Marshall Hawkins
"Rat Pack " 1-3/70 "Bandit 26" 3-12/70
Vietnam Revisited #3
This house, and others of similar styles and colors, are located throughout
Vietnam. Built close to the road, they have an open living area in the front and presumably the kitchen in the rear. Bedrooms are located on the second
and third floors. Alot of pastel colors. The ones along this particular stretch was across the road from the 281st cantonment area.
My best
recollection was that this entire area was nothing but rice paddies during my last trip there.
Nha Trang Beach. A view from my room at the Nha Trang Lodge looking South.
Although not the nicest of accommodations in Nha Trang (Ana Mandara is by far the nicest) it was acceptable (Read Cheap @ $50 a night), it was right
across the street from the beach and right in the center of activity of the city. So much so that. about 5 a.m. every morning I spent there,
loudspeakers with the most god awful noise (Vietnamese music) started blaring a morning wakeup call for city residents, who turned out by the
millions (Ok thousands) to do morning calisthenics, play sports (soccer, get in a circle and keep a little beanbag in the air, etc.) and other physical
activities. I don't know who was responsible for that plan to insure everybody was up in the morning but if I had been a taxpayer there I would
have dang sure complained to the Mayor or Commissar or whoever was in charge. Next time, I'm staying at the Ana Mandara.
(BTW, don't know what that black spot is in the picture. UFO?)
To the right side of this picture is all of what's left of the 281st area. If you
look closely, you'll see the old radar screens just over the vegetation. To the left is the active runway. Again, it was taken from the road and not
much was left.
Another from a different location on the road, looking South. I believe that
is our old maintenance hangar.
Another shot of a maintenance hangar but from the terminal. I believe ours is
still there but back behind this one (off to the right with the rusty roof)
After my frustrating trip around the perimeter of the airfield, my driver
insisted upon taking me down to the river to eat lunch. Probably got a kickback from the restaurant owner) Less than a five
minute pedicycle trip from the downtown area of Nha Trang was this peaceful, almost serene, area
with nice houses and rice paddies. It is hard to believe that Nha Trang has 300,000 people and yet you can escape the big city (traffic, noise,
etc.) in such a short period of time.
At the restaurant the driver took me to on the river, I ordered a 33 beer
(or was it 333?-Vietnamese had a copyright infringement with the Dutch and either dropped one digit or added one and continued to produce), Spring
rolls and some type fish. While I was waiting for the food, I noticed two different types of dredging operations on the river. This one was the
"modern" way of retrieving sand from the river for construction purposes. They had a diesel engine hooked up to the pump and would move the skiff
around to suck up the sand. Runoff caused the water to be brown.
This picture shows the "old" way of dredging sand. Standing on the same little
pier jutting out from the restaurant that I took the "modern" way picture, I turned around to the East and caught these guys doing it the old fashioned
way. That is - taking a shallow but broad little boat and a reed basket and diving to the bottom with the basket, filling with sand repeatedly until the
boat side was only inches above the waterline and then rowing or pushing the boat to wherever they sold it. It caused me to think how lucky we are. The
per capita income in Vietnam is less than one dollar a day.
