26
That was my draft number. One day in 1973 some U.S. government official snagged a blue plastic capsule out of a glass jar and pulled out a strip of paper that had a date written on it, my birth date, June 10th, 1956.
That government official worked for the Selective Service System. By picking my birth date 26th, he pretty much guaranteed that I was going to be drafted when I turned 18 the next year. And at that time being drafted carried with it the opportunity, as a bumper sticker of the period put it, to Travel to exotic distant lands; meet exciting, unusual people and kill them.
Or be killed by them.
Now the truth is that just about 38 percent of those drafted between 1965 to 1975 got sent off to Vietnam. And by 1973, right about the time that Selective Service official was selecting me, the warring parties in Vietnam signed a cease fire, beginning the long, slow withdrawal of American soldiers. So when my unlucky number came up, I had far fewer worries than someone whose number was pulled in 1968, say.
But throughout my adolescence, being sent against my will to Vietnam seemed a definite possibility. And at the time I would have gone to some lengths to avoid going there.
So why do I want to go there now?
Well, there’s no simple answer to that. There are lots of reasons. It’s somewhere quite unlike any other place I’ve been. And I hear that it’s a beautiful place. And that the food is great. And that the people are friendly, even toward Americans, whose government dropped a few million tons of high explosives on them, with predictable results. Or it may just be that I want to get there before Starbucks and McDonalds do. Who knows? But I’ve got non-refundable tickets, so I’m going.
The Plan
So what’s the plan? Well, it’s pretty simple, really. Fly into Hanoi (via Bangkok), spend a day trying to get over the inevitable jet lag, and then join a couple of other injudicious souls on a 5-day motorcycle trip into the mountains southwest of Hanoi.
I came across these ex-pats, an Aussie and a Brit (Digby & Dan), on the Internet, and they run a company called Explore Indochina that organizes short tours of northern Vietnam on old Byelorussian 125cc motorcycles called Minsks. These bikes are apparently very popular in the northern part of Vietnam and are the standard beasts of burden for all sorts of tasks, from carrying goods to the market to family outings. Their ubiquity is a good thing, because I’m told that they are guaranteed to break down, and because of that shortcoming every tiny hamlet has a resident metal basher who can fix these grease and soot-covered tin contraptions with a stick and some rocks.
Assuming I make it back to Hanoi unscathed, I’ll spend another couple of days exploring the city before heading out to the South China Sea for a two-day cruise on a Chinese junk around Ha Long Bay. You may have seen pictures of the place; jagged limestone spires jutting out of a placid sea. In any case, it’s a UNESCO World Heritage site and it looks like a place I’d like to see.
Then it’s back to Hanoi again, where I hope to rent a Minsk from the guy who supplies the motorcycles to Explore Indochina, a certain Mr. Cuong, and ride the length of the country south to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), where Mr. Cuong’s brother lives, and he evidently is willing (for a fee) to ship the bike back north. Along the way I want to visit the former imperial capitol of Hue and nearby Hoi An, parts of the Ho Chi Minh trail, and whatever other attractions I stumble across along the way.
Assuming I make it to HCMC in one piece, the plan is to then make my way to the Mekong delta region, from where, after a few days among the mosquitoes, I’ll travel by boat upriver to Phnom Penh, the capitol of Cambodia. From there I’ll head to Siem Reap to visit the nearby temple complex of Angkor Wat. Then it’s back to Bangkok for my flight home.
As you can see, it’s a bit of a skeletal plan. And no doubt it will be completely disjointed by transportation breakdowns, miserable weather, logistical and financial nightmares, and of course, the ever-present dick-head bureaucrats. And those are just the expected complications. Who knows what Mr. Murphy has in store for me on this trip?
Whatever the unforeseen obstacles might be, I hope to document the salient details with rambling, incoherent commentary and obscure, out-of-focus photographs that I intend to upload to this site as the opportunity presents itself. So if you wish to check my progress (or lack thereof) while I’m gone, please feel free to bookmark this site.
Three, two, one...