KSV News: Short Round 042

Modern Vietnam-3

Driving North From Saigon

We have a guide / interpreter and a driver with an impressive IVECO 10 passenger diesel van for our trip.  Trust me, this is not a place to self drive anything. Our general plan of attack is to drive north on the west side of South Vietnam, and then back south to Saigon on the east side.  Going north, we will generally be on the Ho Chi Minh Highway running roughly along the Cambodia/Laos borders.

On this leg of the trip heading north, we will be initially visiting parks and cities in the Central Highlands area.  Cat Tien National Park, Gia Nghia, Buon Me Thuot, Kontum, Pleiku, Kam Duc. A Loui.  You will recognize some of them as Special Forces camps from the “American War” (as ours is referred to locally).  That distinguishes it from the recent Japanese war, French war, Chinese war, Laotian war and other recent wars.

The Cao Dai religion is alive and well in Vietnam.  It is an interesting blend of beliefs and has a significant following- maybe 4.4 million. We visited the Great Divine Temple Complex, just a bit north of Saigon, which is really something to see.  Caodaism combines ethical portions of Confucianism, tourism Buddhism, and an organization like Catholicism.  During the French war, there were may be 1 million followers who opposed the French rule. Practicing the religion was banned by the North Vietnamese in the mid 70s.

The government has displaced the local tribes in the Cat Tien Park area and have converted it into a national park. Until just a while ago, there was actually a small herd of rhinoceroses that lived there, but they became rhinoceros burgers. For a while after the American war, there was a lot of logging within the park. Now, it is strictly forbidden.  We stayed just across the river that borders the park and listen to Gabons hooting at night.

As one example of how much these small towns have grown, we are now in a 15 story hotel in Buon Me Thuot.  As we drove through town to the hotel,, our guide pointed out where the old special forces camp and runway had been during the American war.  Other than being level for many city blocks, there is absolutely no trace of anything that happened during the American war.

I need to explain to you a bit of what has happened in the south, and we are presently witnessing. Basically, the north dumped hundreds of thousands of the population that it deemed as less desirable into the south. Like the migration across America toward California, the government propagandized it as a promised land. Thousands of truckloads of Northerners were displaced into the sparsely populated areas of the south- significantly to the Central Highlands.  They arrived with nothing but the clothes on their backs.. Another parallel would be the Marielle Boat Lift when Cuba dumped so many undesirables into Florida. But at a much, much greater scale.  One or two generations later, the population has absolutely exploded. But they did not build new cities to house the population. They expanded the existing small towns, like Buon Me Thuot dramatically.

Another example is the growth along the highways. The French improved and built most of the main roads in the south. Except within urban areas like Saigon, there are very few major new roads.  But the population has exploded along the existing roads. If you remember a bit of what Danang’s  Dog Patch used to look like, you will recognizing it.  Rather than building new cities for the expanded population, the government allocated parcels of roughly 10 m or 20 m wide and 100m or 200 m deep along existing roads to the new population.  The individual families would scrape up whatever they could, and build some sort of a retail operation on the front of the parcel along the road. This would include their personal housing. Behind the road frontage, they would be able to clear and cultivate the area for growing either crops to sell or feed the family.  Pretty clever planning by the government when you think of it.

On our short drive north so far, there were literally tens of thousands or more retail operations along the highway.  Since the new owners of the 10M x 100M +/- parcel could pick whatever commercial operation they thought would work, every possible thing you want to buy is somewhere along the road in a privately owned shop. It is free enterprise at its finest. A linear shopping center that runs for miles. Wedding dresses, automobile repairs, food sales, restaurants, drugstores, hardware, building supplies, nice houses, and shanty houses are all located along the highway.  Unlike America, there are no government built side streets that branch off the main highways. The government just doesn’t build new roads and developers rarely do so.

On our drive through part of the Central Highlands near Gia Nghia yesterday, we came across a huge new hydroelectric dam.  I believe there are two other major hydroelectric dams in Vietnam. The first one was built by the Russians. The second one was built by the Vietnamese with Russian planning and guidance. This third one was built 100% by the Vietnamese.

And another snapshot of life-  in a pretty nice hotel where we stayed in nearby Gia Nghia, the restaurant next-door to the hotel was basically a Chucky Cheese operation filled with Koi ponds, games, toys and music.  It was full of laughing youngsters with their parents trying to keep them corralled.

This is no longer the Vietnam you knew from the American war.

SF

Bob Koury:  Website & Digital Manager

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