Ho Chi Minh's Thai hideout a tourist draw

Ho Chi Minh's Thai hideout a tourist draw

John Hail, Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Ban Na Chok, Thailand

Ho Chi Minh discovered Thailand was a good place for R and R two
generations before the American GIs who fought against him did.

The young Vietnamese revolutionary holed up in this tiny,
remote village in the 1920s, resting and helping to plant rice,
coconut and star fruit trees while plotting to liberate his
homeland from French colonialists.

A small teak house stands on the spot where Ho lived, complete
with black-and-white photos of him, a desk and an old radio where
one can picture Ho, whose real name was Nguyen Ai Quoc, keeping
in touch with the outside world while hiding out in the jungle.

The house is a reproduction -- the original was eaten by
termites decades ago -- but villagers insist Ho really did plant
several of the fruit trees, which are still surrounded by lush,
green rice paddies.

That may change as early as next year, when a "Thai-Vietnamese
Friendship Village" is expected to be formally launched, complete
with an information center, a copy of Ho's old home in Hanoi, an
expanded gift shop, parking lot, etc.

Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Van Khai visited Ban Na Chok in
May 2000, putting in motion plans to promote the village as a
tourist mecca.

Although Ban Na Chok is on the Thai side of the Mekong River,
which separates the kingdom from Laos, it was in Ho's day and
remains today overwhelmingly Vietnamese.

The Vietnamese arrived in three waves; in the late 19th
century, when Ban Na Chok was established; in the 1920s, when Ho
moved in, and in the early 1950s, after Ho's forces defeated the
French at Dien Bien Phu and many Vietnamese, particularly
Christians, fled.

The nearby provincial capital of Nakhon Phanom has several
ornate old Christian churches catering to the descendants of the
Vietnamese immigrants, some 5,000 of whom still live in the
province, and some fine Vietnamese restaurants.

Nearly all of Ban Na Chok's 300 residents are Thai citizens.
Their dual national identity is proudly displayed at the tiny
outdoor gift shop, just behind where Uncle Ho lived.

The shop, which sells conical hats, Vietnamese handicrafts and
locally grown green tea, is lined with photographs of Ho at
various times in his career, displayed alongside portraits of the
kings of Thailand.

"We're all friends now," said Thieu Nguyen Wan, 80, who was
just one year old when Ho, a close friend of his father's, is
said to have arrived in the village.

"I don't remember Ho. And my father didn't talk much about
him," Thieu said in an interview. His father, who married a
northeastern Thai woman, followed Ho back to Vietnam, never to
return.

There is disagreement over how long Ho actually lived in Ban
Na Chok.

Villagers say he was based here seven years, from 1923 until
1929, but historians in Vietnam say he was here less than two
years.

He was rumored to have had a girlfriend, a Vietnamese soldier,
and developed a taste for American cigarettes.

The Thai government in those days was somewhat sympathetic to
Ho's anti-French struggle. The leftist Thai politician Pridi
Banamyong, who later led the anti-Japanese Free Thai Movement, is
said to have enjoyed a close friendship with Ho.

But by the 1960s, with Ho's communist forces locked in combat
with the United States and Thailand firmly in the American camp,
the political status of Ban Na Chok became ambiguous.

The first shots in the war between the Thai army and the
Communist Party of Thailand were fired near Ban Na Chok on Aug.
8, 1965.

American pilots returning from bombing runs over Vietnam and
Laos were surprised by the ground fire they encountered while
flying above this area on their way back to the big U.S. air base
at Nakhon Phanom, or "NKP" as the GIs called it.

These days only a trickle of visitors come to visit the Ho
house. A large proportion of those who do come are American
Vietnam veterans.

"They come here and they want to talk about the war," Thieu
said. "They all look alike."

Thieu's daughter, Khai, 35, who lives with him in the house
behind the Ho house, said many of the middle-aged American
visitors come with their Thai wives.

"The wives don't know the significance of this place and seem
to be bored. But the husbands know and they want to talk about
it," she said.

Ho died in 1969, six years before his dream of a united
Vietnam under a communist government came true. Some two million
people per year visit Ho's lovingly preserved remains at his
mausoleum in Hanoi. Thousands more visit his restored wooden
house in the Vietnamese capital.

Khai does not expect Ban Na Chok to attract that much
attention, nor is she worried about her community being spoiled
as hordes of visitors tramping through the rice paddies to
capture a piece of history.

For her, their presence may provide a much-needed boost in the
community.

"I'll be happy if more people come," she said. "Right now we
don't get much business."