto a very big bus and headed into the city.
First impressions? Lots of people waiting outside the terminal meeting travelers,
quonset huts by the runways, some with old Hueys without rotors, lots and lots
of motorbikes, and the sounds and smells of an Asian city.
That’s not a bad thing! Hot,
of course. The airport is very 60s
Russian style, but the new one that is being built … wow!
It will be the kind of airport that we see in Bangkok, Seoul, Singapore,
Hong Kong. What kind of future is
this country anticipating?
Driving through the city, more and more motorbikes, shophouses, power lines, people,
people, people 
We were staying at the Asian Hotel, a tourist hotel, but not at all fancy. Good location, though. We had our welcoming dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant. This could have been the first and last time that the entire group would be together. There was one subgroup that was going up to Danang to give a donation to the landmine group (this group, from Long Island, was centered around a man who had lost both of his legs there). The food was good! We had gone there after sitting at the rooftop bar at the Rex Hotel for some libations.
GEORGE DESERRES, GERRY SANDLIN
and
TOWNEY SAUSVILLE
The Rex was where a lot of the foreign news correspondents had spent time during the war.
We also had done some preliminary shopping. There is lots to buy, and the prices are amazingly cheap. Our first scores were some laquerware and postcards.
We tried very hard to adapt to the local time, going to bed at bedtime. And then, waking up at wake up time! Then breakfast for a kind of western breakfast … One thing that we noticed, and this was confirmed throughout the entire trip everywhere … the French left one great legacy – the bread! They call it panne, and they are awesome little French loaves! The butter is canned, mostly from Europe.
The next day (Wednesday) the group split up. One part went on a trip to the Delta (some of the vets on the tour had been stationed there, and others were curious). The other, including us, decided to stay in the city and see the sights there. We started at the market at Cholan, the Chinese section of Saigon. I had known a lot of people from that part of the city in Edmonton (including Wendy Chau!), so I was interested in seeing it. And yes, it was very much a very Chinese section, and the market, which is a wholesale market, had just about everything that you would every want, and more!
PHILL CUMMINGS (179TH)
TOWNEY SAUSVILLE, WENDY UNCLES,
GEORGE DESERRES AND GERRY SANDLIN (189TH)
From there we visited three religious sites, a Chinese temple (with the joss sticks and other offerings, lots of incense), a Buddhist temple, and then a Daoist temple.
The latter was the busiest by a long shot.
And, one of the most interesting things was the turtles.
I gather that people bring offerings of turtles (other places have birds,
for example). There are lots of
turtles in the ponds by the entrance. 
Lunch was our first introduction to Pho, the Vietnamese national dish, I think, and certainly their signature breakfast! It is basically a very nice beef noodle soup with herbs and vegetables. Yum!
Our final tour stop was the Presidential Palace, now the war museum. The public rooms are all open, both to the air and to the public, all the way up to the roof (4th floor, with a nice view of the city and a Huey) and down to the basement where the war was choreographed. Very 60s! No computers at all!
This Uh-1 belong to the 165 TC CO A CDS before Saigon fell.
Then we did some more shopping and ended up at the Rex again, and had dinner there.
The next day we flew on Vietnam Air to Pleiku (after a breakfast of Pho!).
This was a homecoming of sorts for the rest of the tour (I am the only woman the other one went off with her husband on their one tour to Danang and Hue). We checked into the Pleiku Hotel, a remnant of when the Russians came in after the Americans left in 1973. One thing, the satellite dish on the roof – we were told that it covered the whole town – meant that we could get some English language TV, like CNN Europe and HBO!
After a very elaborate lunch, we went for a little walk around the town. Definitely not as urban as Saigon. Lots and lots of motorbikes, but not nearly the big vehicle traffic. Crossing the street was must easier. No English spoken. The people were mostly friendly, waving and smiling and “Hello”.
We got onto our great big coach for the afternoon sightseeing tour. It took us to places from the past. Camp Enari was the first stop. We stopped for a photo op at what was the guard gate. Then we went to see where the landing strip was. They think they found it – right now it is flat and smooth and they are drying coffee on it.
JOE,
SOTTILE (189TH/57TH AHC & TOWNEY
SAUSVILLE 189TH AHC
Entrance to Camp Enarie
CAMP
ENARI AIRFIELD
Camp Holloway is gone. Drove by where it was, but now it is occupied by the Vietnamese military. We couldn’t even stop to take pictures.
Camp Holloway 2006
but we got a few. (now don't tell).
Looking out over Pleiku and the new traffic circle.
The next day (Friday?) after a great Pho breakfast (and buffet with all of the other stuff) we went out to see one of the local Montegnard villages. Our local guide came from one of the villages, but he managed to get to University of Michigan for a couple of years. The place where we were was called the Plei Phun Village (plei means “village”, I was told).
This was in an area that Towney and the guys knew well. We walked in, looked at some of the structures, visited the chief’s house (traditional, but with the tv antenna on the roof), and then walked to the burial ground. There were gorgeous views of a valley with ride paddies, a river, mountains – spectacular. Towney recognized a place where he had landed his helicopter when supplying the troops with Thanksgiving dinner in 1969. That was moving.
Camp Holloway
1969 Camp Holloway 2006 Looking south to
Dragon Mountain. Later we went to another village for a show of
local dancing. The ceremonies included drinking some of the local rice
brew. Saturday – after breakfast we got onto our
coach and headed north to Kontum. It was about an hour north. We
checked into the hotel (another of the same kind of style as Pleiku), but the
new high rise luxury hotel was next door, just about to be opened. Phill Cummings (179th)
Steve Hayduk (57th) Joe Sottile (189th/57th) Gerry Sandlin (189th)
Barry Taylor George Deserres, Bob Taylor, Towney Sausville
(189th) On the road to Kontum.
We switched to a smaller van to go out to the
next village (there was a one lane suspension bridge that couldn’t handle the
big bus). We stopped at the village on the Dukbla River This was a fun trip. First, we walked on
a road that turned to a path and then to a little track through the jungle.
We passed through rice paddies, tapioca, bananas, coffee plantations.
There were lots of cows and bullock carts and old rusted bicycles. Up and
down. All the time there were beautiful views of the river. It’s the dry season, so the greenest things
were the rice paddies. The plants are still that amazing new spring yellow
green color.
All the time there were beautiful views of the
river. The trek was about six kilometers. At
the end of the path, we were met by villagers in dugout canoes. Each was
carved out of a single log. Some were made of bigger trees, so they could
carry 3, 4 or 5 people. Others handled two, with difficulty! We
ferried across the river and had a picnic lunch.
Then everyone got on the boats and headed down
river to the starting village and the bus. The river was quite low, so we
had to get out twice, walk across a sandbar to the boats, climb in again, and
down we drifted. Lunch Time
It was a beautiful day – warm, almost but
not quite hot, with a cooling breeze. Sunscreen was necessary, though! Back at the hotel, most of the men hired a van
to go to Dakto, a place where some pretty horrible things happened back in the
war. Towney chose not to go, although he had spent some time up there.
Instead, we discovered that the hotel was brewing its own dark beer. We also did some quick souvenir shopping in
the area around the hotel, including a couple of very interesting carvings from
the hill tribes (and obscenely cheap). The drive down the coast was amazing –
gorgeous views of mountains down to and into the sea, lots of little and
colorful fishing boats, fish platforms, tiger shrimp farms. The ride
paddies go right down to the sea. I wonder how they keep the fresh and
salt water separated! It was cloudy going through the passes, but by the
time we got down to the coast it was blue and clear. There were enough
clouds for interest. We ended up in a town called Tuy Hoa, a fairly
sizeable city that really isn’t in the tourist books. One part of the
city is really developing – it looks like people from outside are spending a
lot of money and building big houses, close to the ocean. There are two
very distinct styles – one is the narrow tall Vietnamese style, the others are
very western (kind of like the big expensive houses in California – I wonder
if those are being built by people returning after making their fortunes in the
west!). But, that’s not where we were housed. Another old Russian
concrete hotel. This was probably the worst of the trip. We went
across the street and had a pleasant local style dinner when the other guys came
and said that they had discovered a place with restaurants and bars and lots of
other things. We joined them, walked across the bridge to a real Tivoli
styled amusement park -- all kitch and lights and music and amusements and
restaurants and bars and … they had dinner, we had a beer. Monday morning we were back on the coach
heading south on the new highway to Nha Trang. Lots of beautiful views,
like yesterday. Later we went down to the Sailing Club and had
a pizza, the first western food of the trip (the other men were on a quest for
cheeseburgers …). Gorgeous setting, gorgeous views. That ended up
as our dinner. After wandering for a bit, we crashed in our
seventh floor room with great view! The tour the next morning (who knows what day
it was) was to two places. The first was the Cham pagoda/temple, dating
from the 9th century. We had seen other ruins on the trip down
the coast, but this was the first that we could see close up. Then to the
local market. I bought some Vietnamese pepper (we’d seen it being
cultivated at Kontum), and some local pottery (Pho bowls) and a few other
things. It was a typical market. There were lots of the usual
tourist souvenirs as well as the market stuff.
There goes Gerry
shopping....more t-shirts. In the afternoon (again at leisure), we hired
a couple of Cyclos for a leisurely tour. We went out to the Buddhist
temple. What a ride? Cyclos (one or two passengers in front, man
pedaling in back) have right of way, but with all of the scooters and motorbikes
coming at you from all sides, you wonder … The temple had one large reclining Buddha and
a large sitting Buddha, and the bell. There was a little old Mama-San
ringing the bell. She made us sit under the bell while she rang it three
times (for a blessing). What an amazing vibrant sound. It
reverberates long after the bell has been rung. Evening was more Sailors Club and
quasi-western food. And then to bed before leaving on a 4 – 5 hour trip
down to Phan Thiet. The trip was interesting. The terrain
changed noticeable as we headed south from Nha Trang. We drove down the
coast past Cam Ranh Bay (beautiful). The road literally went to the beach
and then up and around the coastal mountains. From there it was much
drier. There were a lot of vineyards, sugar cane and then the salt flats.
Most of those had been recently flooded (they did that at the Chinese New Year),
so we couldn’t see any of the salt, yet. You could see that some of the
flats were drying and had small deposits of salt forming on the edges.
There were some huge piles of salt in the distance, and we passed one truck that
was loaded with salt. At Phan Rang we stopped at another Cham
Temple. These people are preparing for tourists, it is obvious! This
one dates from the 16th century, near the end of the Cham era in
Vietnam. As we headed south it got drier and drier –
it seemed to be almost semi-desert, kind of like the dry side of Maui, or
Arizona. One usually has an impression of this country as jungle.
Not true! There were lots of sand dunes and burial
sites. Not much else. It was kind of moon-like. As we came closer to Phan Thiet along the
coast we began seeing all kinds of luxury resorts, and lots more under
construction. Imagine our delight when we pulled into one
– Bamboo Village. It is only a three star resort, but still nice enough! We had a welcoming libation and then pulled on
our swimsuits and went for a splash in the South China Sea. Warm, clean,
just enough waves to frolic in … perfection and just what we needed! Then we went to the pool, sat in the
whirlpool, did a little swim, then a walk on the beach to gather seashells.
Then happy hour, dinner at a little restaurant right outside the gate.
Grilled fish, barbequed tiger shrimp, salad, big beer, rice, dessert, all for
less than $5.00. And one thing about the beach? No
hawkers! There were lots of (western) guys parasailing, but that’s about
it. And, after breakfast back into the bus and on
the road back to Saigon. We headed inland. This is a very populated
area. There were more towns than rural stretches. There were lots of
rubber plantations (small trees, though recent plantings, which was typical of
just about everywhere that we were), but most of the time we were in urban and
suburban areas. And it was all pretty uniform. There
were small houses with the shot in front, sidewalk restaurants and drink stands,
all with little plastic tables and chairs. Westerns could never sit on
them – too small, too low. For us they’d be children’s chairs.
And hammocks – lots of then, even in some of the small restaurants, on the
side of the road rest stops (for people on cycles). The driving was quite
thrilling – it seems that there were countless near head-on misses – but all
of the drivers were in control. And back in Saigon for one more night.
Last minute shopping, mostly, and packing, and repacking. There is one
extra bag (everyone seems to have bought one more bag! Shopping was
great!). Our last dinner was on the terrace bar at the top of the Majestic
(another site of war correspondents way back then … before CNN took over the
business). Back in LA, after the long trip home.
Overall impression? Great trip!
Can’t wait to go back! By: Wendy Uncles
