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Saturday 22 November 2008

Ten days in Indo-China

Stanley Johnson packs in the sites on a whirlwind tour of south-east Asia

Ten days were all we had if we were to meet up with our son, Max, currently studying in Beijing, and enjoy his company in the Far East over the Chinese New Year holiday break. Would ten days be enough? We weren’t sure. But they would definitely be better than nothing.

Jenny (my wife) and I flew overnight from Heathrow on Thai Airways. In theory, Max had flown down from China while we were in the air. He planned to spend the night in Bangkok and join us in the departure lounge for the flight to Luang Prabang.

As we waited, bleary-eyed, at Bangkok airport about an hour before take-off, I received a text message on my mobile telephone. ‘Am having Thai omelette in town. See you soon.’ Jenny and I breathed a sigh of relief. On these kinds of journeys, so much can go wrong before you even start.

If you look at it on the map, we made a clockwise journey, flying north-east to Luang Prabang, then on to Hanoi, capital of Vietnam, before making the long journey south to Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, then cutting across to Cambodia’s Siem Reap, with the final short hop back to Bangkok.

Indo-China may no longer exist as a formal entity — the French finally pulled out after their crushing defeat at the battle of Dien Bien Phu in March 1954 — but there is still, to my mind at least, a sense in which the three countries of former French Indo-China (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia), having shared a common past, share also a common future. To talk as our competent travel agent did of an ‘Indo-China tour’ is certainly much more than a marketing gimmick.

We began with two nights in Luang Prabang, until 1975 the royal capital and seat of government of the former Kingdom of Laos. I am sure that those who know Luang Prabang well would notice recent changes as the city responds to its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Centre with an expansion of tourist facilities, but from my point of view Luang Prabang still manages to retain an extraordinary charm. The town’s many temples are not cordoned off museum-pieces; they are part of daily life. The saffron-robed monks add far more than colour. They are an essential element of the whole structure of society. Many Laotian men will aim to become monks at some point in their life, if only for a short period. Being plunged into the heart of a genuinely Buddhist society within hours of leaving Heathrow was the best possible start to our Indo-China trip.

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