Samantha Coomber Reflects on Life and Death in Ba Chuc

To Vietnam With Love

View Photos (1) Image © 2008 To Vietnam With Love

Excerpted from To Vietnam With Love: A Travel Guide for the Connoisseur, available from ThingsAsian Press. 

Ba Chuc. The name means nothing to the hordes of tourists snaking their way along the popular coastal towns of Vietnam. Come to think of it, Ba Chuc doesn’t register with many Vietnamese either; they remain blissfully ignorant of its past. But near the Cambodian border in the southwest corner of the country are Vietnam’s very own Killing Fields. Many history buffs may recognize the name of My Lai, but Ba Chuc is of equally tragic proportions.

Carrying me since dawn from Chau Doc, the somewhat precarious motorbike I had hired to take me to Ba Chuc grinds to a halt about five kilometers short of our destination. Its last gasp doesn’t sound too healthy, and large black rain clouds loom ominously on the horizon. If I were superstitious, I would conclude that someone doesn’t want me to make this journey, so that Ba Chuc’s gruesome secret could stay exactly that.

My driver and I are on a dirt track running parallel to the Vinh Te Canal. A stone’s throw on the other side lies Cambodia. During the late seventies, members of the Khmer Rouge regularly sneaked across the border and murdered Vietnamese civilians. In April 1978 they massacred more than three thousand inhabitants of the small village of Ba Chuc.

In the distance, hauntingly beautiful limestone hills—which accompanied most of our journey—paint an exquisite backdrop. The occasional tugboat chugs alongside us at a snail’s pace, but, as it turns out, a pace quicker than ours. My driver kicks the offending machine a few times and shakes his head. Sensing my impatience, he states the obvious, “It’s broken, we get it fixed.”

“Where?” I ask, looking around doubtfully at the sparse dwellings strung along the practically deserted track. But I should have realized by now that in Vietnam you needn’t worry about these things. For wherever you find yourself, there is always someone eking out a living fixing or mending something.

Although most guidebooks cover this area in the Mekong Delta chapter, it’s a world away from the full-on bustle of the frequently visited cities of Can Tho or My Tho. The locals even appear different, the Khmer-Cambodian roots easily recognizable by the darker skin and red-and-white checked headgear. We approach a group of them, and they try unsuccessfully to start our contraption. We’re then led to a makeshift roadside stall doubling as a garage and invited to partake of some green tea. I’m on a tight schedule, and this is not part of the itinerary. But then precious little about traveling off the beaten path in Vietnam ever is. So I go with the flow.

“You can go with this boy,” my driver blurts out, pointing to the unsuspecting son of the local mechanic. “He will take you to Ba Chuc and bring you back here afterwards.”

Handed over like a parcel, I am bundled onto the back of a motorbike of a total stranger. He doesn’t speak a word of English and I speak about five of Vietnamese—which I exhaust by the time we set out in a cloud of dust. In another country, the thought of going off with a strange young man in the middle of nowhere without a common language would be complete madness. But like I said, this is Vietnam. I put my faith in this harmless youth, along with all the other Vietnamese who have yet to violate my trust.

No sooner do we head out when another obstacle rears its head. The rudimentary wooden bridge spanning the river has been washed away by recent heavy rains, so locals are using a makeshift ferry instead. Waiting for the boat, the full sense of my isolation and uncertainty suddenly hits home. With my designer sunglasses and camera, I am very out of place among the weary old women, farmers, and traders. But the young man standing by my side turns out to be a comfort—impromptu guide, protector, and companion all rolled into one, and worth his weight in gold.

As we land on the other side of the swollen river, threatening thunderclouds overhead suggest bad karma. At first sight, Ba Chuc is an unassuming village. People go about their daily business, children play, bicycles loll past laden with fresh produce—the usual street scenes—nothing out of the ordinary. The normality of it all assumes an almost eerie quality.

Then I see it. A solid concrete memorial surrounded by a sea of innocent-looking rice fields. Young boys run noisily around the vicinity. On closer inspection, the edifice is a large hexagonal glass case. Nothing could have prepared me for the sight about to greet me. Inside are thousands of bleached white skulls meticulously stacked on three levels. If this wasn’t grim enough, they are also neatly labeled and sorted into various age groups, each group represented by a crude sign. The most poignant is the pile of tiny remains representing the years “0-2,” a final tragic resting place of babies and toddlers who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Old people (“65-80”) did not escape either.

I walk around the aptly named “Skull Pagoda” in somewhat of a stupefied daze. How can the living children laugh and smile with this right under their very noses? By now, spots of rain gently bounce off my face, or maybe they are tears. Quite frankly, I can’t tell. In front, on a small makeshift shrine, spirals of incense coil across a simple condolence book. But what on earth do you write? What can you write?

Nearby, the small, unassuming Tam Buu temple documents that sad day’s atrocities by way of black and white snapshots pinned on a board. In graphic detail they show how the villagers met their deaths in the fields. The photographs need no captions. Somehow, the temple feels miraculously peaceful and forgiving; the gentle monks who worship here perhaps hope these images serve as a permanent reminder to the sheer futility of it all. I am dumbstruck, but even if I could speak, no one around me would understand my words. It doesn’t matter, as my face says everything I cannot.

Life, of course, goes on. The village women are now out in force for morning market, gossiping and joking. In all probability, many are related to the victims of that tragic April day. If anything humbles you about this noble country, it is that its past, while painfully remembered, is not dwelt on.

Yes, life goes on. Back at the “garage,” I find my original driver sprawled out fast asleep in the shade, nicely funded by my hard-earned cash. The bike is now fixed and ready to go. Before departing for the coastal town of Ha Tien—our final destination—I pay my impromptu driver as much VND as I can. He is happy with this unexpected windfall. Right place at the right time?

As for me, somehow the mere inconvenience of a broken bike and a delay seems pretty meaningless. For the next four hours I hang on for dear life to the back of a motorbike cruising along a route that closely resembles a quagmire. The horizontal rain is unrelenting; I am cold, fed-up, and smarting from the heavy backpack cutting into my shoulders. But do you hear me utter one word of complaint? I think not.

FACT FILE:

Getting to Ba Chuc
Using Chau Doc in southwest Vietnam as your base, you can hire a motorcycle for your own uncomfortable ride to Ba Chuc. As well, numerous tour companies include Ba Chuc in package tours of the region. For the latter, inquire at the reliable Sinh Cafe.
246-248 De Tham St.
District 1
Ho Chi Minh City
(84-8)836-7338/837-6833
www.sinhcafe.com

Excerpted from To Vietnam With Love: A Travel Guide for the Connoisseur, available from ThingsAsian Press.

To read more essays from To Vietnam With Love, click here.

Published on 4/14/08