Lounging in a shadow on the opposite side of the indecorous street, a pedicab driver -- the Vietnamese still take two hours for lunch -- noticed my crooked glance and sprang to life.  As politely as I could, I waved a 20,000 dong note in the air, said Buddha as if it were two words, and was soon off in the tranquility of Nha Trang’s lunch break cum siesta.  I had forgotten how noiseless pedicabs are compared to tuk-tuks; I promised myself to do this more often.

My crooked glance had been a reflection of a crooked remembrance, “crooked” because the memory had been sitting on a shelf for 38 years -- a gas station at an intersection near the entrance to the temple at the foot of Buddha hill.  I had been in a jeep, and we had topped off there: for a Huey driver, a gas station was a novelty because you drove up to it -- delivered to remote coordinates by “hooks,” no bladders there.  For that matter, the whole of Nha Trang was a novelty.

The pedicab’s big wheels meant a soft ride.  Quietly, lightly, the raggedy driver pedaled past the railroad station.  It looked exactly like a picture I had seen on a website.  Why travel beyond your house or office, I said to myself, when everything can be found on the Web.  I had intentionally left my digital camera in my hotel room, and there wasn’t so much as an ounce of regret -- let somebody else take the frigging pictures on this tour: I’m not chasing rainbows but memories, which only neurons can see.

Bingo, we came abeam the Caltex station at the intersection.  “After all these years, how could it still be there?” I later asked the wife of a local antique dealer.  “Less has changed than you think, and the thinking hasn’t changed at all,” she said.  “How hasn’t the thinking changed?” I asked.  “I’m President Thieu’s cousin.  I’ve been waiting to leave since 1975, am slated to leave, in fact, by the end of the year.  The communists have ruined everything.  The aristocracy fled, so the young people -- they think like peasants because that’s what their parents are -- have atrocious role models.  Not that fingers can’t be pointed at the former aristocracy, the corruption in this country is horrific.  You can ask my husband.”

Her husband, a lawyer in former times, had worked for USAID.  Now the owner a successful antique shop, he later explained how the director of Hanoi’s fine arts museum had wanted to buy the tip-top landscape that hung on the rear wall -- it had once been loaned to the museum for a special exhibition, the painter’s father having been a renown Chinese artist two centuries ago.  The selling price?  US$20,000.  The museum director had been willing to pay such a sum on the condition that a US$30,000 invoice be produced.  “The director,” said the former lawyer, “wanted to put US$10,000 of the museum’s procurement budget in his pocket.  I refused, of course.  To be fair,” he added, “the problem isn’t that he’s a member of the Party.  The problem is that he’s Vietnamese.  Too many Vietnamese think like that.  In the end, he, being an opportunist, could have extorted money from me on some trumped up charge.”  (With a digital camera, just try photographing a scheming, deviant, double-crossing Oriental thought process!)

The white Buddha soon came into view; as I had been years ago, I was immediately charmed.  I climbed out of the pedicab and was quickly approached by two boys, both of whom spoke first-rate English.  With them pointing out all-important temple features -- they sounded so natural and genuine that it was hard to tell that their spiel had been rehearsed -- we mounted the steps together.

“I‘m an orphan,” soon said the taller one.  “And so am I,” said the other.  “Our mothers brought us here when they couldn’t afford to feed us.  Oh, and by the way, just ignore the peddlers at the top -- they overcharge for everything.  It’s a complete ripoff.  They’re genuine con artists.”

I was disappointed when I reached the top.  I hadn’t really climbed the hill to see the Buddha; I had climbed the hill to see the view, which, 38 years ago, had been breathtaking.  Now, however, practically every square inch of the 40-meter-high hill was overgrown, making the South China Sea largely invisible.

“Can we go inside the Buddha base?” I asked.  “Sure,” they said.  I knew from book learning that it had previously housed a library and, during the revolution, occasionally served as a Viet Cong hideout.  Now it was all joss sticks, incense and mumbo jumbo; I was not impressed.

The sales pitch began as soon as we exited the base: US$10 for a set of postcards.  “Better pictures are on the world wide web,” I said, “and I can download them for free.”  “Well, you know,” the taller one said, “the head monk won’t be happy with us if you don’t buy any postcards.  After all, the temple provides our food, clothing and shelter.”

Straightaway, it dawned on me that they couldn’t pass a polygraph, not even one that wasn’t turned on.  “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do for two orphans,” I said, exaggerating the word orphans as I pulled out two 50,000 dong notes (US$6.50 total) and gave one to each.  Guess what?  That wouldn’t do, they wouldn’t share, the wouldn’t hear of splitting the take: each insisted on his own 100,000 dong.  Needless to say, I had no interest in forking out US$13 for nothing, so I didn’t.

They succeeded in overwriting a fine memory with something inferior.  The longer I remained in Nha Trang, the more easily the 1960s neurons, like misdirected whales, beached themselves on Vietnam’s shoals, and I felt lost in the present.