Category: Travel blogs

Saigon is one of my favourite destinations and I have been there a few times. It is the Vietnamese people, so patient, considerate, and welcoming of visitors, that make the experiences memorable.

In my memories Saigon is like a terraced hillside fecund with vistas of history lying one on top of another. The Vietnamese people along with their mixed Chinese culture is at the bottom lying in a labyrinthine swathe of big-city squalor; followed by a layer of colonial grandeur detectable in the pastel opulence of French architecture; overlaid by memories of American infiltration which can be noticed in its museums and numerous battlements, and finally topped with a dose of the modern as can be evidenced from the searing skyscrapers that jostle for space in the blue skies of easternmost Asia.

While there is much to see and explore, sauntering around is the best way to see the city. I can remember a visit to the Binh Tay Market (Cholon – Chinatown) where a fascinating array of handicrafts, textiles and fresh produce are sold in streets next to opulent Chinese buildings.

An early morning visit to largest flower market (Ho Thi Ky) is recommended: a profusion of exotic flowers, fruits, and Cambodian breakfast nooks (mostly) await you. Try the CoCo sweet soup – I won’t play spoiler.

Cathedrals and churches dominate the cityscape. The Pink Church, with its shocking colour and fairy-tale Gothic architecture deserves a viewing. The church that is of greatest importance is Notre Dame Basilica Cathedral (modelled after Notre Dame de Paris): the red colour, the twin white belltowers, and bricks (brought all the way from Toulouse, France) make it a sight that not only beckons the religious (it is the centre for 6.2 million Catholics of Vietnam) but artists as well.

In the evenings people hangout in karaoke bars. This Japanese (karaoke means ‘empty orchestra’ in Japanese) pastime is taken very seriously by the locals. People are quite unabashed about wielding a mic, whether they can sing or not, and there is no fear of jeers or catcalls from anyone. It is simply accepted as a way of bonding, and family members often join in.

There’s a lot more. See Saigon, Part 3.

The touchdown at Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport was a bit bumpy. I peered out of the plane window: in the twilight I half-expected American GI’s to be waiting to transport me in a Huey chopper up the Nung River; into the Heart of Darkness, so to say. Well, there you have it, a flashback to Francis Ford Coppola’s iconic film, Apocalypse Now.

I had just landed in Ho Chi-Minh City (Saigon), and some of the imagery from the 1979 film came back to me with the rapidity of a machine gun burst during battle. Incidentally, in the Vietnam War, this same Tan Son Nhut Airport was one of the busiest military airbases in the world. Anyway, enough of war and its sordid images; Vietnam today is a wonderful place.

Vietnam’s complicated history can be best understood if we look at it as a culture of affiliations and assimilation. While the tribal Viets in the 3rd Century BCE learnt from their Chinese masters about high culture, the mixed peasantry of 938 CE ejected the Chinese. When different strands of Buddhism arrived, or Hindu civilizations influenced the Chams (Champa Kingdom – 2nd Century CE to 1832 CE), or even when the French arrived (Sino-French War -1884-85) the local population only burgeoned as an assimilated group of diverse ethnicities.

Again, these descendants of tribals and mandarins did not hesitate to adopt communism in the 20^th Century CE in order to overthrow French colonialism, while retaining French liberty, architecture and cuisine. Ho Chi-Minh (Bringer of Light) himself settled for a while in Paris, joined the Communist Party, and assuming the epithet of “Nguyen the Patriot,” lobbied for Vietnamese independence during the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919. Of course, he succeeded much later.

Vietnam, bolstered by support from Russia and the Chinese (under Mao), beat back the Americans in the Second Indochina War (1955-75). Again, in the modern day, while the government is primarily communist, Vietnam has embraced economic liberalization and global integration. With its rapidly expanding market-based economy the visage of united Vietnam is that of an Asian success story.

So what did I see and do in Saigon? See Part 2.

The snowy London fog stalled my cab’s progress to Her Majesty’s Theatre in the West End. It was a good thing I was early; I walked the last section slowly, ambling through the Sherlockian mist, exhaling vapour like a peeved dragon. A most portentous prelude to watching the Phantom of the Opera: the second-longest running musical in the West End.

I was overwhelmed by the experience: the performance was electric and the costumes, the props, the actors, the music, the stage were all magniloquent. I was also staggered to be standing on hallowed ground; quite literally where British theatre began. The Elizabethan Era (1558-1603) was the well-spring of British theatre.

The patronage provided by the Queen to William Shakespeare and others, and the commissioning of permanent theatres like ‘The Theatre’ in 1576 and ‘The Curtain Theatre’ in 1577, provided the impetus. Barring frequent setbacks brought on bouts of the Plague in the 1600s, and misfortunes from fires that ravaged many hallmark theatres (and they had to be rebuilt) throughout the next three centuries, the spirit of theatre never waned.

The history of the British Musical is chequered: Musicals were successful in the nineteenth century and reached a peak with the Gilbert and Sullivan shows. The Second World War put a dampener on the old swing of things, only to be revived by the Golden Age of American Musicals. Rodgers and Hammerstein collaborations like Oklahoma, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music crossed over the Atlantic and made an impact on British shores. West End found its mojo with My Fair Lady at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, where it ran for 2,281 performances.

The seventies are what defined the modern musical and Andrew Lloyd Webber became the demigod of the oeuvre. The fusion of religion, rock music and opera in Jesus Christ Superstar, Godspell (and Tommy) brought in a different audience. Evita’s anthem, ‘Don’t Cry for me Argentina’ (originally sung by Julie Covington) has never failed the tears. Webber’s run with Cats, Starlight Express, Sunset Boulevard and The Phantom of the Opera was as epochal as it was superlative.

“I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.”

― Oscar Wilde

While the Manhattan skyline defines New York, and the Big Ben is symbolic of London, the real tug at the heartstrings of these cities comes from the lofty firmament of its theatre districts – Broadway and West End. When I am in either city I strive to make time to see at least one show. This piece is on Broadway; Part 2 will be on the West End.

As I saunter down Broadway I am reminded by a guidebook that this pathway existed long before the Europeans arrived; a passage created by American Indians. It starts at Bowling Green in the southern tip, runs the entire north-south length of Manhattan and spills over into the Bronx. Of course, the section that made Broadway famous is in the vicinity of Times Square, between 42^nd and 53^rd Streets, the home of theatre in America.

I have seen a few marquee productions on Broadway and am completely enamoured of the scale and presentation of the musicals. The set designs, costumes, music, dancing and performances are all spectacular and jaw-dropping (in Miss Saigon, they land a close to real Huey Helicopter on stage). Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables, Miss Saigon, Chicago, and The Lion King stand out from amongst the long-running musicals I have been privileged to see.

Even more spectacular than the shows are the theatres themselves: The Beaux-Arts styled ‘The Lyceum’ or Art Nouveau ‘New Amsterdam’ or the neo-Georgian ‘Belasco’ or baroque interiors of ‘The Palace’ or the neo-classical ‘Music Box’ are architectural masterpieces that have been awarded landmark statuses by the City. There are 41 theatres on Broadway, all 500-plus seaters equipped with well-appointed lobby bars, banistered staircases, majestic stages, and alcoves and textured walls nurturing theatre memorabilia from the century just gone by.

Broadway theatre is not just a sub-culture of the locals or an indulgent pastime of intellectuals, it is a big-business money-spinner. In the 2017-18 season, 13.79 million people attended and the productions raked-in $1.7 billion.