There is no place for fear of the unknown and no danger in treading where you have not walked before because you are divinely guided.
Zhang Liang, Founder of the Han Dynasty Era, 206 BCE – 220 CE.
An early start found me trudging through wet foliage along the river bank, looking for a way to get up to the ridge leading me to the Montagnard village. After a couple of hours of following the river, the ridgeline dipped low into the river valley. I turned uphill to find a small path along the ridge that looked over the vast network of border roads and farms connecting Vietnam with Cambodia and Laos, my true objective – the famous Ho Chi Minh Trail. After another few hours of steady uphill, the path widened to a primary trail broad enough for people, carts, motorcycles, and the occasional malcontent water buffalo. This was the path I was looking for.
The steep grade uphill eased up a little as I came to the crest of the ridge. The treeline was much thinner here, and I could see the mountain I had crossed and beyond. More importantly, I had good observation of the massive sea of green in Laos. The trail had intermittent branches that turned downhill into a network of switchbacks leading to the broad plains, jungles, and mountains of the peninsula whose tail encircles the South China Sea and where 75% of the world’s population resides.
China’s influence in this massive archipelago of islands that reached Australia at the far end was troubling to the West, even at this time. China could create an exclusive trade that barred the west from critical resources and shipping lanes. Many years later, this fear would be realized and take us closer to an ultimate conflict with China. Earlier, Japan had attempted to control this Asian breadbasket with brutal suppression.
The allies, led by America, fought a bloody campaign to free the area in WWII, bleeding American and British units white repeatedly. This gave rise to the Korean War, Malaysian and Philippine insurgencies, and later the Vietnam War as the east and west continued to fight for control. I hoped to somehow contribute to the act of keeping the peace by providing information through observation on the ground regarding the local opinions, infrastructure, and trade to open the door for western negotiations to return as trade partners and weaken China’s stranglehold on the area. I was naive to the true machinations of greed and power. Those were concepts beyond my simple see task, do task frame of mind.
Closer to the village, my spirits lifted. I felt a sense of accomplishment and apprehension about my reception. The village knew I was coming, as did the local government district office. They didn’t know the exact day or time, and my stealthy approach ensured there was no time to organize any unpleasantries giving me a chance to read any emerging signs of acceptance or treachery.
I began to meet people moving their cargo to and from the markets below. Most of them kept their stoic distance and hardly glanced at me, while others appeared shocked and approached to satisfy their curiosity. I explained as best I could that I was a nomad searching for the Montagnard people. They would smile and point in the direction I was going. Long gone was the simple greeting of “sup, Bro?” or “Whas da haps, Bro?” The popular slang soldiers greeted each other with.
At one point, I met two women pushing a two-wheeled cart full of clothing. I decided to try a pair of men’s work pants, a loincloth, and the white cotton work smock. Oh, and a tribal-colored bandana too. I’m sure I’d get in trouble for wearing it, being a tall, lanky white boy from out of town. With the Chief’s blessing, everyone would accept it, and I’d look a little more like everybody else.
After some gyrating hand signals, butchered Vietnamese, French, and English, and much effort, I had everything I needed. The shirt fit me a little tighter than the men normally wore, but it went on and came off without much struggle. The pants were a different story. The best the older woman could do was sell me some high water pants. Not satisfied with the fit, she sat down and ripped out the lower cuff, which is gathered tight around the ankles with a sleeve-like fit, while the rest of the pants was quite roomy to allow for cooling circulation. She resewed the cuff with the cloth gathered at the ankle with no sleeve. That did it. Satisfied, I paid her what she asked for, and with much smiling and bowing, we parted ways.
The children spotted me first as I entered the open field of the village. The little ones ran screaming for their mother while the bigger ones came up and started asking for candy. Tourists were not strangers here, and shaking the long noses down, their nickname for all westerners, was a regular pastime. I gave them some dried squid to chew on, satisfying them as much as a tootsie roll. Soon the welcoming committee showed up with their stoic scowls and parang to decide if I was profitable or a scallywag to be run off or worse, boiled into pig feed.
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