ANZAC day reflections from abroad

As many of you who know me I am not a big fan of the ANZAC day tradition in Australia. I have always belived that it valorises mass murder in the service of empires or nationslist nation states.

I had almost forgotton it was ANZAC day until I logged into the SMH and read the article titled 'Everyone is just so proud'

Well, having travled throughout Vietnam for 3 weeks and seen the damage caused by our troops all I can say as an Australian citizen I am anything but proud of our counties role in the Vietnam war which devistated this country and its people for 10 years.

Here are just 2 examples.


image by sridgway

The photo above is of the mountain range between Hue and Danang on the Hai Van Pass, notice how there is little jungle coverage, well this is because agent orange contining toxic dioxins was sprayed over the thick jungle by American and Australian soldiers, reeking enormous ecological damage and untold harm to the local population.


image by sridgway

The photo above is of the Ancient 4th-10 century, world heritage listed My Son relics @ Hoian. Many of these were destroyed by American and Australian bombs during the war.

The people of Vietnam continue to live with the lgacy of our attempted occupaton and people walk down Sydney street with puffed up chests proud.

Reflecting on the Iraq war and our involvement again with american troops it demonstrated just how the ANZAC tradtion serves to justify our invovement in immoral and illegal foriegn occupations rather that act as a catalist to prevent it ever happening again.

Harlong Bay & Cat Ba Island

image by sridgway

We spent the night oboard a Junk on the waters of Halong Bay. A welcome respite from the scooter madness of Hanoi. There are 2000 or so limestone islands densly scattered throughout the bay. Many little more than rocky outcrops but there are larger islands like Cat Ba a very beautiful and tranquil space out on the water.


image by sridgway

Some of the islands have caves, one of which we stopped over to have a look through.
We may have been spared the scooters but not the hawkers, with women in little boats selling their wares to those on the junks. These people have lived in this area for thousands of years living on rafts in small family groups. They have schools for their children but little more than basic litereacy. The women row from junk to junk selling their wares, often with their children onbord. It struck me that it is us who are invading their space with the endless junks with their hords of gorking tourists and disiel motors distubing the stillness of the night. It will be interesting to see how they fare over the next 10 years.

We spent our second day on Cat Ba Island, one of the larger islands on the bay. Has been populated for 100s of years by rural villagers who farm and fish for a living. Apparently it has a population of around 11, 000 now with development expanding at an exponential rate as many Hanoi residents have discovereed it as a summer holiday destination and foreign tourists look for an escape from the city.

We treked up a 250 m mountain through thick bush and slippery slopes to finally reach the top where we could get a good view of the sourounds. I climed the look out tower an rusty structure with a piece corragated iron roof flapping in the wind. Definieny not for the faint hearted.

Here is a video from the top


video by sridgway

I was great to get out of the city for a while and see some of the wonderful countyside.

Out of our comfort zone

What I really love about overseas travel, especially to places like Vietnam, is that it challenges the very assumptions we live by - the 'the normality' of our lives.


Some people are born and live their entire lives in small rural Australian townsm and that is their world - THE world. Or if they travel they lock themselves away in the Sheraton venturing out on a tour bus perhaps.





Travel and walk the streets and the way we live, dress, work, eat, interact, speak are questioned.... as they should be.