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Cam Ranh Bay to Nha
Trang via Cu Hin Drive
This sentence on Saigontourist’s website in June 2004 immediately caught my attention: “Khanh Hoa province has invested VND322 billion [US$21 million] to build a coastal road from Nha Trang to Cam Ranh Bay via Cu Hin Pass to allow Vietnam Airlines to shuttle passengers between Nha Trang and Cam Ranh Bay.” As someone who remembers much about southern Vietnam from the mid-1960s, why hadn't I ever heard of Cu Hin Pass? The name, it turns out, is an example of poetic license. In fact, although topographical maps show no pass north of the Cam Ranh Bay peninsula, there is a 643-meter-high mountain called Nui Cau Hin. Therefore, despite its name, it seemed as if the new road, actually a highway, might share hold-your-breath characteristics with Italy’s famed Amalfi Drive. I had to see it.
Two months later, with me on board, a VN Fokker 70 halted adjacent to the new Cam Ranh Bay airport terminal at the northwest corner of runway 20R -- some things never change, a point I will come back to. Although we could have walked, we were shuttled to the new terminal by what I call a LBB (left behind bus, as in left behind by the Americans but refurbished by the Vietnamese, which proves that Vietnamization is very much alive and well). Baggage handling proceeded without a hitch, after which I was approached by a vendor selling tickets to Nha Trang for less than 2 dollars. Vietnamese websites trumpet this offer, yet Viet Kieu exclaimed impossible, that the price had to brush 20 greenbacks -- voila, the websites are correct. I zoomed off the old airbase in a nearly-new minivan made extra full by commercial cargo that had been in the aircraft’s hold.
What does Cu Hin Drive look like? Well, its photos are on my website. Although the pictures are arranged in order from Cam Ranh Bay to Nha Trang, I have to admit the truth: the pictures were taken from north to south, and there’s an irritating reason: in the old southern capital, a smiling vendor (smiling because he was pulling one over on me!) had loaded my Konica with fake batteries. This was a special nuisance, I had heard, to Vietnamese day-trippers and non-Vietnamese tourists alike in Vung Tau, but apparently it’s a bother everywhere. Upon viewing the photos three days after I got home, a retired USAF friend -- he'd flown scores of missions over Indochina and was familiar with Cam Ranh Bay and Nha Trang -- pointed out that Cu Hin Drive must be safe to navigate because he recognized “Jersey barriers” everywhere, a term I didn't know (Google, of course, came to the rescue). True, I said, if you’re driving southbound, the barriers are on the centerline, separating you from the South China Sea. However, there’s nothing keeping you from driving over the edge when driving northbound. It took 40 minutes to drive to Nha Trang, where the search started: I wanted to find a map that showed the new road. Seven days later, on the eve of my departure -- yes, with working batteries to do a "re-shoot" -- I found one. Incidentally, my USAF friend crowed about the scenery, "Stunning! I hope I get to drive or ride along there some day. I always thought Vietnam had one of the prettiest coastlines. They need to exploit its beauty."
Now, regarding the point I said I would come back to. I wear several hats; one is North America Advisor for Asian Trails -- its HCMC office is near the zoo. I wear that hat when introducing myself to hotel GMs, which I did all over Nha Trang. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that many GMs and their deputies are fluent English speakers. Why? With few exceptions, prior to April 30, 1975, they had worked with USAF airmen at Nha Trang's airfield. To my surprise, they rolled out the red carpet, saying, “We see so few Americans,” and “Why doesn't anybody come back?” These individuals are an extraordinary human resource; I will soon add their pictures/biographies to the Vietnam section of Mekong Express, my website, and the bookings will flow. Previously, I applied this tactic to Laos, handing Settha, a 5-star property, US$5,000 in North America bookings per month through an entire high season. In short, American veterans and their families want walking, talking connections to their Cold War tours of duty, not just 5-star properties adjacent to theme parks and water rides (read further).
It could be a footnote but let me tell the story here. In 1998, shouting perfect English, a Laotian ran towards me in the mountains of Laos, and not that far from Dien Bien Phu. I soon discovered he'd been an A-1E mechanic. A light went on; I saw that, no matter how remote, wherever there'd been an airbase or airfield, the people living there were from earlier times when the last regime was old. Six months later I started sending Americans into the mountains. They wanted to see those old airbases and airfields, and talk to those former young people with encyclopedic minds. For them, there wasn’t any point in coming back to see post-75 stuff. One veteran put it this way, “What could I see today that’s interesting compared to then? Not much. Besides, compared to wartime, peacetime doesn't get your adrenalin up. Primarily, I want to revisit places that are in my memory; if I can also link up with people from times past, so much the better. Guides born in the 1970s, or afterwards, will stick with a script that’s politically correct -- after all, they were taught what they were taught. So what can a guide show or tell me who's younger than my children? Definitely not much.”