We’d all been ridiculously excited about heading into Vietnam - we each adopted characters from a stereotypical Vietnam War movie - Gimp (Ben) was the young 19 year old kid, just away from home - tragically destined to die in the Vietnam forests being held by Tank (Ollie) who was the God-fearing (oh the irony) guy from the Southern states, who was also destined to die ‘it‘s getting dark, I can‘t feel my legs‘ The Aussie forces in Nam were represented by Dingo (Rox) who would make it through with Hawkeye (me).
Stupid? Oh yes, but it kept us amused.
To go with our movie we of course had to create the ultimate Vietnam soundtrack, which I will record here for posterity:
Nowhere to Run - Martha Reeves & The Vandellas
Get Ready - Rare Earth
War - Edwin Starr
Gimme Shelter - The Rolling Stones
Purple Haze - The Jimi Hendrix Experience
All Day and All of the Night - Kinks
Somebody to Love - Jefferson Airplane
Hush - Deep Purple
Sympathy for the Devil - The Rolling Stones
You Really Got Me - Kinks
All Along the Watchtower - The Jimi Hendrix Experience
White Rabbit - Jefferson Airplane
The Game of Love - The Mindbenders & Wayne Fontana
California Dreamin' - The Mamas and the Papas
Lola - The Kinks
Ruby Tuesday - Don Williams
House of the Rising Sun - The Animals
Monday, Monday - The Mamas and the Papas
Sweet Home Alabama - Outlaws
Barber's Adagio - William Orbit
The crossing to Vietnam was great - from Sihanoukville we got a taxi to take us to the town closest to the Vietnamese border, listening to our soundtrack, watching the scenery change as we got closer to Vietnam - from flat plains to limestone crags. I'll always remember listening to Gimme Shelter as we saw our first Vietnam jungles and cliffs.
The border crossing is a new one, opened last year, so it was pretty basic - on the Cambodia side at least. We checked out of Cambodia and walked the 200 metres or so to be faced with a huge Vietnamese flag and communist style concrete monument - the difference between the two countries was immediately apparent - the Vietnam border building was clean, modern and slick. We managed to negotiate a ride on 4 motos to the town of Ha Tien, through some of the Mekong Delta country.
Ha Tien is a small coastal frontier style town: our first taste of Vietnam living. One of the first things that struck me was the writing on the signs: Thailand & Cambodia don’t use the Roman alphabet, so in Vietnam I half expected to be able to read the language, just because I could actually read the letters!
We stopped for a spot of lunch at a street café - Ollie decided to try one of the local specialties: woof-woof (sorry dog lovers). The others tried it too: apparently it tasted like Beef jerky. I stuck to my raw chicken. Yum.
We had a quiet afternoon - had a bit of an explore of the market, getting the feel of the place (there were lots of people in traditional conical hats, pulling carts behind them) then went for a little more street food where Ben, Ollie & Rox sampled some of the local seafood specialities. Vietnam has a much stronger Chinese influence than Cambodia had: even down to the kitsch mattress covers which were really something to behold!
