SHAKEDOWN AT THE BORDER OF RICHES

This faux 'Tropicana' casino is on the Thai - Cambodian border

I'm in the far east of Thailand, right on the border with Cambodia. I've only left Cambodia an hour ago, on what is known as a 'visa run'. Since my Cambodia visa is running out, I came here only long enough to cross the border to get a new passport stamp. Now that  I have it, I'm free to return to Khmer land. I'm in Thai territory only long enough to get a lunch of tom yam soup.

Finishing lunch, I walk back towards the border post. Passing souvenir shops, I get my Thai exit stamp at immigration, and I'm back on Cambodian land in the northwestern border town of Poipet. And yet, I'm not officially back in Cambodia at all. I'm in a strange 'no man's land', and it's filled with casinos! 

I once saw another Cambodian town dominated by casinos called Bavet,  but the setup  here is different. In Poipet the Cambodians built casinos packed tightly together, pushed almost up to the Thai border post. As I walk out of Thai immigration, the Cambodian immigration post is way out further beyond the casinos, almost a quarter mile down the road. Ingeniously, this allows Thai gamblers to walk onto Cambodian soil, gamble their money away, and then walk back to Thailand without having to get a Cambodian visa or passport stamp! This whole stretch of casinos, is basically a legal no man's land. Since you have no arrival stamp while you gamble in Poipet, you are not officially here!

I'm leaving Thai territory

Long before there were casinos here, there were periods when this was a no man's land due to armed conflict. There has been more than one gun battle fought along this border between the armies of Thailand and the Khmer Rouge. Even before then, there had been a standoff in Poipet between King Sihanouk's army and Thailand, as land dividing the two neighbors was in dispute. 

Some lands remain contested, but at least here in Poipet, both sides are content (at least for now) to let the only invaders be gamblers and tourists. Poipet is so oriented towards Thai gamblers, that the most accepted currency in town is the Thai Baht!

I don't fell like emptying my wallet today, so I pass by all the casinos, and walk into Cambodian immigration to get my visa. 

I pay the required US $20 in cash, and hand over my visa to the border policemen. Once it's processed, they refuse to give it back. I soon realize this is a shakedown; the two corrupt policemen behind the counter are trying to overcharge me for the visa! They are asking for double the price, demanding the extra money in Thai Baht. 

A strange strip of casinos stretches between the Thai and Cambodian border posts

I persistently repeat, again and again, that I don’t have any Thai Baht. After a few minutes of this back and forth argument, and with a growing line of impatient travelers behind me, the two corrupt border agents finally give up. 

They grudgingly return my passport. I walk back into Cambodia, and break into a smile over my small victory. 

I didn’t tell them that my extra money is in US dollars!

DICTATOR AND HIS MANSION

Hun Sen's Sihanoukville mansion, built with ill-gotten gains

I’m one block off of the beach on the upper floor of a beach town hotel. Looking right next door, I'm eyeing up the most elaborate, most expensive mansion in all of Sihanoukville. This isn't just one house, it’s a grand compound. The new luxury home is surrounded by high walls, and entered through an elaborate gate. Not that I can get in, that won't happen. That's because this beach home belongs to none other than Hun Sen, Prime Minister of Cambodia. It's only one of his many mansions across the country.

Hun Sen has come a long way. As the long time Prime Minister (and dictator) he's now the richest man in the country! That's ironic, since he had sworn off money during the communist era, when he began his rise to power as a radical Khmer Rouge soldier.

He's not very fearful looking. His big glasses don't quite disguise that he has a glass eye; a war injury from fighting near Phnom Penh in 1975. After the Khmer Rouge victory, this communist chameleon was posted to the eastern region. There he rose to be a regimental commander, covering Kratie to Kampong Cham. But that didn't last; Hun Sen fled for his life in 1977, fearing the purges that killed so many other eastern commanders. He defected to Vietnam, where he joined up with the Vietnamese military. Soon he returned to Cambodia with his new masters, helping them to kick out his former Khmer Rouge comrades.

There is suspicion among Cambodians that Hun Sen is merely a puppet. “Hun Sen was installed by the Vietnamese,” a street vendor once told me. King Sihanouk himself agreed. He called Hun Sen the, "one eyed lackey of the Vietnamese".

With the Vietnamese occupying most of Cambodia for the next decade, Hun Sen was the puppet government's first Foreign Minister, and later became Prime Minister in 1985. 

Hun Sen traded his communist garb for suit and tie (photo:Wikipedia)

Then the United Nations entered the scene, bringing democratic elections. In the only free and fair election in which Hun Sen competed in 1993, he lost. Not content to fade away gracefully, he refused to vacate power, throwing the country into political crisis. A UN brokered 'compromise' left Cambodia with 2 Prime Ministers: Hun Sen, and Prince Norodom Ranariddh, the real winner of the elections. Not content to share power either, he seized power after street fighting with forces loyal to the opposition party FUNCINPEC. Sadly, Hun Sen's troops prevailed. Over 100 Khmers were killed as his army attacked troops loyal to the Prince, looted shops in the capital, and arrested and executed political opponents. The prince fled to exile in France. Although many Khmers still support Hun Sen and his political party, one thing is clear: today he is the most hated man in Cambodia.

I recall an afternoon back in Phnom Penh, when I saw Hun Sen’s motorcade speeding down Monivong Blvd. His vehicles were big black SUV’s, all with tinted windows. Policemen blocked off all traffic. I've seen motorcades of top politicians before in Vietnam, and in the USA. Normally they drive calmly and slowly, but Hun Sen's convoy was different. His motorcade came flying down the street like madmen; it was as though he expected someone to open fire on him at any second. Here was a man running scared. In 1998, an assassin in Phnom Penh fired on Hun Sen's motorcade with a rocket propelled grenade. It missed, flew over his car's hood, and killed a young boy. Nobody knows who did it; Hun Sen made many enemies over the years.

Knowing Hun Sen and his family's reputation for corruption, I look at the opulence of his beach town mansion not with awe, but disgust. Cambodia has some of the world's worst poverty, and I wonder, how many schools could have been built with the dirty money he used to build this mansion?

In 2012 Transparency International's annual Corruption Perception Index ranked Cambodia 157th out of 174 countries in the world. They were tied, with the equally disgraceful governments of Angola and Tajikistan. US Ambassador Carol Rodley stated that Cambodia was losing $500 million a year to corruption. Not surprisingly, the Prime Minister's government denies it.

My hotel is so close to Hun Sen's fence, that I could leap across from the hotel walkway right onto the rooftop of one of his buildings, and do some mayhem. There are no guards in view, could I really pull it off?

But I'm not that radical, and I'm only visiting Sihanoukville. I don't want to be arrested, and become another of Hun Sen's many nameless political prisoners. 

BLOWN UP BRIDGE AND LAND GRABBING

#2459238 / Bridge was blown up by communists during the war - 1973 gettyimages.com

The 'Japanese Friendship Bridge' (aka Chruoy Changvar Bridge in Khmer language)  was a strange sight in Phnom Penh for years. Built in 1966 it towered over the Tonle Sap River, until it was blown up by the communists during the civil war in 1973. For years afterward, it was only a partial bridge. Like a long jump ramp for Evel Knievel, it stretched out over the river, and stopped, far short of the eastern riverbank. It was only a remnant of its former self, much like Phnom Penh.

After the Khmer Rouge fled, the bridge became a popular meeting place for courting couples. In dim evening light, young men would drive their motorbikes out onto the bridge, with their girlfriends on the back seat. They would park, and take in a rather romantic view of the river from atop the destroyed landmark. Eventually young lovers had to find another place to gather, as the bridge was rebuilt in 1995, again with Japanese aid.

Today is a good day for a stroll, so I decide to walk all the way across the bridge. Heading across, I note two inner lanes are for cars, with two outer lanes for motorbikes. A bored policeman sits in a guard shack part way across. His AK-47 rifle hangs by the railing. I remember another 'Friendship Bridge' that I had seen in Laos, but that one hadn't been destroyed. 

Crossing to the river's eastern side, I look under the bridge, and see an odd site. Directly underneath the bridge, huddled like trolls, a fence corrals a small herd of cattle. Beyond the bridges end, the level of poverty is noticeable, even for Cambodia. Homes are poor; some are no more than shacks. I don’t know it yet, but destruction will come to the people who live here very soon.

Rebuilt Japanese Friendship Bridge (photo: Phnom Penh Places)

Days later, I learn that 30 homes of this humble neighborhood were destroyed. Not by war, not by natural disaster, but by demolition crews. Guarded by a herd of civilian and military police, crews came in with heavy equipment, and leveled the homes.  30 families living here lost out. Their houses were bulldozed to make way for a traffic roundabout. Although the homeowners were given warnings about the demolition, some refused to move. All were offered a small plot of land in a distant district, but only 12 families had accepted. The rest turned them down.

I cross the bridge another day to find the neighborhood leveled, just as I'd heard. One of the better looking cement homes in the neighborhood was still standing though. Looking inside, I saw that on the wall was a photo of the homeowner, standing with Prime Minister Hun Sen. Some people have better connections than others.


Human rights groups have been pleading for improved land rights for Cambodia's poor for years. Some property rights laws are ignored, and evicted families are routinely denied due process. In this example at the Friendship Bridge, many families were considered squatters, even though they had lived on this land for more than two decades. During the Khmer Rouge years, most land titles and property documents were lost, so poor landowners and squatters end up being the the biggest losers in all this.

Downstream from the bridge, some Khmers still cross the river on small boats

Land grabbing is nothing new here, it's been going on for years. Take the case of a poor vendor I knew. After the fall of the Khmer Rouge, her family came to Phnom Penh and found a large house on one of the main roads. The rich, original owners were long gone. They were probably either dead, or fled the country. The young lady had survived the Khmer Rouge years with her widowed mother and younger brother, so they moved in as squatters. But that didn't last long.

“One day policeman come to our house. He say we have to go,” the vendor told me of that difficult time. “My mother cry so much.”

The family was soon evicted, without due process. After they were forced out, who moved in? The policeman and his family! Years later, he sold the house that he never really owned. “He sell the house for $500,000,” she told me.

Land grabbing continues to be a serious problem in Cambodia. In 2009 the government passed a controversial land law, which allowed the government to expropriate property for 'development', and to take away land to use 'in the public interest'. Rights groups rightly say that the law's vague wording leaves the law wide open for abuse, resulting in bribes for corrupt politicians, and the loss of land for thousands of poor farmers.

The Friendship Bridge squatters aren't just an isolated case. Other forced evictions have been well publicized, and rather than clearing land for government projects, they are often for commercial interests. Unscrupulous developers are reportedly paying unfair compensation to families for land, or even stealing it outright. Businesses owned by relatives of Prime Minister Hun Sen are sometimes involved.

There has occasionally been civil unrest due to this problem. I'm beginning to see for myself, that the present government of Cambodia has little credibility.

CORRUPTION, DAMS AND GULAGS

Once dry land, the water level has risen due to a dam

Gazing out our vehicle’s window, palm trees wave in the breeze as we cruise down a narrow rural road. While watching the world pass by, I see an odd looking lake in the hills to the east. Out in the brown waters of a lake, are small hilltop islands close to shore; longtail boats cruise their way between them. On one small island, I spot cattle that have been stranded. They have a confused look about them, as they wait to be rescued. That’s when I realize that that this isn’t a natural lake. These waters come and go, and these islands are only temporary. What the cattle are standing on, is really just a hill that became an island after recent rains. This isn’t a natural lake at all, it’s a vast reservoir for the Nam Ngum Dam, north of Vientiane.  

Built with foreign aid, Nam Ngum was built during the war, opened in 1971 to provide hydroelectric power. After the communists took over, the dam’s reservoir took on an additional function: as a prison. The islands held not loose cattle, but Laotians associated with the old regime. Out on larger islands of the reservoir, two prison camps were built. One island prison was for men, another for women. 

When the Pathet Lao took over in 1975, they rounded up an estimated 20,000 – 40,000 Laotians. These included soldiers, policemen, teachers, Royal Laotian Government officials,  and office workers who had worked for westerners. Just as had been done in Vietnam, the prisoners were sent to remote prison camps for ‘re-education’. Added to these 'enemies of the state', were other undesirables that didn’t fit in with the new ‘communist paradise’. Also sent to the bamboo gulags, were prostitutes and opium addicts from Vientiane. 

Fortunately, with the liberalization of government policies, that dark chapter has for the most part passed. The prisons on the reservoir were closed years ago. 

The Nam Ngum resevoir (Photo: 123 rf)

Nam Ngum Dam is still in operation today, and some of the electricity produced provides power for Vientiane. The rest of the electricity is exported to Thailand, and I remember the power lines across the Mekong that I had seen at Friendship Bridge. As a poor landlocked country, Laos has few prospects for development, and hydropower is being pushed even more these days. As one Laotian government official boasted, “Laos will be the battery of Southeast Asia.”

Hydroelectric dams in Laos are controversial, since there is an ongoing boom of dam construction. There are currently seven dam projects under construction in Laos, and even more are being proposed for the countries many rivers. 

One of the larger dams, called the ‘Nam Theun 2’, is currently being built in central Laos, on the Nakai plateau. Although the project is backed by the World Bank, it’s been running behind schedule. Since the Nam Theun River is a tributary to the Mekong, the project has received a great deal of criticism from environmentalists, and sociologists concerned about affected communities. 6,000 villagers from the area have already been relocated to make room for the reservoir, and nobody knows what the long term effects of the dam will be on the environment. Initially I thought that hydroelectric dams would be good for Laos, but an Australian scientist I spoke with in Vientiane convinced me otherwise. 

“Laos doesn’t need any more dams,” he said knowingly. According to him, it wasn’t need that was driving their creation. “A guy shows up with a suitcase full of money,” he said, “then they get approval to build another dam.” 

Hydropower, as well as increased logging and mining, have been a mixed blessing for Laos. The rise in business has brought in much needed foreign capital, and more villages are receiving electrical power. But the Laotian people are still not the main beneficiaries. With the return to Laos of large scale infrastructure projects as well as mining and logging, the resulting rise in corruption was predictable. Local government officials who had been earning less than $100 a month, soon found fat contracts crossing their desks that were worth millions of dollars. 

The Vientiane Times gave one example of the problem. This rare story condemning corruption by government controlled media, is startlingly frank. 

Laotian power lines. Most hydroelectric power here is sold to neighboring Thailand.

“Prosecutors fail to bring corrupt officials to trial

Prosecutors are still unable to bring to trial government officials who break the law and abuse their position of power because of lack of cooperation from the sectors concerned. The Lao People’s Supreme Prosecutors’ Office has identified a number of criminal cases among government officials, ranging from corruption to helping people illegally sell timber and provide land concessions. 

But prosecutors are unable to pursue these cases and submit the results of their inquiries to the court for subsequent trial and judgement because other government agencies do not provide the necessary cooperation, according to a report from the office. At present, the only stop most state agencies take against offending officials is to ask them to make a commitment not to repeat their wrongdoing. Those who commit a serious crime are removed from office without the case going to court. 

The Supreme Prosecutor urges the government to use its administrative powers to address the isue, saying unless it does so people will lose confidence in the leadership of the Party and government.”

With the lack of accountability, the Laotian judicial system is failing to reduce corruption. It’s no wonder that Transparency International’s 2012 Corruption Perception Index ranked Laos as 160th out of 174 countries in the world. That makes Laos more corrupt than Vietnam. 

Since Laos lacks high tech professionals, it continues to be foreigners supervising the work on these big projects. I recall a dinner in Vientiane, where I met Tatiana, a twenty-something Moscovite who had been here for a year.

“I work for construction company, (they) build dam,” she said from behind her glasses. She told me that even though the dam wasn’t yet finished, the power had already been sold to Thailand. 

Although Tatiana enjoyed her work, she didn’t like Laos. In less than a week, she would go back to Russia for vacation. She missed home, and missed Russian cuisine. But it wasn’t just the food that made Tatiana dislike Laos. She'd been sick lately, home in bed for a week with a bad fever. “I had ra tifis,” she said.

“Excuse me?” I said. “Sorry, I don’t understand.” She repeated herself a few times, and I finally got her meaning. 

“Oh!” I said realizing, “Rat Typhus!!!”

That poor young lady. She came all the way here to work in a foreign country, and ended up with a disease transmitted by vermin. I’m enjoying my time in Laos, but I wouldn't be surprised, if Tatiana never came back from her vacation. 

HOLLYWOOD, HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND VIETNAM

US TV shows can be viewed in Vietnam

I'm watching TV in my hotel room, and I'm surprised by what I see. I'm expecting bland communist programming, but I find television in Vietnam has taken a very western bend. Flipping through channels, I find the Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel, and many of their familiar shows are dubbed or subtitled into Vietnamese. The rise of satellite TV here has revolutionized the media.  

Even away from cable and satellite networks, even locally produced shows rise from western influences. I was amused one night to watch a competitive dance show, which looked much like ‘Dancing with the Stars’. Another channel had the Vietnamese version of the game show, “The Price is Right”. The popular show had similar games for the contestants, who wore familiar yellow name tags. Even the theme song was the same!

As for popular movies, American made blockbusters are making it to Vietnam’s many multi-screen theaters. If a hit movie can’t be seen there, they can easily be found on pirated DVD’s, sold by vendors on the city streets. Banning movies from theaters, only increases their sales on the black market.

It’s no surprise that most American made movies on the Vietnam War aren't seen

Dustin Nguyen of 21 Jump Street returned to Vietnam

in theaters here, or on Vietnamese TV either. But there are already plenty of locally made war movies showing the Vietnamese side of the war, with the Americans and French depicted as the villains. In recent years, Vietnam has developed a growing local film community, producing privately made films in Vietnamese. Their films aren’t about drab old socialist themes either, but are of popular genres. Rather than flicks about communism, there are comedies, musicals, love stories, and even horror flicks.

I once went to an action movie, with a title that translated as, “The Legend Lives”. The film stars Dustin Nguyen, who made his name as an American actor on the 1980’s teen cop show ’21 Jump Street’. Back then, he starred with none other than future movie star Johnny Depp. Nguyen left Vietnam as a child refugee, and in addition to his American acting career, he recently became a star in his former homeland as a 'Viet kieu', a returning Vietnamese. This local film is a martial arts movie with a message, and highlights a major problem in Vietnam today: human trafficking.

As we meet Nguyen’s character, he is mentally handicapped living in a Buddhist temple. His mother is a martial arts master, and she improbably tells him that his father is the great Bruce Lee.
 
It's eventually revealed that neither his mother, nor Bruce Lee are his real parents; his actual mom was a single mother exposed to agent orange. The slow witted but quick fisted young man later takes on human traffickers, when he witnesses them kidnapping a Vietnamese teenager. The gangsters aim to force the girl into prostitution. 

Vulnerable homeless man sleeps in Hanoi ATM booth

The movie has a happy ending and the teenage girl is saved, but the message to Vietnamese audiences is clear. In real life, human trafficking is indeed a major problem in Vietnam. Ironically, human trafficking has worsened in Vietnam due to the rise in individual freedoms, mainly the freedom to travel. Passports for Vietnamese used to be a rarity, now they're fairly common.  

With the opening of Vietnam’s borders, the rise of globalization, and with passports available to average citizens, conditions became ripe for human traffickers to take advantage of poor Vietnamese for their own profit. Many young people leave Vietnam every year, traveling overseas with hopes and dreams of finding better paid work. As a result, thousands of vulnerable Vietnamese women and girls have been forced into prostitution against their will, with many more trapped as forced laborers. They are trafficked not only within Vietnam, but also to numerous foreign countries. 

As to how many Vietnamese have been trafficked, nobody knows for sure. The government has admitted that 2,935 were victims of human trafficking during a five year period, but a spokesperson admitted the problem is worsening. The advocacy group Hagar International puts the number far higher. They say that 400,000 were human trafficking victims since 1990, which included men, women and children. 

In a 2003 ordinance passed for the prevention of prostitution, sex trafficking in Vietnam was outlawed. Recent laws have resulted in the conviction of hundreds of human traffickers, but the problem persists. As long as there is poverty and corruption in Vietnam, it will be difficult to eliminate the scourge of human trafficking.
 

NIGHT LIFE AND CORRUPTION IN SAIGON

Qing Bar in Saigon's District 1, an upscale wine bar that closes on time

In Southeast Asia, pubs and discos are excellent places to meet fascinating people, from a variety of backgrounds. In the bars of Vietnam people of all kinds are generally more friendly, and more open to meet strangers, than they are back in America. This has nothing to do with the hustlers or scammers either. Most Vietnamese are hospitable people, with a friendliness that is infectious.

One night at a bar/restaurant in Pham Ngu Lao, an English friend introduced me to Truong, a young Vietnamese. He was on his way to a disco called Gossip, where he would dance until the wee hours of the morning. Although I’d just met him, Truong invited me to go along.

Feeling tired I declined, but before he left, I asked him, “how can the discos stay open until the morning in the city? I heard there's a law, that bars and discos cannot stay open late.”

“There is a national law, that no bar can stay open past 12 o’clock,” Truong said.  “Everybody know that if bar is open after 12, they are paying the police.”

This corruption of bribes for bars to stay open doesn’t end there either. According to Truong, bar owners had to entertain the police regularly. “They don’t just pay the police,” Truong continued. “They have to take them out to dinner. They have to pay for everything, food and drink.”

Truong had a rather humorous take on the corruption system for bars. “My father is policeman. The bar give money to my father. My father give money to me. I give money back to the bar,” he said smiling. “Recycle. Recycle.”

Corruption is nothing new to Southeast Asia, existing here in one form or another for centuries. With the re-introduction of capitalism to Vietnam in the 80’s, foreign investment money has flowed in. This has brought enormous potential for graft to government officials with low salaries.

Truong proceeded to tell me about a corrupt government official. “Next door, this restaurant is owned by man in prison now. He worked in government petroleum. He in prison for corruption. In prison, he have good life. He pay the prison guards, he have good TV, telephone, nice room. His son and daughter, they go to university in America. In Vietnam, if the father go to prison for corruption, the son has a good life.”

A reputable organization which does surveys on corruption, Transparency International, annually ranks the world’s perceived level of public sector corruption. Their 2011 Corruption Perception Index, ranked 182 of the world’s countries. Vietnam was tied for 120th place, along with Senegal, Kosovo, Moldova, Egypt and Algeria.

Old Ho Chi Minh would be very displeased at the current level of corruption that exists in the 'communist' government that he left behind.

WAR SOUVENIR MARKET

This statue at left honors a Vietnamese hero that fought China, not the USA

The colonial clock tower of Ben Thanh market is the unofficial icon of old Saigon. Since Vietnam has returned to capitalism, a landmark from a buzzing market makes a fitting symbol. Like Asia itself, the market is overcrowded, and anxious for money from foreigners.

Unlike air conditioned American markets, the inside is filled with tropical heat.  Crowds weave between hundreds of small stalls, with vendors selling just about anything. There are silk clothes, cosmetics, souvenirs, spices, exotic fruits, live seafood, and snake wine. That’s right, wine made from snakes, complete with a dead cobra still inside the bottle! The wine, and most other goods sold here, are still made by hand. Since this is the heart of the business district, and close to tourist sites, it’s one of the more expensive markets in town. Eager foreigners who visit still find prices cheaper than back home, so they think they’re getting bargains. But there are better markets in the city, with more interesting merchandise.

Out the front clock tower door in the middle of a traffic roundabout, sits a statue of a Vietnamese hero on horseback. This isn’t Ho Chi Minh, but Tran Nguyen Han, a 15th century general who fought the Chinese. A nearby street called Le Loi, is also named for a guerilla leader who fought the Chinese. Long before America’s war here, China occupied Vietnam for nearly 1,000 years. It took centuries of fighting for the Vietnamese to finally kick them out. Fighting for so many years proved the Vietnamese tenacity for enduring long wars, and fuels a still simmering dislike for China today. Yes, the Vietnamese dislike the Chinese, far more than they dislike Americans. Given their history fighting China, it’s not surprising that there are many more statues throughout Vietnam to heroes who fought the Chinese, than there are to those who fought the Americans or the French. It shows who the Vietnamese think their worst enemy was, and who they still fear to some degree.

Having had enough of Ben Thanh market, I search for ‘historical’ merchandise elsewhere. Running between cars, I cross to nearby Duong Yersin street heading for a market with more local flavor, away from tourists. A few blocks down, I reach Dan Sinh market.

Walking in, I note the booths here are crowded even tighter together. There are no foreigners in sight. Walking deeper into the market, I find some unique items. I’ve found the market I’m looking for.

A mass of military gear from several armies is on sale in Dan Sinh market

I first see military clothing from the American, Vietnamese, and Chinese Armies.It’s a strange mix of styles old and new. I look closely for authenticity, since fakes abound. There are backpacks, boots, compasses, fold-up shovels and knives. Some of the goods are modern day US Army surplus. Others are copies made in local shops; even counterfeit US Army patches are made here. I look around, and see US Army, US Army everywhere. There is even ammunition, for rifles and grenade launchers, sold like key chains. These have all been disarmed. Probably.

Soon I come across what look like antiques from the war years, but that’s only at first glance. I’ve heard that many fake antiques here have been artificially aged. There are old looking watches, medals, patches, pins, canteens, dog tags and even class rings. Nearly all of them are fakes.

The most glaring counterfeit examples are zippo lighters. Someone has gone to great lengths to make them look like war antiques. These lighters have been artificially dyed, or even heavily scratched to make them look old and weathered.  They’re engraved with the names of battlefields, or US army units. Some have  wartime catchphrases like “It don’t mean nothin”, or “Live by chance, drunkard by choice, killer by profession”, or “Mess with the best, die like the rest”.  The salespeople fib to me, claiming they’re genuine. “Old from the war,” they say unconvincingly.

Continuing on, I find an exception. I pick up a green steel pot helmet. It’s the old American GI style. As opposed to the other counterfeits, this one has a musty odor, decaying fabric, and rust. This one is actually genuine. The webbing has been altered, to fit a small Vietnamese head. I’ve seen locals use these as motorcycle helmets.

Other booths have more war antiques that appear genuine. There are ammunition cases, canteens, backpacks, flashlights, compasses and mess kits. I’m not surprised to find so much military merchandise for sale. Back during the war the South Vietnamese military was so corrupt, that items such as these were easily stolen, and then sold openly on the black market. In those days, a lot of American military aid meant for the war effort ended up sold on the streets, with the proceeds going into the bank accounts of corrupt ARVN generals.

Helmets, hats and gauges from old US military vehicles are also sold here.

Another booth has piles of gauges that were taken out of old planes, trucks and armored vehicles. After the war most of the old military vehicles ended up in the scrap yard. I inquire about an old, small canvas US army backpack. Worn and weathered, it looks authentic. I quickly learn that the old, authentic goods from the war are far more expensive than the new.

“Forty dollars,” says the stern salesmen. I try to bargain with him, and he snubs me, refusing to bargain at all. That’s a fixed price.

I move on, exploring further into the market, and find another booth with disorganized piles of military gear. Stacks of old photos catch my eye, and I thumb through them. They’re all black and white, darkened by age, and printed in old styles not seen anymore. These are also genuine. In between old family snapshots, I come to many pictures of soldiers in uniform. These were personal soldier’s photos from the the old South Vietnamese Army, officially called the Army of the Republic of Vietnam(ARVN). There are numerous photos of these young men, America’s former allies. Some proudly wear their full dress uniforms. Others are posing with friends, leaning on each other, relaxing.

I purchase one black and white photo, showing four anonymous ARVN soldiers. They are seated on the ground, wearing their helmets, brandishing M-16 rifles. Looking scarcely older than 18, they were probably draftees.

“Where did you get all these photos?” I ask the saleslady.

“Danang,” she says, and gives no further details.

I look at this old photo and wonder what happened to these four young men. There were so many difficulties ahead for these soldiers. When the war ended, most captured ARVN soldiers were imprisoned. These photos are faces from the past, looking at me from across time. How many of these young men survived the war? Did any escape as refugees? Where are they now?