Human tragedy eclipses tourist turmoil amid Vietnam’s deadly floods

A traveler’s close call in flood-ravaged Hoi An reveals how easily visitors can escape and how many locals cannot. Craig Hill writes.

When our private car entered Hoi An, most of the town was already more river than road. As we passed through what was once a street, brown water flowed halfway up the tires. Motorcycles were sending up gentle waves, kids were splashing their bare feet in the river down the street, and our tour guide was grinning in the rearview mirror. “just a minor flood, very normal”.

My wife and I exchanged glances. For him, this was an uneasiness; For me it was something closer to a controlled alarm. Years of State Emergency Service training in Australia had taught me that when water moves on a bitumen road you need to take it seriously. I pointed at the level on the wheels and asked if it was safe. The guide waved his hand. “No problem. Everything is fine tomorrow.” His facial expression said otherwise.

When we arrived at the hotel, the road outside was just starting to flood. I knew it wouldn’t be long before we were under water. I crossed the road to the grocery store to pick up supplies, including a dozen cans of Saigon Lager. Three hours later, as far as we could see from our seventh-floor balcony, the streets were completely under water.

In our room, I did what any modern traveler does in a crisis: I pulled out my phone, turned on global roaming, and checked the online radar. There was a speck of angry color right in the middle of Vietnam. More storms were lining up offshore and marching towards us. Each forecast told the same story: The water wasn’t finished yet.

I called the tour operator in Australia. Calm voice, professional assurance: The situation is being monitored, there is no need to worry. I hung up the phone feeling as if I had reported a house fire and been told to “open the window and rest.”

An hour later the phone rang again. This time the tour operator’s voice was different. Tomorrow’s tours are cancelled. The flood was worse than expected.

We sat in bed talking about it while the water still rose in the streets below. Our next stop after Hoi An was Ho Chi Minh City, and the news sites I browsed between radar checks were full of images of streets that have now turned into rivers.

We called the operator back and decided: cancel the rest of the tour, return home. For their part, they didn’t argue. The next morning they arranged a boat to pick us up from the hotel and take us to higher ground where our guide and driver would be waiting. They booked new flights from Da Nang to Ho Chi Minh City, a hotel to spend the night, and seats all the way to Brisbane. All at their expense.

That night the rain was hitting the roof like an accusation. While drinking Saigon Lager, we watched from our balcony as the water rose step by step up the stairs in the courtyard. We packed our bags quite calmly. It was more like getting ready to abandon ship than getting ready for a vacation. We were still able to have food delivered to our room from the hotel restaurant. They were not new to such disasters.

We also reflected on the trip so far. Falling off a buffalo in Ninh Bin (I landed on my feet but I should have known better at my age), climbing part of the mountain at Mua Cave, river boating through the caves under the mountains on the Tam Coc river, and other memories that I will write about in the future.

The dawn came gray and heavy. The staff acted with quiet efficiency that told us this was not the first flood. Then with a gentle jolt the boat came to the front steps where a car had left us yesterday. And of course, I fell down the stairs and sprained my ankle getting on the boat.

Climbing onto the metal boat with our luggage felt surreal, as if we were extras in someone else’s disaster movie. We sat at the back of the boat and a few Vietnamese girls, also staying at the hotel, climbed up to the front. As we advanced, the hotel faded away behind us, the ground floor now part of the river.

We glided past the stores we planned to visit, their shutters just above the waterline. Models peered out of overwhelmed shop windows; Plastic chairs hung between the pillars. Houses miles away were in water up to their doors. Families carried their belongings in basins and barrels, men pushed makeshift rafts filled with gas bottles and rice sacks, and women stood on rooftops waving phones, searching for signals.

Along with relief, I felt a sense of guilt. We had the privilege of stepping onto a boat that would take us not only to high places, but also to an airport, to another city, to our home. Most of the people passing us had nowhere to go but upstairs.

On the road out of town, in the relative safety of the car, my wife finally exhaled. We watched flooded fields pass by, brown sheets of water broken by the tops of trees and power poles. The SES volunteer in me cataloged everything: the speed of the current, the eroded edges of the road, the makeshift sandbag walls. The traveler in me was mourning the Hoi An we had not seen: dry streets, glowing lanterns, markets buzzing rather than drowning.

At the end of the journey, the water was too shallow for the boat to continue, so we had to pull our jeans up to our knees, take off our shoes and put on sandals to walk the last 100 meters to dry land. It rained a little during the boat trip, but we had the foresight to take our ponchos with us.

At Da Nang airport, with our clothes still wet, we took the first step to return home. We were returning to Brisbane with far fewer photographs than we had planned, but with a story we had not yet sought: Each postcard is a reminder that there is a place beneath the city that has been submerged, destroyed, survived, and that as tourists we have stepped briefly into lives that cannot be evacuated so easily.

Back home we watched the disaster unfold. As I write this in the early hours of the morning, six days after boarding the boat, at least 90 people have died in floods and a dozen more are missing.

Granted, most of these were further south, between Hoi An and Ho Chi Minh City, but it was still a bit worrying. However, our disappointment at cutting the trip short was suddenly overshadowed by this figure. Human tragedy always trumps a tourist’s distress.

Craig Hill is a Brisbane-based business owner, teacher, journalist and social justice campaigner. HE Legalize Marijuana Party He is running for the Federal seat of Bonner in Brisbane. You can read more about Craig’s campaign Here.

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