The 2-directional Tonle Sap River

#27 from SE Asia
March 7th, 2010
along the Tonle Sap river

I leave Phnom Penh at sunrise before the heat of the day. The road traffic is not frantic. I stay on highway 5, on the south side of the Tonle Sap River and Tonle Sap Lake. Within 10 miles, the traffic and street noise has dropped to the level of a country road. The drill is clear to me. Get in as many miles as early as I can, before the heat of the day. I am doing 3 gallons of liquids a day. I will have to do this all the way back to Bangkok, for winter is over here. It is now getting hot. My goal is 90+ kms ahead, to Kampong Chhnang (that is honestly how they spell it in English), where the Tonle Sap River meets the Tonle Sap Lake.

Along the way, I stop at villages without electricity. But I can still get iced drinks. They have daily deliveries of ice here. I can remember as a child that my grandmother actually had an íce box’, where she would receive a daily block of ice for her refrigerator from the íce man’. .

one generator is charging up the village

So what do they do for lighting? A local man has big single cylinder diesel engine attached to a generator. Every morning people bring to him their discharged 12 volt car batteries. When they are all wired together in parallel, he fires up his generator and charges them all afternoon. They come with bicycles and pick them up at the end of the day.

They do not just use them for lighting. They have 12 volt TVs. And what do they watch? ALL the women in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia watch soap operas. I swear. ALL of them. In every shop, restaurant, business, there is a soap opera on. And the men? Kick-boxing. I am confident that soon, the human genome project is going to identify the genome cluster for watching soap operas and sports.

I have been consistently amazed at what these people can move with a 100cc motorcycle.  Do you think this would pass US highway inspection?  I assure you that I have seen much worse here.

This would meet federal inspections, right?

As I ride north on a Friday afternoon, I see maybe 40 men gathered around a TV in a cafeteria, watching a kick-boxing championship. Their reactions are identical to US men watching boxing. I notice that most of the men are from 45 to 60 years old. A Cambodian in Phnom Penh told me earlier that any man in this age bracket now alive in Cambodia HAD to be active in the Khmer Rouge. He said that if they did not support the Khmer Rouge, they were summarily executed. He said that if they were not killed, they were doing the killing. I look at their faces and I wonder, ‘which ones?”

I read about the Tonle Sap River in WHEN THE RIVERS RUN DRY. This is a great book that researches how damming and draining off the world’s major rivers have changed them so. The Tonle Sap is unlike any other river in the world. It is the only river to flow in both directions. For 7 months a year, it flows into the Mekong River and out to the South China Sea. But for 5 months, the Mekong River rises so fast during the monsoon season that it backs up into the Tonle Sap and refills the Tonle Sap lake. This shallow lake may quadruple its size, flooding the surrounding woodlands and rice paddies. The plants and the people have adopted their lives to this annual cycle.

The Tonle Sap Lake is also the richest fresh water fishery in the world. On good years it produces up to 3 million tons of fish, fully 4% of the world’s annual catch. All this from a relatively small lake. (NOTE: No wonder the national dish is Amok. It is a fish wrapped in a banana leaf, baked with light curries, coconut, vegetables and herbs I have never tasted had before. I had a serving of it tonight and it was extraordinary).

There is something else extraordinary about the Tonle Sap River. For a while, the river stops flowing and just sits still. It then deposits a lot of water-logged organic matter at the bottom. This material gets silted over and begins degrading anaerobically into methane. When the river reverses course, it sometimes does so violently, stirring up the bottom and causing large amounts a methane gas to be released. At this time in the evening the Cambodians in Phnom Penh will launch many small boats with burning candles into the river. When the boats hit pockets of methane, they explode. 1000’s of spectators cheer at this. But they have a different explanation. They say that the river dragons have awakened and are angry. I like their explanation better. I haved not seen this myself.  I have only heard of it, and read about it.  But I would like to see this phenomena some time.

The Tuol Sleng Prison Museum

Post #26 from SE Asia  — the Khmer Rouge
March 6th, 2010
pulling into Phnom Penh, Kampuchea

I could feel the difference immediately riding in Cambodia.  (They call it Kampuchea.)  Slower drivers, much less honking, the roads not nearly so dangerous.  More smiles.  I knew that I was back in the ”Buddhist belt’”.
You have surely heard of the disasters that Kampuchea has been thru.  Just watch THE KILLING FIELDS again to get an idea.  Briefly, after the bombing of Cambodia destabilized the country, there was a civil war where the Khmer Rouge came to power in April of 1975.  In the next 4 years, the Khmer Rouge proceeded to kill 2 million people, 1/4th of the entire population in one of the most insanely genocidal unleashings of this century.  Anyone with any education, who spoke any foreign language, was immediately executed.

It went far beyond that.  The regime on day one changed the calendar to YEAR ZERO, banned all money, and ordered the immediate evacuation of ALL cities on Cambodia.  All two million residents of Phnom Penh had 72 hours to go to the countryside and grow rice or face execution.  Anyone found within the city after 72 hours would be shot.  And that is what happened.  The Khmer Rouge army stayed behind and looted the city of everything.  But for 4 years, a city of 2 million stood vacant and without human life.  Hard to believe.

The translated rules of Tuol Sleng

The story gets worse.  I did visit the Tuol Sleng Museum.  It had been a high school before the revolution.  The Khmer Rouge converted it to a prison and torture chamber.  They kept accurate records including photos of all the inmates.  When the Vietnamese defeated the Khmer Rouge in 1979, they found the prison intact.  Of the 21,000 prisoners who were held here, only 12 are known to have survived.  After I saw this, and all the grisly evidence, I decided not to go visit the killing fields 20 km to the southwest.  I had seen enough skulls, bones, and photos to last me a while.  I have already visited Dachau, Auschwitz, Birkenau, the Anne Frank house, The Rio del Sangre in the Dominican Republic.  I know what we humans are capable of.  I came out with a feeling of pity for what the Cambodians have been thru.  Every last family lost people, and lots of them.  The actual fighting and hostilities went on sporadically until 1998.  This is recent.
There are many NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations — the do-gooders) here now, doing what they can for education and reconciliation.  They seem to be making a difference.  You have the sense that the remaining people are so relieved.  Just happy to begin to live anything approaching a normal life.  One-half the population is younger than 17, so I am a very old person here.  There are lots of orphans, and many people with missing limbs.  I have a general policy to not give anything to beggars but food.  But this does not apply to the amputees, and especially the kids who have stepped on land mines.
I can only hope that these gentle people here get their deserved peace.  They sure are peaceful and gentle on the street and in their interactions.  They have paid so high a price.

Coming into Phnom Penh, in the middle of the street...

Post #25  from SE Asia
March 4th, 2010
Time and travel

Time and Travel:
Einstein’s general theory of relativity states that the faster you go, the slower time passes for you.  My corollary to that is that the more you travel, the slower time goes.  I personally know this to be true.
I have been traveling now for about 10 weeks.  Yet, personally, it seems like this is all that I have ever done.  Every day is crammed with so many new experiences, events, locations, people, cultures, foods, languages, all coming at me so fast, that it seems like I have been traveling for years.  I am learning so much about everything.  In a 2 month period, I now know Bangkok, the Mekong River, Vientiane, Luang Prabang, Dien Bien Phu, Hanoi, Hue, Saigon, the Mekong Delta, The Tonle Sap basin, Phnom Penh, 4 new countries, and beginning tomorrow for 4 days, Angor Watt.

I remember when I was in my 30’s, when I was working overtime, raising kids, paying a mortgage.  It personally seemed to me like I went from age 30 to 40 in 2 years.  It scared me.  Older folks have told me that the older you get, the faster the years go by.  I find that if I am doing about the same thing every day, time, and life, flies by.  Does this make any sense to you?  Because it is a personal truth to me.
It is one of the reasons I travel, to fill my life with excitement and joy and simply interesting experiences.  I know all too well that life is just wonderful, but far too short.  But a trip like the one I am on grabs time by the balls and stops him cold.  And if time stops, then you live forever.  Right?

So I am already planning my next trip.  I am thinking on flying to Indonesia around late November and visiting Sumatra, Borneo, Malaysia, and work my way up the South Thailand Peninsula.  When I get to Bangkok, I may, or may not, build up a bicycle to go up to Chiang Mai, in NW Thailand.  After that, I would go to Myanmar.  And if I have the time, cross over Bangladesh and go to Southern, Dravidian India.  If anyone is interested in joining me next year for a section of this trip, do let me know.

I am traveling alone now.  I did invite a few friends and former students to join me for parts of the trip.  I thought until just before I left that I would rendezvous with a friend in Thailand.  But for various good reasons, they all canceled out.  So what do I do, stay home?  No.  I have a gut feeling that if I don’t do it now, I may never do it.
The clear advantage of traveling alone is your sheer freedom to make your schedule and destinations, and change it if you want.  That is a BIG advantage.  The disadvantage is not having anyone to share it with.  This is not entirely true because you can meet such interesting travelers on the road.
Another disadvantage is that you really have to watch out for yourself, because there is no one else there for you.  I am acutely aware of this in many ways.  I must watch my own back.  I am very careful when riding on the roads.  But it goes beyond that.  If I am in a restaurant and need to go to the men’s room, I carry whatever I have with me to the men’s room.  I will not leave anything on the table while I am gone.  When I am walking in the street or visiting a museum or archeological site, all my gear and valuables are strapped and zipped to me.  I have learned this over the years.
On the road, I meet ‘really interesting people from around the world.  Great conversations in bars and restaurants, in museums and historic and archaeological sites.  You meet a lot of people who have spent their lives living outside of the box doing exciting things their whole lives.  I am quite comfortable with these people.

The White tax

A friend of mine, George, who is currently bicycling in Africa, writes of the ‘white tax’.  Yes, it is real in Africa and South Asia.  If you are white, you pay more than the others.  Or at least they try to get you to pay more.  The simple fact that you can pay for a plane ticket there proves to them that you are wealthy beyond their imagination.  The price of that ticket might be more than their year’s salary.  So get used to it.  You can resist it, and often reduce it and occasionally even negate it, but it is there.  Having said that, I have a fine room in Siem Reap (where Angor Watt is) for $7 a night.  It is clean with a private bath and hot shower.  Maybe I could get the price down a bit, but at that price, why should I care?  I will be outside for 14-16 hours a day.  All I want is security and cleanliness, and I have that.

As a bicyclist traveling thru here, I have started to develop an attitude when I listen to young travelers, mostly European, complaining  of the rough conditions traveling.  I see them sitting there, almost universally smoking cigarettes, talking about hot, uncomfortable, buses that are not on time.  I ride into the guesthouses drenched in sweat and I have to listen to people 1/3 my age whining.  I mean, how much work does it take to buy a bus ticket and then plant your ass in a seat?  Most of the time I say nothing, but occasionally I call them whiners and wimps.
Maybe the worst are those who rent motorcycles and then talk of how tough their 6 hour motorcycle ride was.  I needed 3 days to complete that same route by bicycle.  I did say to one guy “Ýeah it takes a lot of work to twist that grip” and laughed at him.  At least he was quiet afterward.  I think I am getting a grumpy-old-man attitude here.  Cool it.

The real joy to me of bicycling across some place is the feeling afterward that I have really accomplished something.  I honestly was not sure that I could complete this trip.  Before leaving, I gave myself a 50-50 chance.
I have had the joy of being so close to the land and the people.  I have less than 800 km left on this trip.  Barring an accident, I will make it.  I have not seen another bicycle tourer since Hanoi.  I gather that this is not a popular route.
For my last 2 weeks I may cut south to Battambang, thru the hills to the world’s largest sapphire mine, then down to the Thai beaches.  We’ll see how this trip unfolds.

evidence of road kill all over

An educated Vietnamese told me in Saigon that the #1 cause of death in Saigon and Hanoi is in fact traumatic head injury from motorcycle accidents. It seemed to me that it had to be, given the way they drive. No turn signals, no head checking, left and U turns whenever they feel like it. Both Saigon and Hanoi have 4+ million motorcycles, each increasing at over a 1000 a day. It is a disaster. I am relieved to be out of these cities.
Well, yesterday morning I came upon the remnants of a fresh accident. A badly crushed motorcycle,with oil, gas, and blood on the road. While the cops were trying to stop the traffic, the motorcyclists continued riding thru it. They drove right over the oil, gas, and blood. They probably would have gone over the body, except that it was already gone. The accident scene specialist had already sprayed the positions of the motorcycle and body on the road.
I find these markings on the road every kilometer or so. I feel I am even getting pretty good at understanding what happened at the accident just based upon the paint on the road. Either the paint really lasts a long time, or there are a lot of accidents.
There appears to be no licensing or driving lessons, other than beginning, intermediate, and advanced HONKING. People pull right out in front of anyone without ever head-checking. They are making an assumption that the other one will alter their path. If they do not, there will be an accident. Oh and one other thing. They drive on both sides of the road, regularly. I think there is some Darwinist selection process going on here.

Bits and Pieces

the lifetime sentence

I got to Mytho okay. The Mekong Delta is the flattest land I have ever ridden. It doesn’t get over 3 meters high. The only rises are for bridges over the canals. An old man (at least as old as me) pedaled by me in a cyclo. This is a bicycle used to carry a person around. You see these in Bangladesh, Calcutta, and here in Vietnam,wherever the land is really flat. Anyway, he starts speaking fluent English to me. He is clearly well educated. I anticipate his next statement.
“I was a military translator for the US Army. Top level.”
“How long did they send you to prison.”
“One year.”
“You got off easy.”
“Well, yes, but I must stay in Mytho the rest of my life. I cannot visit my children. They must visit me here.”
At this point, I hop into his cyclo. He begins pedaling me to the local Internet Cafe that I cannot find. It is the first time I have ever ridden in a cyclo. The man is interesting, I need to get to the Internet, and he could use some money.  He tells me that this is the only work the state is permitting him to do. I tell him that he is still serving his sentence. He agrees.  He said that if he would have served 3 years in prison, the USA would accept him as a refugee. But one year is not enough.  He entertains me with some funny stories. He clearly speaks English with a southern accent. A small vignette of life passing by…

Later I will meet another older woman who speaks good English. I say to her “Did you do translation for the US Military?”
“Yes
How much prison time?
Long time.”"

Minor irritations that keep bcoming up…

I get the óld menu–new menu’ trick again.  I have a fine 4-course meal.  The first menu says $4, but the ‘billing’ menu says $6.  The meal is simply fine, and I am too tired of fighting this sort of stuff to have another round.  If they would have said $6 to start with, I would have no problem.
I check out of my hotel at 6 am, waking all the staff up. Before I go out for orange juice and rolls, I spread a few pieces of clothes in the lounge to dry. When I come back, my wet socks are missing. I am positive they were there. Alright, they just cost maybe a dollar. But if they would steal socks, then what else would they steal? This is why I pack my valuables against my body. And bless ATM machines, because we don’t have to carry a lot of cash with us.
I tell the concierge. She says it is no big deal. But this is honestly the 4th pair of socks I have had ripped from me on this trip. Am I petty? Maybe. But I don’t GAF.
Then I utter the magic words, the nuclear bomb of international travel.
“I am going to email Lonely Planet that your staff steals from its guests.”
She freaks.
I go upstairs to get the rest of my stuff. When I come down, there are my socks, one stuffed inside the other, next to my bike. I guess she thinks that this makes it all better now. NFW.

I tell this to an experienced Dutch traveler. He shakes his head at me. “Well if it’s too much for you, then leave.” I am surprised at his reaction. “Look, the French come here, they guillotine 1000’s, kill hundreds of thousands. You Americans kill a million and poison the country, and now you want them to kiss your ass. What you expect?”
I hear him, but he is just a bit too self-righteous. “And how did you Dutch treat the Indonesians in your colonies?”
He pauses, smiles, and says “Even worse.”
“And how do you really feel about the level of hassle?” I ask him.
“When I leave this time, I think I will not come to Vietnam back any more.”
I have had that thought myself.

Converts to dental flossing

Flossing lessons:
I am a compulsive dental flosser. I am so bad about it that when I have been sailing in the Caribbean and run out of floss, I have taken apart the seams of a nylon jacket to make my own floss. I then used, and washed it, diligently. But I have all my own teeth (minus one).

So I am flossing after eating in an outdoor cafe. I turn my head away from the others, but no matter. Three men gather around, VERY CLOSE, and stare. When I look up, they continue staring. Their faces have shock and alarm. Now in Vietnam, everyone uses toothpicks. No one flosses. The men keep staring. I might as well been some monkey in a zoo hanging by its tail playing with its crank.
So I give them my floss container. They study it, take it apart, examine it like some fine mechanical device. I tear off a piece of floss for each of them and demo how to use it. They try, laughing all the way. One of them gets results and shows the others. Converts. Time to leave. I put on my bicycle helmet and start to go. Just as I am feeling triumphant, I bang my helmet hard into a 5′6″beam that they all pass easily under. No hurt, other than pride. They are really laughing, for this is the second time I have done this here.

A rice field in the Mekong Delta

Growing rice in South East Asia is not a crop.  It is a complete culture and belief system. It is incredibly labor intensive. The dikes, drainage, the flooding, the immensely difficult stoop labor, done mostly by women, are a way of life. There is probably 10 times as much labor per amount of grain as compared to corn. So with rice farming comes high densities of population. Even though there are now water tractors that assist in rice farming, the very nature of rice growing limits mechanization. The plots of land must be level and cannot be too large, or one family could not do all the work. Because of this intensive bond of labor to the crop, rice growers are intimately attached to their land. They know their plots and stay with them. They have developed a culture and belief system to support this.
The Mekong Delta may well be the MOST fertile agricultural area in the world. Its 15,000 square miles produces over half of Vietnam’s rice,enough to feed the entire country.
In the late 1970’s, Vietnam tried to collectivize rice-growing in Vietnam. By the early 1980’s, Vietnam, with 40 million people, was a rice importer. Out of simple pragmatism, Vietnam quit its attempt at collectivized rice-cultivation and went back to private plots. And now, in 2010, Vietnam with 90 million people may be the world’s largest rice exporter.
There are additional reasons for this high production. In the Mekong Delta they can get 3 crops a year. The Mekong River itself flows relatively freely across the delta. Every year during the floods, it deposits a rich new layer of topsoil. The coastline of the entire Mekong Delta is extending each year roughly 80 meters. This is very unlike the channelized Mississippi River Delta, which is shrinking each year because the channels and dikes do not allow the sediments to be deposited.

Each year the Mekong River highs drops

But all this stands to change. China is bringing at least 12 new dams up river. (See my post #7) The second issue is the potential for rising sea levels. I refuse to use the term ‘global warming’. I prefer ‘disruptive climate change’ instead. But if we are to see any rise in the oceans, the Mekong Delta will be the very first to be hit. For none of this 15k square miles is over 4 meters above sea level. The combination of greatly reduced river flows and rising seas portend the salinization and loss of the delta. With this in mind, I am surprised to see no evidence that the Vietnamese are concerned about rising ocean levels. But then they, like most people, are concerned with much more immediate issues.

an iced coconut and a hammock. Ahhh

They have evolved with the heat here. At the restaurants in the Mekong, most tables have a hammock next to it. After you have had lunch, you can siesta an hour or so until the heat breaks. I have really used this feature.

In one day, I down 10 quarts of water, 4 coconuts, 3 mangos, 2 sugar cane drinks, 2 beers, 1 whole watermelon: (and I just urinated twice in 14 hours)
So on day 2 of my ride into the Mekong Delta I set out at 6:30 am. A good start. But it got hot quickly. I have learned to remind myself to drink before I sense thirst. Luckily, the Mekong Delta is densely populated and I can buy a cold liter of water every 5 kms or so. In this heat, it is essential to set out early and try to have at least half of your distance under your belt before noon. I made another mistake on the route and added 10 additional kms. to my trip. But when I got to Cantho at 7 pm, I had covered 120 kms. A good day for me in the heat. Just 2 weeks ago I was shivering in the cold rain south of Hanoi.
I stop at Cantho for a day and I take the tour of the floating markets.

The boat people here have evolved a system of doing major amounts of work, commerce, and living off of boats. I paid $15 for a 6 hour tour of the floating markets. We were on the water before 6 am. We motored far upriver. What I saw was a bulk market, with many of tons of pineapples, tubers, and bulk crops being traded. There were small boats weaving about selling everything from coffee to packaged lunches. Then we hiked the canals for a few hours, watching life along the river. This was worth it.

For the next two days, I rode hard to the Cambodian border. My visa was running out. So I get to Chau Doc, Vietnam. I have a one-month visa. The visa says from February 1 thru March 1. Well, when I got to Vietnam, it was February 3rd. It was hard for me to arrive on the exact date simply because I could not be sure how far I could make it on bicycle. But I have a 1 one month visa, and February only has 28 days, so surely they will let me leave on March 3rd. It made sense to me.
I check into a hotel, take a shower, and get settled in. I hear a knocking on my door. The owner says I must leave the hotel NOW. My visa has expired and if the police find out, they will fine the hotel $200, which I will have to pay. So they, in the early evening, kick me out of the hotel! Fuck. I ask if there is any way I can sleep here, since I have all my things here, and my boat will be leaving from here tomorrow.  I offer to sleep on the roof, away from the police inspectors.  No way.  She says I must go.  So I pack up. But now she wants me to pay anyway.  Well it was her bureaucratic mistake that let me into her hotel anyway.  So no way do I pay.  It looks like I will have to sleep outside tonight. But where? It’s dark.
I look at my visa. It does say March 1st. So I gently alter the ‘1′ to look sort of like a ‘3′. Then I go to a guesthouse with my money out. They take the money without checking a the visa date. Good. I have a room, albeit a really small one.

Up the Mekong on the boat top

I get up at 5:30 am and pack my bike up. Time to GTFO out of Vietnam. I buy a boat ticket up the Mekong River to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. I have had just about enough of Vietnam anyhow.
The boat heads off up the Mekong. It is crowded, uncomfortable, hot and noisy down below. Along with that, the Europeans are smoking cigarettes and complaining of the conditions. So I climb onto the roof of the boat and lay out on it for hours, watching the river go by.

The boat does have cold beer. The price is high, but, I don’t see any other competition. So I drink beer on the boat top. When I have to piss, I just let it fly from high atop the boat.  Power pissing.  I don’t think I hit anyone — or put their cigarettes out. No one came complaining to me anyhow. If they would have, well, piss on ‘em anyhow.  
We have to get our exit visas from Vietnam. The Vietnam customs guard and the boat agent notice that I am, by their measure, one day late. I explain that I have just been in Vietnam 28 days.  They confer.
“Yes. But you were in Vietnam in both February and March. And that is 2 months. You must now go back to Saigon and rearrange your visa.” Then he smiles, like a crocodile.
“WTF????????  Ok ok. How much?”
We bicker around for a while. But I realize he’s got 4 aces. We settle on $35. I get my exit visa stamped.

I am out of here.

Huey gunship at war remnants museum

Post #21 from SE Asia
February 25th, 2010 Saigon
The LAST war post, about dioxin-laced Agent Orange, the War Remnants Museum, US Vets claims, and Jeff Sharlet

This is the last thing I say about the Vietnam War in this blog. BTW, here they call it the ‘American War’.
I went to the War Remnants Museum here in Saigon yesterday. It is the most visited museum in Saigon. Thousands of people walking thru it daily. Most all of them appear to be international visitors.

Get this straight. This is a grim museum. The Vietnamese government rubs your face in it. It takes hours to cover it all. Yes, the Vietnamese government gets to display what they want. And they do it with a vengeance. 100’s and 100’s of large photos, taken mostly by US freelance photographers, of the war, the dead, the maimed, the civilian casualties. The results of carpet-bombing areas from 40,000 feet, where civilians were living. The Vietnamese resistance takes no credit at the museum for any of the civilian deaths, and this is self-serving and not true. But the evidence is that most of the civilian deaths were from US air strikes.

I saw US college coeds leaving the museum crying, people walking out unable to finish the tour, somber faces. Not one smile the whole time I was there. As a citizen of the USA who loves his country, I came out feeling very disturbed. This museum may be here for a long time. It is not a pleasant message to see. I feel I must ask whether there will be an equivalent museum in Baghdad in NN years, with equivalent photos and documentation.

I want to say something about the spraying of Agent Orange in Vietnam. The War Remnants Museum has a non-stop documentary on the effects of Agent Orange along with several large walls of children suffering birth defects because of it. To me, this was the worst part of the museum. My mom always said to me ‘kids are innocent. So you protect them’. Well, the UN estimates there are over 220,000 people in Vietnam suffering long-term disabilities, The majority of them are children suffering birth defects. These are NGO numbers, not Vietnamese government numbers.

Vietnam sued the US for damages in the World Court over the use of Agent Orange. The US resisted all the way, and just recently won. Vietnam has no further appeals left.
This should not surprise anyone, because the US Veterans Administration resisted for almost 20 years all claims being made by US veterans said to be suffering from the effects of Agent Orange. Their policy turned out to be deliberate. Deny and stall as long as they can. The VA was applying the accountant’s rule of ‘least and latest’. The longer they stalled, the fewer claims there would be. They knew that dead veterans do not file claims for disability benefits. It was not until the 1990’s that the Veterans Administration began acknowledging the wide range of disabilities that Agent Orange can cause.

We see the same behavior with ‘Gulf War Syndrome’. The Veteran’s Administration has until recently denied the existence of Gulf War Syndrome. Studies are showing that the probable causes are:
1. pyridostigmine bromide, a nerve gas antidote,
2. chemical weapons,
3. exposure to organophosphate pesticides, and perhaps most ominously
4. and depleted uranium.
The evidence shows that breathing depleted uranium (U-236) is highly toxic. There were large areas where we used depleted uranium and then sent our troops in. Yet the Veteran’s Administration is behaving similarly to how it dealt with the original Agent Orange claims.

In the same areas in Iraq where we used depleted uranium, the cancer and birth defects among the Iraqis have increased around ten-fold. So, were there nuclear weapons in Iraq? Yes. We began using them with U-236.

I want to also tell you about Jeff Sharlet, a friend of mine in college days who died suddenly of cancer at age 27. I met Jeff at Indiana University in 1965 while he was working on a PhD. Jeff was once speaking at an anti-Vietnam war rally when a heckler shouted to him “How do you know about Vietnam? You’ve never been there!”

Jeff paused, and forever soft-spoken, answered “Yes I have.” Silence.

Jeff had spent 2 years in Vietnam as an Army Security Specialist. He spoke excellent Vietnamese and was assigned to Intelligence gathering. After what Jeff had seen, he became opposed to the war. As a public speaker, he was incredibly effective. And then, in 1969, Jeff was diagnosed with cancer. He declined and died quickly. There is reason to think that Jeff had also been exposed to Agent Orange. There is a documentary movie about Vietnam GIs dedicated to Jeff Sharlet. And a book should be out shortly.

If you want to read any more about this extraordinary man, here is a website for him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Sharlet_(Vietnam_antiwar_activist)

I want to acknowledge another fine man, cut down way too quickly in his life.

A smile of relief after getting out of the tunnel

Post # 20 from SE Asia
February 23rd, 2010
The Cu Chi Tunnel Complex, and my high school friend, Steven Stofko

I am running out of time, and there is so much more I want to do here. Just like in life. So I change my plans. Today I did manage to extend my trip for 16 more days. But that is all I can do. And do I miss my dog.

I managed to scalp a train ticket in Hue during Tet for about 40% over face value. I paid $35 for a ticket to ride about 700 miles. I was lucky to get any ticket at all during Tet.
I folded up my bicycle onto an overbooked train and rode for 26 hours at 30 mph to Saigon. It was a 15 car diesel-powered train, with about 100 people per car. But I did have a reserved seat. People stood, sat, laid down, and even slept for long periods of time in the aisle and in the space between the railroad cars. I made it a point to not eat or drink on this train, because I did not want to try to go to the washroom. A number of university students returning to school changed their seats and sat around me. They wanted to practice their English and talk with me about the outside world. They were really decent, helpful kids. They were constantly offering to run errands for me, such as getting me food and water, and whatever else.
We pulled into Saigon around 1 pm. Ohh infamous Saigon. City where anything goes. Immediately a bunch of touts surround me, trying to sell me their taxi services and everything else in the world. But then they watch me assemble my bicycle and load on the gear. It is a quick process. Disappointment on their faces. I hit the streets of Saigon rolling. BTW, the government may have changed the name to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) but everyone calls it either Saigon or ‘the city’. I quickly get lost, then ask for directions. Then I get a very clean, spacious, secure room at the first place I check, with a private hot shower, for $10 a night. I wash my clothes by hand, hang them in the sun, on my balcony, and shower. Time to hit the town running.

The Cu Chi Tunnel Complex:
45 km. north west of Saigon lies the most extensive tunnel complex ever made by man for habitation. All told, at its peak usage, there were 200 km of tunnels and over 500 rooms. There were underground hospitals, kitchens, munitions manufacturing complexes, food storage, and all the other things needed for living and sustaining a war. The complex was up to 12 meters deep. It withstood direct hits by B-52 bombing. The US did not begin to realize its size and complexity until after Bob Hope performed ON TOP OF IT. Our guide today, Binh, said that the Viet Cong heard the performance.
The US had at least 3 military camps on top of it. They could not figure out where the hostile fire was coming from for a long time. Initially US had some success with trained dogs finding the minuscule entrances. But the VC quickly found that if they spread soap and shampoo that they bought at the US military PXs, the dogs would ignore the entrance. The tunnels now smelled friendly to the dogs. The US also had our ‘tunnel rats’. They were wiry, tough, smaller soldiers who actually volunteered to enter the tunnels and fight. I could not imagine a more horrific means of combat. The tunnels were literally booby trapped with bombs, spikes, traps, poison, scorpions, and COBRAS! It was their psy-ops against our troops.
So I paid $9 for a 6 hour tour of the complex. On a large, completely booked bus, I was the only US citizen on it. We were first treated to a black-and-white documentary filmed in 1967 showing them fighting. At one point, a young girl of about 14 years old is receiving a reward for killing an American. They had medals for killing a man, destroying a tank, and shooting down helicopter or plane. The rhetoric of the film was wartime propaganda at its strongest.

Then we went to the bamboo-lined entrance of a tunnel. It was about 10″ by 18″ straight down into a black hole. Binh asked if anyone was willing to go. “It is only a 15 meter crawl. Take the first right and the second left, and just keep going and going until you find the exit”. Binh said that the VC always made false branches at the beginning of a tunnel where the wrong way led a stranger into some terrible trap. “But we have dismantled this trap” he smiled.
I had forgotten to bring my flashlight. One look and I thought ‘no f*ing way am I going in’. It didn’t help that I truly do suffer from a very real claustrophia from having spent about 41 days in solitary confinement in a black, 5′ X 5′ prison punishment cell in Mexico. PTSD imprinted into me for life. Then two young slender Brits slide in the hole. They come out a minute later saying that they were lost. I think to myself “Go with your fear. Face it straight on.” Impulsively I go up to the entrance and try to slide down. I can barely fit in. You have to hold both of your arms straight up to slip thru. Remember, these tunnels were made by people considerably smaller than us. They deliberately made it tight for them so that it would be impossible for us. Three crawls into the tunnel and it is complete darkness. The air is hot and humid and very heavy. I feel with my hands. It is about 2 feet wide and 30 inches high. I keep moving until.my head hits a dead end. I turn right and the tunnel descends. The two Brits had re-entered the tunnel behind me. They have their cell phones out and are using them for light. But it doesn’t help me, the blind leader. I keep going. I hear a flutter. A bat is in my hair! I shake my head and brush it loose. Dirt falls from the roof of the cave into my hair, on my back, all over. My head hits the wall. I am at a dead end. I must have missed the left turn. I want to turn around and leave. I am talking constantly to the Brits. I pull up into a ball and manage to turn around. I tell the Brits I have missed the turn and let’s get out. As I am coming back, I feel a large hole now on my right. Maybe that is the passage that I missed. But I no longer want to find out. The Brits want to follow it, but I want out. NOW. I am panicking. Not pleasant to say, but true. I tell the Brits to turn around and go out. They comply, simply because they have no choice. They cannot pass by me. There is not room for that. Forever later to me, we climb out of the hole. I am soaked with sweat and the dirt and fear that has dissolved into mud all over me. I push out of the hole and breathe the fresh air. Oh I would rather die on the surface than live in a hole like that. The two Brits go back in for a third time. A few minutes later, they emerge from the exit hole. One of them tells me that the passage I found at the end was it. I was just 3 meters from the exit. I’ll take their word for it.

Ian, the Brit in front of me, got this pic while using his camera as a flashlight

Then we go and visit a replica of a hospital, a weapons factory,and a smokeless underground kitchen. More fascinating to the guests were the examples of all the traps that the VC made. They were as elaborate as the were threatening. These spiked traps could and did literally kill. They used the body’s weight in falling to impale and poison. Binh said “this was psy-ops too. The opposition learned not to run fast or chase. And when they slowed down, we had better shots at them.” Binh said that there was one tunnel where the men had to crawl 7 kilometers to exit. The troops would then surprise attack, and then crawl 7 kilometers back to safety. And I broke down at 10 meters.
Later we go to a larger tunnel, of about 3′ wide and 40″ high. It is a 100 meters long. This one has some electric lights. I go back in with the two Brits. It is extremely hot and muggy from the start. The tunnel drops down into a few large underground rooms, tightens to about 2 feet wide, gets completely dark again, then climbs back up. It takes us about 10 minutes I think to complete it. It may have been faster than that, but it seems longer. Thruout its length, there are 4 ‘panic’ exits. Several Swedes behind me took the panic exits. When we exit, I am again so relieved.
The guide Binh and I talk. He asks me not to be offended at the first film. He says that they must show this film. Orders from above. He says that many US veterans have come here. He asks them not to be offended either. He says that they understand. He says that this experience is much more emotional for US veterans than for Vietnamese veterans.

But there is one US veteran who came here once, and will not be coming back again.

Anyone from Highland High School remember Steven Stofko, class of 1965? Well, Steve and I were good friends. Our older brothers, Wayne and Jody, ran around together and were best of friends. I knew their parents, and our parents knew each other. In the late summer of 1967, my mother called me to tell me that Steve had been killed in Vietnam. Silence. What would I say to their parents, to Jody? I didn’t know how to deal with this at all.
My brother Wayne was in the navy when he had a non-military accident while driving in Highland. On November 15th, 1964, Wayne was left paralyzed quadriplegic for life, with organic brain damage that caused anterograde amnesia. This meant that Wayne had good memory up until the accident, but he could not remember events after the accident. Wayne was unconscious at Heins Veterans Hospital in Chicago for 7 months. We visited him regularly. He slowly came out of it. And what came back was nothing close to my dear brother Wayne. He was now forever a ‘basketcase’. As my dad and I regularly visited, we watched all of the other ‘basketcases’ arriving from Vietnam. With them, we saw their terribly grieving relatives. Their shock and pain, their broken hearts, their depression, tears and devastation. Why, they looked just like us.
“This war don’t make no sense” my dad barked at me one day in the hospital. My dad hardly ever cried. The men of my father’s generation, the World War II generation, were like that.  They had already seen enough to harden them.  I had only seen my dad cry once in my life, when my baby brother Dale died. But now, dad cried all the time when he saw Wayne. And the war didn’t make any sense to me either. I was against it early on.

Later, I would get arrested in an anti-war demonstration.  When I saw my dad next time, he was enraged. His face was red as he charged up to me, like he had done so many times before.

“‘You goddamned Com-ma-nist.  I ought to punch you good.”‘

If he had, it wouldn’t have been the first time.

‘”Now git outta here.”‘  He pointed to the door.

So I left.  We did not talk for six years, until I made about the worst call a son could ever make to his parents, from a prison in Mexico.  I was asking for help, and he was there for me 100% all the way.  But this is another story.

When we brought Wayne home, Jody Stofko came by to visit.  Wayne spoke hesitatingly to Jody about high school things.  Wayne’s speech was forever damaged.  They joked together.  Jody was happy to see Wayne.  Jody came by a few weeks later to visit.  Wayne had zero recall of the first visit.  Absolutely none.  Jody appeared devastated.  For Wayne, the date would forever be November 15th, 1964.  It was difficult for Jody to visit again.

Corporal Steven Stofko was stationed in Dau Tieng, in Tay Ninh province. As best as I can gather to this point, on the night of August 1st, 1967, his platoon was on night patrol when they were attacked. They were near the Cu Chi tunnel complex when it happened. And Steven died. Since all military actions by the VC in this province were headquartered in the tunnels, most likely Steve’s opponents used these very tunnels.

In 1987, we drive to Washington DC. I visit the most profoundly noble war memorial I have ever seen, the Vietnam War Memorial. Uniformed soldiers there help me find Steven’s name. I make a number of etchings. When I return home, I mail copies of the etchings along with a letter to the Stofko family. I simply have not had the whatever to visit them. Too much sadness. Shortly thereafter I get a long hand-written letter from Mrs. Stofko. She is so kind and decent. I could feel the mother’s tears in the paper I then held.  Sorrow, sorrow, and more sorrow. Enough to make a grown man cry.  I did.

I leave the Cu Chi tunnel tour early and go off into the woods alone. I make a little mound of dirt and leaves. I open a plastic bag I have brought with me and I take out of it a photocopy of a photo I found of Steven. I put the photo on top of the little mound. I pull out some flowers I had brought along with me, now wilted, and set them around the photo. I light a stick of incense and set it into the mound. Then I take a rice ball and I spread it out around the mound. I put my hands in prayer position and bow to Steven.

I hear the tour bus driver calling.

I still miss you Steven, wherever you are. Mostly in my memories, I guess.