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Ban Me Thuot to Chu Dreh and Pleiku
January 27, 1994
Ban Me Thuot
I start the day without a shower as the water pressure in the hotel has dropped
to zilch. By now, I have found myself accepting of whatever discomforts the road
may serve up to me. Go with the flow. I shrug off the lack of water pressure to my
third floor room but when I discover that the power is also out I'm at least happy
that my now habit of waking frequently during the night to recharge my video batteries
has paid off. Also, despite the condition of last night's restaurant I feel no ill
effects from dinner and really can't believe how good I do feel. As I pack my gear
for the trip onto Pleiku, I go over in my mind what I hope to accomplish today. I
pull out my maps and review the road between Ban Me Thuot and Pleiku. I hope to find
the location of a major Viet Minh ambush of a large French convoy in 1954. The Chu
Dreh Pass massacre.
Finished with packing and map reading I head to the roof of the hotel to video the
breaking dawn and listen to the town come to life. Looking down on the street behind
the hotel I can see residents bathing inside the walls of their homes. Shops are
opening their shops and people gather to gossip with neighbors. The top floor of
the hotel is a large room with a beat up conference table and broken down chairs
scattered around. On one wall is an ancient blackboard, a box of chalk nearby. In
neat, tidy script the white chalk flows over the craggy black surface in very good
English, "She prefers classical music, when she goes out with me." I imagine
the English class that is taught here, probably none in the class ever seeing an
American yet eager to do so and try out their new language. Near 8 a.m. the town
is in full swing and I decide to tour the local cho or market. I can see it
from the roof and judge it to be several blocks over from the hotel.
As I stroll alone to the market I recall that my interpreter, Vu Con, has told me
that many Vietnamese selling in the marketplace operate on superstition when it comes
to making their sales. He informs me that it is not a good idea to photograph in
marketplaces in the early morning when they are just opening up. The early morning
is the time of the greatest volume of sales, especially in the perishables. To some
the reason they have not made that first sale could be because that foreigner drifted
through photographing their booth and jinxing any future sales. I save photographing
markets until late mornings.
I wander through the market of Ban Me Thuot without cameras and it is a refreshing
way to see it, without the pressure of finding a shot. I can enjoy the sights, sounds
and smells. Still as the only foreigner around, I draw much attention albeit all
friendly.
This marketplace is much smaller and more close than others I've been through. There
is a real closeness, physically, with the people. Both the people shopping and the
vendors are crowded together in knots of village commerce. As friendly as these markets
have become to me, this market is even more so. You are confronted with all types
in this marketplace and in true human fashion I feel compelled to nod a greeting
here and voice a hello, there. I make my way along leisurely, glad that I didn't
bring any cameras or trappings of a tourist. Save for the eyes constantly following
my movements, I could be a citizen of this town simply going to market. I decide
that it would be interesting to imagine that I have decided to stay in Ban Me Thuot
for several months and that I'll go through the marketplace looking for items to
make my room more comfortable and homey.
Within a few steps a young girl tending several boxes of handmade chopsticks solves
my silverware problem. I get enough of the rough hewn bamboo sticks to last me for
two months for twenty-five cents. Another stall provides me with bowls , plates and
cups. I find a small vase and decide that while here I will make it a daily practice
to find a flower in the marketplace to brighten the room. I find a cabinet shop operating
at full pitch. Their specialty seems to be dressers, china cabinets and small, finely
made cabinets. Everything is done by hand. Now I wished I had my video to shoot the
men quietly working, assembling various pieces. The pieces are very crude but extremely
attractive in that hand made, one of a kind way. The woods are nothing I'm familar
with and probably fall on our wood embargo list. I now wish I had Con with me as
I stumble through bad Vietnamese and pidgin English to try to communicate with the
owner of the cabinet shop. Eventually, it's pictographs that allow me discuss the
cost of a small writing desk. I could do very well with $75.
There are many stalls selling the handmade galvanized watering cans which when examined
are really great pieces of hand made art with each one different slightly from its
neighbor. I with I could take one along but it's not the price (about $1.50 each)
but the bulky size that stops me. I turn over in my hands' one of the smaller watering
cans and finally decide that the trunk of our car is already overloaded with souvenirs
of the trip--hopefully, not more than I can get on the plane back to Ho Chi Minh
City.
Woven mats, brooms and baskets are piled and hung along the dirt streets. A young
couple on a moped bumps by, the wheels hugging the mud moguls that the street has
become. I've settled comfortably into the pace of this market. People wave and holler
a hello, nudging a neighbor who has not yet seen me. For my entire trip in Vietnam
I have been recognized always as an American and only once as a German. It is in
this open and friendly market that I hear someone call out in Vietnamese "Russian"!
I turn my head to the person and holler out, "No, no! My. . .my!" (Pronounced
"me"--American) pointing at my chest. For the most part the Russians
are hated by the Vietnamese for very simple reasons. I recall days earlier when I
was in a Saigon cafe speaking with a veteran of the revolution that he had stated
that when the American war was won the Russians simply came in and said, "We
paid for this war, now we want your oil." The new Vietnamese government was
hard pressed to say "no" given the pressures to quickly consolidate the
new country, the looming Cambodian situation and distant rumblings with China. The
Russians came and created such a lasting bad taste with the Vietnamese that I certainly
did not want to be mistaken for one. There was the story of the lien so who
had been shot up in this area the previous year. I don't feel threatened at all but
decide I should get back to the hotel to start the day's travel.
We leave Ban Me Thuot about 8:30am and start up the road to Pleiku. All along this
road we are flanked in the distance by high tension towers and cables rolling over
the plateau-like countryside. Vu Con informs me that these lines come down from Hanoi
but they are not operational as yet. Apparently there was corruption in the construction
of the lines and the official in charge was relieved. Con points out that under the
communists when one of their own screws up he is simply relieved--no justice court
for him. Con is as sarcastic as I've come to know he can get which is still stone
faced. He shakes his head and continues that at least under the old Republic government
there was a justice court to deal with the corruption. I believe Con to be honest
and simple, a man doing what it takes to survive and provide for his family. I just
nod my head, even if he thinks I'm that naive I don't want to embarrass him but I
just know that were there justice courts during the war they were probably running
'round the clock to deal with all the corruption of the South Vietnamese government.
I settle back in the seat, letting the countryside whiz by, the driver blowing the
horn every few seconds to signal our coming. I pull out the maps to study the Chu
Dreh Pass. During their war, the French had moved men and materiel around the country
by way of large troop and vehicle convoys. The helicopter troop ship, the slick,
would come with the Americans a decade later. As these convoys geared down over some
remote, winding pass the Viet Minh would trigger spectacular ambushes. I hoped to
find the exact location. I estimate that the Pass is about 80 kilometers from Ban
Me Thuot and have Con note the odometer.
The driver slows for groups of soldiers out collecting firewood or doing road repair.
Upon seeing each new group of soldiers, Con has developed a habit of calling out,
"Ah, Mister Taylor. . . NVA, sir, NVA." He says it not as a joke but more
out of the honesty as to who the soldiers really are--they are young men from the
North. I ask to stop at a large group of soldiers, some fifty or so men casually
ambling down the side of this remote road collecting firewood. Some of the men crowd
around immediately, like typical soldiers, the chance to screw off comeing too seldom.
Con passes out the Marlboros to soften them up, all the time answering numerous questions
about his passenger. Soon even the more timid ones are dropping their stacks of firewood
and coming over. I can see that one soldier seems to be in charge but I notice no
rank that makes him different from any others. I talk to him through Con about a
group photograph. The soldier puffs on my cigarette while Con pleads the case. The
young soldier shakes his head no, pointing back behind him. I can barely make out
the details of some type of camp. I'd really like a photograph of these young guys,
all dressed in their uniforms that are complete from their pith helmets to their
sneaker-like boots. It's no deal and we wave our good-bys.
We continue our drive winding through this plateau of rolling lush scrub and knots
of trees. We pass several more cemeteries for Viet Cong and NVA soldiers. It seems
that these graveyards are every few miles and other than an occasional government
building, seem to be the only new construction going on. The cemeteries are uniform
in design and layout. Generally, a large cement obelisk rises out of the center pavilion
that is a cement patio surrounded by neat rows of small cement vaults, the size of
a suitcase. Since each man, woman and child who lay in these cemeteries died in the
struggle they are all considered heros. At the foot of each hero's small vault are
the name, date of death and location. The whole cemetery is kept up in whitewash
and they appear to be regularly tended. Con tells me that whole ARVN cemeteries were
simply plowed over by the communists without notification of families to make room
for the NVA graves. The South Vietnamese dead were believed traitors to their country
and thus deserved no final resting place. According to Con, once a communist soldier
was killed in battle his remains were carefully hidden and noted in a log. After
the war, teams of government workers scoured jungle burial grounds using these logs
to bring more heroes to their final resting places. I can only think of the battle
accounts I have read in which some remote American firebase repelled some human wave
assault only to have dozens of dead communist soldiers scattered around the perimeter.
Sometimes, bulldozers would be lifted in to dig mass graves that probably were unbeknownst
to the communists. Recently there has been a movement by American vets to not only
return battlefield souvenirs taken from bodies but to locate these mass graves for
the Hanoi government.
Our road begins to descend from the plateau and down into a broad valley. Near as
I can tell from my 1950s topographical maps this should be the area of the Chu Dreh
Pass. Because of the age of the maps with village names that I know are changed many
times over, I tell Con that it may be a good idea to stop and ask directions of the
oldest people we can find. The area is dotted with Vietnamese and montagnard farming
villages and an occasional stop for directions keeps pointing us down the road. Highway
14 winds through the middle of an E'de (or Rhade) village and I tell Con I would
like to stop and wander through the village. As I stroll through the village, the
people are very friendly and the children even more so as I attract an ever increasing
crowd. Typically, the poverty to my eyes is immense but they seem happy and healthy.
I pull out what has become the icebreaker that cuts through all language barriers
-- the Polaroid SX-70. These people are familiar with cameras but not instant technology.
When I point the Polaroid at a small group of children, invariably several children
dart out of the group not wanting to be photographed. The remainder smile broadly
and fend off cat calls from those not in the picture. Once the photo is taken and they see that I am
holding something in my hand and that it is "moving", the crowd swells.
Once the image comes up it is truly a magical thing for both of us to observe. I
shoot off several more Polaroids to a now willing audience. I kept very few Polaroids,
tending to give them away to those whom I photographed. Whatever misgivings I have
about this process that we seemed to have fallen into -- stopping at a sleepy village,
Polaroiding the several residents present, then have a large crowd gather, more Polaroids,
and then video and stills so that by the time we are ready to leave the crowd is
large and noisy. They are having a good time and the word has gone around that this
is an American.
Continuing north on Highway 14 and several miles down the road
from this village we come to what I believe by the maps to be the general area of
the Chu Dreh massacre of 1954. . As a Viet Vet, I am interested in our American experience
in Vietnam but when I find a place that was part of the French experience I find
that fascinating as well. I had researched about four such locations of French involvement
in South Vietnam that I would hope to locate during my trip. I had taken most of
my information about the Chu Dreh Massacre from a Bernard Fall book, Street Without
Joy. During the “American War”, we got around by helicopter but the French moved
by truck convoys. The book’s photos and simple maps coupled with the 1:50,000 topo
maps I carried with me gave me an excellent fix on the exact location of this battle.
I had estimated that once we left Ban Me Thuot we would have a drive of about 80
kilometers to the site of this ambush.
When we crested the top of a hill range and started to wind down a mountain pass
the surrounding area looked just like the maps. I knew I was close to the site of
this long forgotten ambush. In 1954, the French convoy, made up of vehicles and marching
units, was going up the hill slowing down to a crawl in this long steep stretch of
road. The road is barely two lane and although it is paved asphalt today, I can only
imagine that it was simply hardpacked dirt back in 1954. Going up the hill through
the ambush site the road is fronted on the right by a steep embankment that is upwards
of thirty feet. On the left side, there is a small shoulder in places. Beyond this
shoulder there is an extreme drop into the canyon below, some hundreds to at least
one thousand feet in places. The Viet Minh positions were dug in just back and along
the edge of the embankment among the low scrub jungle.
I tap Con on the shoulder and tell him that I think we are at the spot. I tell him
we need to find a local to ask. By this time we were went past the site and whizzing
down the road onto a broad plateau. Up ahead, beside the road under the shade of
a tree, sat two old montagnard men. The driver pulled to the side of the road. One
is white bearded with black pajamas and a conical hat or nung la. The other wears
a dirty windbreaker and a rumpled baseball cap. Con speaks to them for several minutes
and finds that they don’t speak much Vietnamese. He communicates with them in a mixture
of Vietnamese, montagnard dialect and French. While the talks with the old men, I,
like an idiot, relax in the backseat of the car figuring to let the interpreter deal
with these two old guys. As it turns out I should have been right up with them. After
several more preliminary questions they started to excitedly chatter back and forth.
It was extremely hot and I was starting to nod off in the back seat of the car, unaware
of what’s going on. Yes, they know of the battle, and in fact one of them (see picture)was in it in 1954 as a young man of 18 in a Rhade Battalion with the French.
By the time all the commotion is relayed to me I’ve missed a great video opportunity.
Anyway, I finally take it all in and realize I may have a real vet of the battle.
What a stroke of coincidence in this remote part of Vietnam.
As an aside: when you are traveling around Vietnam you are constantly trying to separate
truth from fiction, especially in dealing with the Vietnamese and then if there is
money involved. So here was an old ‘Yard claiming that he was at the Chu Dreh massacre
some 40 years ago. Montagnards don’t know from lying and what did he have to gain
in this instance. The old man had been walking all day from his village to the east
to visit a friend in the valley below. I decided to put him to the test. In between
French, pidgin Vietnamese and a very few words of Rhade I was able to convince the
old man to take us to the site of the ambush. Now another thing about the Montagnards,
they don’t understand distance as you and I. To them, distance is measured in time.
Of course all this escaped me at the time. We piled the old man in the front seat
of the car and headed back up the road. I gathered that the interpreter told him
to tell us to stop at the ambush site.
We drove about 5 minutes and the old man has us pull over. It looks close to me but
according to my map it should be further up the hill, but I’ll go along with it.
Remember, ‘yards only understand distance through time. We’ve just driven in a car
to a spot and taken several minutesit could have taken him 45 minutes to cover this
on foot. Now we get out and proceed to walk up the hill. As Con offers up a Marlboro,
the old man relates that in 1954, he was nineteen years old and part of the lead
company of Montagnard troopers walking at the head of the French column. I trust
the old man because I believe that by heading back up the road the way we came is
surely where the ambush occurred by my maps. We walk a good half-hour.
According to him there were dozens of vehicles in the convoy and all had to gear
down low to crawl over the pass. They had set out from Pleiku headed to Ban Me Thout.
The convoy was stretched out in a long line. Our guide walked with the Montagnard
Brigade at the front. Without warning, from the cliffs above them he heard the command
“Dung Lai!” (Stop!). A Viet Minh officer set the ambush in motion as his command
was followed immediately by rifle and machine gun fire that raked the length of the
column. He said there was instant panic among the column. The Viet Minh were well
dug in along the cliffs and easily chopped the column to pieces. The old man continued
up the road gesturing at various spots along the way. Finally, he came to his spot
during the battle and described how when the trap was sprung all those around him
made a dash for the jungle opposite the cliffs and many tumbled down the steep ravines
to their deaths. There was death all around him and the old man points to the spot
he was wounded. He slaps his shin to demonstrate the bullet penetrating his leg and
then falls to the dirt shoulder of the road at the ravine’s edge. They cannot get
off the road. His friend is shot and killed. He wound is severe. Others jump off
the road into the thousand foot drop to take their chances but most fall to their
deaths. He pulls his dead friend atop himself and plays dead. The ambush rages on
with the French forces giving little retaliation and then the Viet Minh assault over
his position and down the convoy line. He can see vehicles exploding and burning
down the convoy line. Soon he can see Viet Minh troops walking among his unit and
the vehicles, mopping up, finishing off the wounded, setting fire to the vehicles
not already destroyed and pitching grenades down the ravines at any retreating survivors..
He continues to play dead. Finally, the Viet Minh are satisfied with their slaughter
and move back into the jungle and the fight is over.
During this whole narrative I cannot understand a word that the old man is saying
and I’m sure I’m not getting all the details from Con because of the language barrier
but the old man is still spellbinding in his honest, matter of fact way as he recountsf
this long ago, forgotten battle. I videotaped this old warrior describing this long forgotten
battle with his gestures and excitement. He said he hadn't talked about this incident
in 40 years. He showed me the scar on his leg.
I step to the shoulder of the road and look down through the jungle into the canyon
below--it was a straight drop down. The ravine is truly too steep to climb down and
I turn my attention across the road to the Viet Minh positions. I dash up into the
jungle and within seconds find numerous old foxhole and bunker positions. Con finds
the remains of an old sandbag but it is the type use by American troops. This ideal
location became a key ambush site well into another war. Perhaps, American and ARVN
convoys were ambushed from these positions originally prepared by the Viet Minh.
It is quiet in under the trees as I prowl around the positions. It is also eerie
in a melancholy way. Looking through the trees and out down the Highway I can see
exactly what the Viet Minh forces must have seen some fifty years before. The fields
of fire are perfect.
Back on the road, Con continues to talk with the old man who remarks that he has
not spoken this much French since the war, but that it comes back easily to him.
We retrace our steps back down the line of what had been the broken column. The old
man continues to point out small little actions that happened in the fight and its
aftermath. Back in the car we drive him toward his destination near Pleiku. As he
exits the car I give him 100,000 dong (ten dollars) for his time. The driver kids
the old man in pantomime that indicates he feels the old man will use the money for
wine. He smiles but says that now with this money he can stay with his friend longer
and pay for his return trip back to his village. He sets off down a dusty road toward
another village as we wave our good-bys. What a find! I’m elated and tell Con I want
to buy lunch for all of us.
Still much of a frontier area, this stretch between Ban Me Thuot and Pleiku does
not offer many places to eat. The small road is fairly busy with the afternoon traffic.
School kids on bikes returning home, overcrowded and top heavy buses teeter down
the lane and a half of blacktop. Oxen are driven by in herds or hitched to ancient
carts. All the while this tumultuous flow dodges around all sorts of crops put on
a part of the asphalt to dry. Tobacco, rice, tubers, grains, all lie along either
side of the road taking up about three feet of the already narrow roadthree feet
of the road not the shoulder. Hard, dry surfaces for drying products are rare in
the countryside’s of most agrarian societies and a road is a great place to perform
this task. All the traffic simply deals with it as we would cars parked along the
street. I have seen my share of incredible head-ones that are avoided at the last
second. There are many times that I have glanced up from my maps to see us flying
along with Hai pounding the horn facing down a logging truck as the road is narrowed
to one lane for all the produce lying on either side. There is some macho hidden
code that doesn’t allow one to lose face even in the face of sheer death from some
logging trucks whose brakes, if he has any, are probably original equipment. These
incredible close calls don’t even seem to phase Hai or even Mr. Con.
After a little travel the ever resourceful Con has found us a good sized restaurant
that caters to the bus traffic. Most Vietnamese roadside restaurants are open to
the air allowing all sorts of people and animals to become part of your dining experience.
Usually little urchin beggar children hover around the table while others quietly
flit from table to table selling all sorts of merchandise including tickets for the
national lottery. Add to this all the patrons within the restaurant watching my every
move. This particular restaurant owner has erected a large chain link fence around
the restaurant and parking lot allowing in the passing bus or car at the sound of
their horn. Still the crowd stalks the fence, calling to you. Hai, my driver, blasts
the horn and the gate opens in dividing the crowd of twenty or thirty hanging around
the outside. They peer into the car and I can see a murmur go through the crowd.
There is already one large bus within the parking lot, loaded on top with crated
pigs, chickens and geese, furniture, motorcycles and produce. All those farm animals
squealing and squawking on top of the bus has also provided the interior of the restaurant
with a distinctive smell as well as several battalions of flies. Most of the passengers
are inside in the midst of their meals. We find a table and I again tell Mr. Con
that I trust him to order.
Vegetables combined with chicken and bones is the soup of the day along with steamed
rice. Another bus arrives and all tables are soon filled, watching me eat. I’m still
getting the hang of chopsticks and feel that I’m putting on a good show. Small, scrawny
dogs patrol the floor looking for scraps. Con has already told me previously that
anything I don’t want goes on the floor. This is practiced rarely by the Vietnamese
but at this particular meal I find a lot to put discreetly on the floor. Soon I have
several dogs happily prowling my neighborhood.
What I take to be a woman roaming among the tables singing, Con corrects me and says
she is a crazy woman. I see that the back of her neck is covered with open sores.
The Vietnamese seem somewhat tolerant of this crazy woman drifting among them singing
fragments of songs and taking a scarce handout of a few dong. Lunch for the three
of us including beer and tea comes to 40,000 dong (about $4), with a tip for the
server and the crazy singer. Most of the time when I’m given the bill and add in
the tip the server invariably gives me back the tip explaining that I have paid too
much. Con then explains to them the theory of tipping and still with a puzzled look
on their faces they do take the extra money. Sometimes I see that the server simply
gives the extra money over to the owner.
We start back to our car in the little parking lot and the crowd outside the fence
comes to life, calling for me to look at their goods. As I’m taking photographs,
one of the bus passengers, a woman, comes out from the restaurant and tugs at my
shirt. I get the idea that she wants to be photographed. She appears to be in her
forties and probably remembers the Americans, she is friendly and pulls me over to
a part of the lot where she can pose with her hand resting on her chin and her eyes
shaded by the nung la in her best imitation of a movie star pose. All around me while
I’m taking her pictures are her girlfriends catcalling to her and trying to crack
her up. I get all of them into the shot and it’s like a group of forty years old
schoolgirls posing and goofing around. Just friendly people.
Back on the road I can see a distinctive mountain rising out of the ground much as
Monkey Mountain does in Danang. As we approach the mountain to the East of the highway,
Con points in the distance to Pleiku and I can start to see the outskirts. I orient
the map and realize that this mountain overlooks the turnoff to what was the 4th
Infantry Division Base Camp. On top of the mountain would have certainly been a firebase
and today a radar station occupies the peak. Just north of this mountain we turn
east on a road running into the Division compound. There is nothing left except the
cement island where the MPs would have stood guarding the main gate. This was a huge
base and now there is nothing, not even cement pads are left. Con tells me that when
the war ended the people stripped the ARVN and American bases clean. All along the
road in little stalls I have seen all sorts of merchandise stripped from these basesperforated
steel planking (PSP), vehicles, storage containers, and even cement runways and parade
grounds broken up into two feet by three foot chunks. It comes as a surprise to me.
Some of the biggest American bases of the war would have made fine military installations
for the victors but apparently they wanted no trace left of the Americans and were
content to build their own new base nearby.
