15/01/94 - BANGKOK / HO CHI MINH CITY

Diary day 2 by Bryan Adams:
The phone seemed to ring all morning. Someone from Gulf Air phoned at 9:00AM to thank me for the tickets to the concert, then Chris called to say he was going ahead to the airport and I would have to wake John up if I wanted breakfast. Jon and Lucy (friends from Hong Kong) ring and want to join me for breakfast…I crawl into the shower. Good-bye Bangkok.

Tim Page (Vietnam vet photographer) and American photographer Ken Regan have joined us for the trip into Ho Chi Minh City. Our plane is an unmarked Boeing 767 with a combination Australian – Vietnamese crew. We taxi into Ho Chi Minh airport to be greeted by all kinds of Vietnam airlines officials. My visa says:

WELCOME TO THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM.

As we walk down the airplane ramp it becomes apparent that this is no ordinary airport…we’ve entered into the twilight zone. It’s a step back in time. Twenty years to be exact.

There is a huge sign saying:

VIETNAMESE AIRLINES WELCOMES BRYAN ADAMS

It looks like the sixties. There is no sign of anything nineties with the exception of one new Japanese car. Various Russian built cars dot the landscape.

The people are excited but look at us suspiciously, maybe it’s curiosity. The main man from Vietnam Airlines physically shoves Bruce (my manager) out of the car and insists on sitting next to me for the short drive from the aircraft to the terminal!

Bruce is bewildered and speaking so quickly I can’t understand him. (How did he learn Vietnamese so quickly?) There is a small reception for us as we walk into the building and flowers are placed around our necks. Lot’s of commotion about the passports and the various customs forms to be handed in.

A large amount of press is gathering and it turns into a photographic shootout…I scurry to the awaiting car and as I stare out the window it suddenly dawns on me that we are officially in Saigon. Definitely different. There’s a large dirt road as we pull out of the airport. There are bicycles and motor scooters everywhere. Apparently there are no rules regarding riding a motorcycle here. No helmet laws, no license required.

As soon as you feel comfortable on a scooter, the road is yours.

There are few traffic lights because there are virtually no cars.

It is mind blowing I see girls in white dresses riding push bikes, horns from the thousand motorbikes are going off in all directions to safeguard the next person from smashing into you, all of this and it’s still much more relaxed for a Saturday afternoon rush hour than anywhere else I’ve been. People gaze into the car and look at you. When you smile or wave back the response is normally to look away.

There used to be trees lining the road to the airport, but they were all cut down in the sixties to make way for the heavy machinery coming in from America. Half way to the hotel the road becomes tree lined again. It is quite beautiful.

Signs of the French occupation appear in the way of a large Cathedral in the centre of town. Other smaller churches are dotted around. Generally the most beautiful buildings are French influenced. (There is a 26 mile marathon tommorrow which Kim Blake from my management office has entered!)

We arrive at The Saigon Floating Hotel, which was originally on the Great Barrier Reef and was towed up to Vietnam…It’s basically a barge with a Holiday Inn on top. Seems alright, but we immediately hit the streets in a Xich Lo (pronounced psyche low) which is a converted bicycle, a sort of rickshaw/bicycle. About ten of us converge into the melee of motor scooters and head for the Rex Hotel (famous gathering place for troops, journalists and now…musicians).

A few drinks later it’s back into the streets. A few of the locals take me and the Details mag journalist into another bar; I’m offered opium, gin and tonic, or the local “Rex” cigarette, which is a joint packaged up to look like regular cigarettes! I go for the G&T. A couple of hours later at the hotel, a guy from a Christian missionary project called “Welcome Home” greets me and explains he runs an orphanage and tells us about his time during the war. He has a distant look in his eyes. Tim Page joins the conversation and my jaw drops as I hear about the atrocities. The guy driving my Xich Lo had the same far away look. They are all about the same age, I have dinner and go to bed exhausted but thrilled to be here. It’s not like anywhere I’ve ever been.

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