Compassionately but without sentimentality, Ants describes lands victimised in the recent past by militarism at its worst and now assaulted by consumerism at its most ruthless. She also provides many entertaining vignettes of eccentrics met en route, disasters narrowly avoided and happy encounters with kind people in remote regions of wondrous beauty.
Dervla Murphy, travel writer
Antonia Bolingbroke-Kents new book is a gripping travelogue which is at once both intimate and worldly-wise. Honest in her bravery (and brave in her honesty), she recounts a thrilling journey
Charlie Carroll, author of No Fixed Abode
An epic book about an epic trail. Bolingbroke-Kent captures the sights, sounds and colour of the legendary Ho Chi Minh Trail in all its surviving glory.
Kit Gillet, freelance journalist and videographer
Ants has pulled off not only a demanding and original adventure but a great read too. A Short Ride in the Jungle informs and entertains in just the right measures
Lois Pryce, motorcycle adventurer and author
A beautifully written tale teeming with descriptive gems and wickedly funny anecdotes, all delivered in an earthy, self-effacing style that has the words spilling off the page A travellers delight and classic-to-be!
Jason Lewis, author and the first person to circumnavigate the world by human power alone
A SHORT RIDE IN THE JUNGLE
Copyright Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent, 2014
Maps by Bee Hayes
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced by any means, nor transmitted, nor translated into a machine language, without the written permission of the publishers.
Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Condition of Sale
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
An Hachette UK Company
www.hachette.co.uk
Summersdale Publishers Ltd
Part of Octopus Publishing Group Limited
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
LONDON
EC4Y 0DZ
UK
www.summersdale.com
eISBN: 978-1-78372-051-4
Substantial discounts on bulk quantities of Summersdale books are available to corporations, professional associations and other organisations. For details contact general enquiries: telephone: +44 (0) 1243 771107 or email: enquiries@summersdale.com.
'Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong.
We owe it to future generations to explain why.'
Robert S. McNamara, US Secretary of Defence 19611968
AUTHOR'S NOTE
In western cultures the Truong Son Mountains are known as the Annamites, but throughout this book I refer to them by their Vietnamese name, the Truong Son, meaning 'Long Mountain'. The Vietnamese called the Ho Chi Minh Trail the Truong Son Strategic Supply Route, hence to refer to them as Truong Son is more apt in this context.
In 1975 the southern city of Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City by the North Vietnamese victors. Today, in spite of this change, the city is still largely known as Saigon, except by some northerners, and for official purposes. I refer to it by its pre-1975 name, Saigon.
Although the war that took place in Southeast Asia in the sixties and seventies is generally called the Vietnam War, the broad term that refers to the war in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia is the Second Indochina War. This book is a journey through these three countries, hence I refer to the conflict as the Second Indochina War, as opposed to the Vietnam War. Often I just call it 'the War'.
American intelligence and Vietnamese military cartographers used a different numbering system for the Trail on maps of the time. For example, the main northsouth road through Laos was called 911 by the US and 128 by the North Vietnamese. Since I have been working from old North Vietnamese maps, I use their numbering system, as opposed to the US one.
There is some disagreement as to whether the Honda Cub is a motorcycle or a moped. It has an automatic clutch and is rather smaller than your average motorcycle, but on the other hand has three gears, no running board and bigger wheels than most mopeds. Most Cub fans will insist their steed is a motorcycle and within this book I refer to it variously as a motorcycle, moped, bike, Cub and C90.
THE (MOSTLY) MIGHTY PINK PANTHER
BRIEF PRONUNCIATION GUIDE
n chay | an chai, the 'ay' as in 'bye' |
ao dai | ow die |
Bualapha | Boolafar |
Cm Thy | Cum Twee |
ct tc' | cat toc |
co tuong | co tung |
Cu Chi | Koo Chee |
Cuong | Kung, as in the 'u' sound in 'cook' |
i i | dee dee |
Mu Gia | Moo Zaa (In northern Vietnam 'gi' is pronounced 'z'. A Saigonese would pronounce it as 'Moo Jeeya') |
pho | fur |
Phong Nha | Fong Nar |
Tn K | Tan Kee |
Truong Son | Trung Son, the 'son' as in 'con' |
Vo Nguyen Giap | Vo Nwin Zaap |
xin cho | sin chow |
xin li | sin loy |
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
THE WORLD'S DEADLIEST ROAD
It was early March and a thick grey pall hung over Hanoi. Standing on the first floor balcony of my hotel in the capital's Old Quarter, I hunched my shoulders against the chill morning air. Still on British time, I took a beer from the minibar, lit a cigarette and leant over the concrete balustrade. Below, a buzzing, beeping river of mopeds and taxis flowed down narrow Nguyen Van To Street. Women squatted on the pavement hacking the heads off fish, their hands glistening with silver scales. Others sawed at slabs of raw meat, trickles of crimson blood running into the gutter. On the balcony opposite, two yellow songbirds chirruped in an ornate wooden cage. And in every direction stained buildings leant on each other like a crowd of drunkards, clothed in an unkempt mass of tangled wires, crooked balconies, grimy air conditioning units and half-open shutters. The drab, colourless order of London couldn't have felt further away.
Excitement and anxiety about what lay ahead had kept sleep at bay for the entirety of the flight from England. Now in Hanoi, I was eager to get on with the task at hand. Sleep could wait. In a couple of days' time I would be loading my panniers and setting off down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. For the next seven weeks it would just be me and my two-wheeled partner, a twenty-five-year-old Honda C90. No back up, no mechanics - just the hum of my tiny 90-cc engine.