Michael Batson

I once spent over seven hours on the back of a motorbike to go from the tourist town of Hoi An south on National Route 1 to Son My in central Vietnam, and back again. The trip was an endurance test in how uncomfortable small motorbikes can be on large European frames on Vietnamese roads. Travelling on National Route 1 (or 1A), which runs 2300kms from near the Chinese border to Ca Mau Province in the Mekong Delta on the Gulf of Thailand, was an education in Southeast Asian driving habits. After dark, the roads are a dangerous place to be with local traffic being what it is. Road fatalities are all too common during daylight and worse at night. It was a long day in the saddle all to see a memorial to a brutal massacre. On that occasion back in 2006, I’d gone because when in Ho Chi Minh City I had read an article in the English language newspaper, the Viet Nam News, that 15 students from US high schools were engaged in volunteer work in Quang Ngai Province, central Vietnam.  The programme, part of a Vermont-based organization, sends US students to developing countries to teach English, build houses for local residents and to do charity jobs during their summer vacation, paid for by their parents.  When they arrived in mid-June to stay at Son My village, none were aware that more than 500 civilians were massacred there by US soldiers during the American war.  Whether this was an omission on the part of the organizers or the Vietnamese is unclear, likely