Neither a lark nor a pilgrimage, Hunt's Vietnamese travelogue was first conceived as deep background for a novel set in Southeast Asia. The subtitle refers to a web of tracks and paths, known collectively as the Ho Chi Minh Trail, that served as a north-south supply route for the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. With an investment of $400, Hunt, a journalist for the Economist, purchased a Russian-made Minsk motorbike and rode it across some 5000 kilometers of Vietnam. At the outset, Hunt is acutely aware that his American passport won't permit him to travel incognito, because his "compatriots had dumped bombs equal to several Hiroshimas and a couple of Nagasakis on North Vietnam." He is all the more astonished that, this fact notwithstanding, a former South Vietnamese admits to him that "Americans sacrificed their lives to protect my freedom." More often than not, Hunt must search for the Ho Chi Minh Trail before he can explore it. While trying to reach Saigon, he encounters obstacles manifest as terrain, history, culture and, not least, an uncooperative automobile. This work captures a sense of sadness fused with a rush of adrenaline as Vietnam is once again reborn. (May)
Sparring with Charlie: Motorbiking down the Ho Chi Minh Trail
Narrated by Tom Parker
Christopher HuntUnabridged — 8 hours, 38 minutes
Sparring with Charlie: Motorbiking down the Ho Chi Minh Trail
Narrated by Tom Parker
Christopher HuntUnabridged — 8 hours, 38 minutes
Overview
When Christopher Hunt set off in search of Vietnam's notorious Ho Chi Minh Trail, he hardly expected to end up on a rickety, Russian-made motorcycle navigating 5,000 kilometers of paths rarely traveled by tourists and on roads missing from maps.
Hunt left the United States expecting to explore the 1,700-kilometer highway that was once the supply route for the North Vietnamese Army. He soon found himself roaming the Vietnamese countryside in need of help and direction. In the process, he found that being an American in Vietnam conjured constant reminders of the past and encountered a country and a people poised precariously between the ancient and the modern.
With adventure, wit, and an eye for the absurd, Hunt goes beyond the newspaper headlines and myths about Vietnam to capture the color and complexity of Vietnam today.
Editorial Reviews
In this whimsical first book, the 31-year-old author, now a journalist with the Economist, makes clear from the start that he is not old enough to have memories of the war in Vietnam or beliefs colored by it. Hunt begins his journey in Hanoi by buying a junker Russian motorcycle, acquiring an extra jerrycan of petrol and a Vietnamese phrase book, and heading southwest to try to retrace the 1700-kilometer-long supply routes used by the Vietcong during the war. His trip takes him both to cities like Hue and to poor, backwater villages throughout Vietnam and Laos. The absurdity of an American touring the rural areas of Vietnam without searching for memories of the war makes this a fascinating and fun book to read. Recommended for general collections.-Mary Ann Parker, California Dept. of Water Resources Law Lib., Sacramento
Thirtysomething Economist correspondent Hunt ventures to Vietnam to get his fair share of abuse, finding plenty of it when he wanders off the typical tourist path.
Hunt, fresh from a break-up with his girlfriend and three career changes (from journalism to law school to stand-up comedy), went to Vietnam to do research for a novel set along the old North Vietnamese infiltration route known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail. "I had to know what happened, both during and after the war," he says. "Was America really in the wrong?" And Hunt had a third goal: to see how he "would have fared under the miserable conditions that Americans and their enemies shared in Vietnam." The intrepid author embarked on an admittedly "half-baked plan" to experience the trail on a rickety motorbike. Our man gave up the novel research soon after he arrived in Vietnam. He ditched the idea of seeing most of the trail after several weeks of physical discomfort (rain, mud, impassable dead ends, potholes the size of Rhode Island, inedible food, unsanitary accommodations) and harassment from police and unfriendly natives. He decided to turn the trip into a less adventurous round of sightseeing. As for the big questions he poses about the war, Hunt does not come close to answering them. Nor does his research on contemporary Vietnam uncover anything that hasn't been documented in a half dozen recent books. The bulk of this fast-reading volume, then, is made up of a blow-by-blow description of Hunt's journey from Hanoi to Saigon, with stops in small towns, mountain villages, cities such as Hue, and a side trip into Laos. Along the way Hunt meets many Vietnamese. He peppers the descriptions of his hosts with language that is, at best, patronizing, for example, calling a large family "a litter of seven."
Hunt's most excellent adventure story reveals more about the adventurer than his exploits.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940169833881 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Blackstone Audio, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 10/08/2008 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Read an Excerpt
Vietnam is no place to drop in for lunch. Traveling south from Hanoi, I started scanning for signs painted with the words COM and PHO-- rice and soup noodles--at half past eleven. Picky, or maybe just skittish, I rarely ate before one o'clock. Food shacks that didn't look unsanitary were often too dark, too scary. Joints with no customers had to be empty for a reason. Gatherings of more than six made me nervous.
Why? For starters, my compatriots had dumped bombs equal to several Hiroshimas and a couple of Nagasakis on North Vietnam. What's more, in South Vietnam hundreds of thousands of Hanoi's soldiers and sympathizers had been shot, burned, or simply blown to bits. Not that a decade of destruction had anything to do with me. I was teething when the war was gathering steam and flipping Frisbees as the fighting wound down. But would the Vietnamese appreciate that mine was the postwar, Nixon-hating generation?
Maybe it didn't matter. Locals said the war had been forgiven, if not forgotten. "That's all history," was the phrase that jumped off tongues from Hanoi to Saigon. (Sorry, Ho Chi Minh City.) Still, I found it hard to believe that twenty years would dull every taste for revenge. Odds were that somewhere there lurked a rice-paddy Rambo looking to take a potshot at a lone American.
These and other jitters were overruled by hunger as I passed through Quynh Luu, an unremarkable, unpronounceable town about 200 kilometers below the capital. I stopped at the last restaurant on the right. The design was pre-shanty. Crooked wood poles supported overlapping sheets of tin. Packed dirt masqueraded as a floor. From the rafters hung afuzzy carcass which might once have been a goat.
Ten sets of eyes, among them two policemen's, tracked my entrance. The stiff stares showed more confusion than surprise. After checking that the tea hadn't been spiked, the diners broke the nervous silence with quiet speculation about my nationality.
"Russian," said one of the cops. His partner nodded without taking his eyes from me.
"French," said somebody else.
I cleared the air: "American."
Silence followed a collective double take. Unnerved, and wondering what latent patriotism had inspired the ill-considered admission, I fled the limelight. Moving toward a woman stationed by a mound of uncooked food, I asked for soup noodles and chicken, Vietnam's peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
The cook didn't react. Her face had gone rigid. Her eyes were blank with fear and surprise, as if Big Foot had ordered a pizza. I repeated the request. The cook shook her clenched jaw. When I tried a third time, another woman stepped in.
"There is no chicken," she said.
"Beef?"
"No beef."
'What is there to eat?"
The woman poked a finger into a fleshy gap in the rafter beast's black fur. We agreed that soup noodles, hold the meat, was an excellent choice.
My linguistic ineptitude relaxed the lunchtime crowd. Some of the diners returned to sucking at unfinished bowls of noodles. Others worked on third and fourth bottles of beer. The cops nodded and grinned, which I took as a sign that my arrest wasn't imminent. Unless someone convinced them otherwise. Whispering into the ear of one of the officers while sneaking sidelong peeks at me, a wiry man in spotless gray slacks and a white dress shirt raised the possibility.
The conference ended and Gray Slacks headed toward my spot on the bench. Noticeably cleaner than the rest of the dusty lot, he gave the impression of being a man of means, perhaps the owner. As he extended an open palm, I deduced that he had sought and received the official go-ahead to roll out the red carpet.
The assembled diners and drinkers fell silent as Gray Slacks paced the ten-yard gulf between themselves and the foreigner. Their nervous anticipation was understandable. Though Americans filled Vietnam's war stories and propaganda films, I was probably the first to appear in the flesh in Quynh Luu. For the onlookers, the imminent handshake of former foes would be a capsule of detente, a workingman's Paris peace talks. Cast in the role of Henry Kissinger, I cleared my throat and practiced my accent.
The incoming hand arrived before I reached my feet. The grips missed their meeting. The owner's palm bypassed my wrist and headed south. Confused, and embarrassed to have botched a simple handshake, I found myself in a half crouch, right arm extended. Would my social flub worsen America's reputation?
Then the Vietnamese hand took purchase. Overloaded, my sensory system required several split seconds to register what the cops, the cooks, and the customers could plainly see. There were four fingers and a thumb latched onto my crotch. Inches from my nose, the owner's mouth cracked into a crazed grin.
The grip was firm, like a barnacle's on a boat, but not painful. With slow precision, it shifted up, then down, left, then right. Unaccustomed to the sensation of a strange palm on my zipper, I made no response. When instinct finally took charge, I grabbed the intruder's wrist and guided it to a safe distance. Displeasure contorted my face. Fisticuffs didn't seem unlikely.
Fortunately for me, Gray Slacks retreated. Turning to his mates, he held his hands apart like a weekend fisherman describing a catch. In rapid fire Vietnamese he announced the details of his research. When he finished ten sets of eyes looked into mine and drifted down toward my belt. I blushed, sat down, and crossed my legs.
By the time my noodles arrived, the handshake, Vietnam style, started to make sense. Clearly, a rumor had been going around town. Word had spread that Yankee proportions were unlike those of the average local. We were alleged to be...different. A man of intense curiosity, not to mention fast action, the owner was unwilling to let pass the opportunity to learn whether it was true what they said about American men.
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