'It was quite by chance that I fell in love with Indo-China; nothing was further from my thoughts on my first visit than I would one day set a novel there," wrote Graham Greene in his autobiography Ways Of Escape. Greene "wintered" in Vietnam between 1951 and 1955, and his experiences formed the basis for his novel The Quiet American, published in 1955. Now, for the second time, the book has been made into a film, this time by director Phillip Noyce.
The novel, set in the death throes of French Indo-China, is a dark tale of American interference in the affairs of Vietnam, seen through the eyes of Thomas Fowler, a world-weary British journalist. Saigon, once described as the "Paris of the Orient" and now known, officially at least, as Ho Chi Minh City, is a mix of traditional wooden shophouses and crumbling French mansions with peeling mustard yellow paint sitting cheek by jowl with sleek new luxury hotels. Flamboyant Chinese pagodas vie for the eye with a pink neo-romanesque cathedral; a slice of provincial France in the heart of the dragon. Mini-skirted "now girls" weave their motorbikes between antique bicycles pedalled by girls in traditional white au dais . Beggars and bankers share the tiny streets and the wide boulevards. This is a city making up for lost time. Like the opium that Greene was so fond of, Saigon bubbles and smokes.
I stayed in sophisticated splendour in Greene's favourite hotel, The Majestic on Dong Khoi Street, which has retained much its raffish colonial ambiance. Sipping my first cocktail on the rooftop bar, insulated from the hurly burly below, I recalled Greene's description in The Quiet American: "It would ever be seven o'clock and cocktail time on the roof of the Majestic, with a wind from the Saigon River." Luckily, time has stood still here for over 50 years.
From the Majestic's calm, I ventured out into the chaos of a city that is best explored on foot. Crossing the road in Saigon is an art form: launch yourself into the never-ending stream of bicycles, motorbikes and cyclos, and head purposefully for the other side. The traffic will, somehow, avoid you. All you need are nerves of steel and a belief in the hereafter.
Dong Khoi (formerly Rue Catinat) was the epicentre of colonial life in the 1950s. The street was full of elegant shops, bristling with the latest Paris fashions, cafes and the odd opium den. The dens are long gone; the French boutiques replaced by shops selling exquisite Vietnamese silks and crafts, but many of the cafes are still there. The Givral, on Lam Son Square (formerly Place Garnier), is one such gem that has survived in some kind of colonial timewarp. In the movie, this is where Fowler is sitting when General Thé's bomb goes off.
The historic Continental was once the meeting place for Saigon society but its legendary Continental Shelf bar has been ripped out to make way for an airline office. All is not lost, however, as you can still take a vermouth cassis, Fowler's favourite tipple, in the hotel's courtyard bar, a delightful refuge from the heat on the street. On its walls hangs a wonderful collection of faded period photographs, a reminder of life under the French.
Nowadays, the society set has moved to the other side of Lam Son Square and the rooftop bar in the Caravelle Hotel. Its fabulous views of the city below made it the favourite sunset cocktail spot for generations of war correspondents. From here, it is just a short stumble to Asia's trendiest watering hole, the Q Bar, located adjacent to the Municipal Theatre, where the arty crowd hangs out and downs B-52s and M-16s.
Greene, a lover of the bizarre, moved the action to Tay Ninh, a couple of hours from Saigon, which is the headquarters of an extraordinary religious sect, the Caodai. Its eclectic mix of Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity and Islam has produced one of the world's most entertaining religious services where California meets Fu Manchu. At midday, a few hundred priests, dressed in garish colours, file into the Holy See. Nuns wander round in circles, chanting earnestly under the watchful eye of Victor Hugo, one of their saints. From a gallery, tourists look down on this surreal spectacle of high kitsch, which Greene described as a "WaltDisney fantasia of the east". Then, like an army on the move, the faithful march out of the hall and scatter into the vast compound.
Back in Saigon, squatting workers eat and chat by every street-corner noodle stall while an intoxicating mix of eastern spices permeates the air. Behind them, in beautifully restored buildings, all rattan and teak, elegant restaurants serve the finest Vietnamese cuisine. The Luong Son Restaurant on Ly Tu Trong Street is functional and packed to the gunnels, with not a farang (westerner) in sight. My friend Richard, a long-time resident of the city, ordered us the local speciality of Bo Tung Xeo, a sizzling beef dish which was barbecued on our table. For those with a taste for the exotic, there are aquariums full of other delicacies such as live scorpions and snakes.
Once you've swallowed the deep-fried scorpion and mastered the art of jaywalking, you're probably ready for the ubiquitous cyclo, Vietnam's answer to the rickshaw. You sit in what appears to be a wheelbarrow welded to the front of a bicycle, and the driver then propels you into the oncoming traffic.
I headed for Cholon, Saigon's Chinatown: out of the pot and into the frying pan in one terrifying cyclo ride. Every human activity seems to take place on the street in Chinatown: buying, selling, cooking, eating, washing, sleeping and probably even childbirth. You can see and smell Asia everywhere; pungent, raw and sometimes disturbing. No one speaks English or tries to sell you anything, and you can wander round for hours without ever seeing another farang. The Arc En Ciel, on Tan Da Street, was once patronised by Fowler and his creator, more for its notorious "taxi-girls" than its fine Chinese food. Nowadays, it caters to Korean and Taiwanese tour groups out for nothing more sinister than a good meal and some recreational karaoke. The oldest profession replaced by the Asian obsession.
Today one comes to Cholon for a unique glimpse into the "real" Asia, and then there are the temples, welcome sanctuaries from the frenetic streets. Among the finest is the Phuoc An Hoi Quan Pagoda built by the Fujian Congregation in 1902. Hanging lanterns and fine woodcarvings adorn the walls, altars and columns. Smoke from burning incense is caught by pools of light cascading though the skylights.
If Saigon's pace raises your blood pressure, then the antidote is Hoi An, Asia's best preserved port. It is a dreamy, almost make-believe, little town with over 800 buildings of historical interest, including many early 19th-century wooden merchants' houses. Many cultures have left their mark on Hoi An's architecture: there are exuberant Chinese-styled pagodas, chapels and assembly halls. The covered Japanese bridge, with its exquisite ornamentation, is a delightful fusion of Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese styles, and there is a well preserved French quarter. It is easy to see why this Unesco World Heritage Site attracted the makers of The Quiet American.
The best time to enjoy Hoi An is as the sun rises over the South China Sea, bathing the town in an amber light. The tiny streets are quiet and serene, sans tourists, but the riverside is bursting with action. Here, wooden fishing boats jostle for space near to the quayside and women in small sampans row out to barter with them. Within minutes, the fish is being resold at the old wooden quayside market. Later in the day, the fish find their way on to the tables of the many restaurants that overlook this picturesque river.
Take an evening stroll down Bach Dang Street and you might hear Edith Piaf drifting into the fragrant Vietnamese night from the Café des Amis, a rather nondescript-looking riverside restaurant run by Nguyen Manhkim, better known as Mr Kim, once the chef to the old South Vietnamese army top brass. His 15 brothers and sisters fled the country in 1975, but "as the eldest son, [he] had to stay behind to maintain the family tombs and look after the ancestors".
Like many Vietnamese from the south, he "suffered after reunification but survived and ended up opening this restaurant when the tourists started returning in the early 90s". Every night, he serves up a set meal of traditional Vietnamese cuisine. His Francophile sympathies are firmly nailed to the wall with old French posters, plus the French wines on the menu, and I was easily seduced into eating there every night.
We took the back roads from Hoi An to Danang airport, travelling through small villages passed over by progress. Families toiled in the paddy fields and impossible loads of rice were precariously balanced on bicycles. I wondered what Greene would have made of present day Indo-China. I think it would have brought a wry smile to his lips to see that both the French and the Americans have returned but this time with tourist dollars rather than guns and ideology.
· The Quiet American and Ways of Escape are both published by Penguin at £6.99. The new film of The Quiet American opened yesterday.
Way to go
Getting there: Qantas Airways (08457 747767) flies Heathrow-Bangkok (then on to Vietnam with Thai Airways) from £792 return. Audley Travel(01869 276200) can arrange either group or tailored trips. A sample seven-day package with four nights at the Majestic Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City and three at the Hoi An Hotel in Hoi An starts from £1,295pp including all flights and transfers, B&B accommodation and a guided day trip to Tay Ninh.
Where to stay: $20 gets you a reasonable guesthouse, $50 a very comfortable hotel, and for less than $100 you can enjoy colonial splendour.
When to go: November-April is the cool, dry season.
Further information: Literary Traveler on Greene. Insight's pocket guide of Vietnam (£6.99) includes a Quiet American Tour.
Country code: 00 84.
Flight time: Heathrow-Bankok 11hrs 20mins, Bankok-Ho Chi Minh City 1hrs.
Time difference: +7hrs.
£1= 23,886 dong (US dollars are widely accepted).
