37. GOOOOD MOOORNIIIING VIETNAM !

 
Pictures taken from inside the war museum, Saigon




























Fallen GIs being helped












muzzle at the head of a peasant












picking up the pieces of the remains of the day - a Viet is shredded by a mortar.












being dragged around is no laughing matter














victims of agent orange (dioxin)









 




I have 'vays' of making you talk






















the My Lai massacre - those who did'nt make it - women, children, the elderly





fleeing for their lives as their hamlet is bombarded



 


I awoke in Saigon to extremely busy, bustling, energetic streets. The Vietnamese are a hard working bunch, they operate 24/7, are a people in a hurry to get somewhere and they forge ahead proudly.

The country was under the Chinese for more than a 1000 years and everywhere I went in the South and Central region, it was like walking through a typical Chinese town or hamlet. Every shop, hotel, home, had a altar with a laughing Buddha, Quan Yin Goddess of Mercy and the Fu Lou Shou threesome. The old and very beautiful Chinese temples/pagodas, palaces and old houses spoke strongly of an ancient Chinese cultural heritage. The old Chinese would have planted their seeds over a wide area with their many wives and mistresses. I met and chatted with a few folks in Cantonese.

Despite being almost bombed out of existence, there were a great many beautiful, heritage sites. They took my breath away with the sheer awesome and raw beauty of Mother's creations. 

Outside Danang, there was a remains of a Hindu temple very much like Prambanan Temple in Jogya, Indonesia, with its symbolic Shiva rising out of a yoni.

The Mekong delta region was my classroom for 2 days. I love the boat rides, the thick mangrove swamps and the rural hamlets. I love watching the mudskippers. I got to see how these folks work hard at growing and planting and selling their foodstuffs, handicrafts and other wares from their boats. Young girls from 13-14 years old onwards work at beautiful embroidery and beadwork, the beauty of the completed products moved me to tears....I would hate to see this die....my eyes get wet sometimes at such scenes because I feel a sense of loss at what I've seen and did while growing up in Malaysia and which are gone now from most of the country.

Vietnam was another trip through a time tunnel. Everything was like Malaysia of old which in the more rural areas and less developed towns, such scenes would still exist, I'm sure, perhaps to a lesser extent.

Its turbulent history is heart wrenching. They have suffered and sacrificed much to protect their land, livelihoods, and an ideology. During their fight with the French and the Americans, the Vietnamese were just poor, illiterate peasants (many still are today), but in those warring times, what did these peasants do to the French or American peoples? They did'nt even know such countries existed. Nevertheless, they fought a damn good fight. They are a proud people today, rightly so and I'm full of respect for them.

The many Pulitzer prize winning snaps at the war museum were revealing. Made me wonder - who exactly are the terrorists here, who exactly are the human rights violators? Who are the war criminals here?

American GI's displaying heads they just beheaded from Viets whose bodies lay nearby. Captured Viets, legs tied to back of jeeps, dragged through rough terrain. And of course, when the politicians were frustrated that they were just not winning the war against these illiterate dirty sub humans, they dropped what ever dirty tricks they had in their arsenal to obliterate them. They did that in Japan, they did it again in Vietnam, let's see how far they'll go in Iraq.
Buddha said, do not unto others what you do not want others to do unto you.

Why than should it surprise anyone that an American soldier was dragged naked with his legs tied to the back of a truck in Mogadishu? Why be aghast that some Westerners, chiefly Americans, were beheaded by Islamic radicals? 9/11 and crashing into the Pentagon was to give the politicians and their warlords a taste of their own medicine. Wonder no more, why 'they' hate 'them' so much.
The majority of the American people are good, decent folks with a generosity of spirit. The true axis of evil comprise the White House, the Pentagon and its allies, chiefly Britain and Australia......the Anglo-Saxon world.

I suspect their media have been 'instructed' to feed only certain stuff to its people. Who exactly are the communists here?

No visit to Vietnam is complete without a peek into their jungle hideouts - their tunnels. The VietCong was'nt called jungle rats for nothing. I managed to squat-crawled only the first 30m before I scrambled out quickly, like a suffocating rat......so did many others, grown, large sized men. The tunnels were dark, narrow, claustrophobic, sweaty, scary......it was sheer terror.

Besides fighting their war from underground, they fought from under water as well - in their many mangrove swamps infested with crocs and snakes. I know now the Vietnamese won their fight through the sheer power of the mind. Unbeknownst to them than, they had unleashed that 'Giant' within them.

Their country is now invaded by hordes of Western tourists. The Viets bear no grudges and no one, not even in badly bombed out areas, abused the visitors with stones, eggs or spit. They just want to be happy, to work and earn enough money.

Man has utterly failed. In 3000 years, 5000 wars, this is man's record - Osho

Link: post 24 - THE BEAST IN MAN