My initial assignment in Vietnam was Baclieu, the southernmost Province bordering Cambodia and the China Sea. This area is very much like Florida. At the airport is a sign: “THIS AREA IS TEN FEET BELOW SEA LEVEL WHEN IT IS RAINING AND IS TEN FEET ABOVE SEA LEVEL WHEN IT IS SHINING.”
The principal means of communication or transportation is by means of CANALS built during the early days. When the tide rises up to 10 feet, the sea water rushes up the canal at a speed of ten miles per hour, and when the tide ebbs, the speed of the water rushing back to the sea is 20 miles per hour. Hence, the people near the seashore time their trips by canoe, standing while rowing, up or down into the City of Baclien and return by just riding up and down the tide water.
Many shrimp and small fish are stranded on the canal banks when the tide goes down fast and are collected for food, with rice and salt, with hot sauce called NUCMAM and with spices called RAO. Seldom could one see a FAT Vietnamese who lives on fish and vegetables.
The people are friendly like the Filipinos. They live in wooden and mud homes made of palm leaves, which is cool but damp during the rainy season. Baclieu is the rice granary of Vietnam.
At first I lived in a hotel in the Capital City of Baclieu which was very close to the American Garrison. I got annoyed by the constant visit of soldiers to meet prostitutes there and so Andy Molousa, a Filipino radio operator, and I transferred to a private mansion called the “White House of Baclieu” owned by the richest family in Baclieu. It was in this house where all pre-war social functions were held, like the house of Fina’s mother in Bangued, Abra, before the war.
The family owned a private pagoda, and one room was a shrine in honor of Ben Puso, the CAO DAI Buddhist founder who lived in that house before the war. It was a holy place.
