The yellow taxi made its way down Vo Thi Sau, surrounded by hundreds of motorbikes of all descriptions. Some shiny new and brightly coloured but mostly older scooters carrying multiple passengers, some with three generations on one scooter. This was just a small sample of over two million motorbikes in Vietnam’s capital Ho Chi Min City that swarmed around its parallel streets and intricate roadways. The most impressive feats of scooter riding that Oliver had witnessed so far were four people on one scooter (mum, dad, daughter and baby in arms), a large wardrobe balanced across its rider and a young woman sleeping against her boyfriends back.
The taxi had collected Oliver from the Rex Hotel on Nguyen Hue Boulevard fifteen minutes earlier. They had slowly made their way on to Thi Sau and were now heading towards the outskirts of the city. It was hot, steaming hot at thirty three degrees and nearly eighty per cent humidity. June was the second month of the rainy season and enjoyed the second highest rainfall statistics. The rain would come later in the day Oliver thought, it would be torrential rain and he looked forward to seeing it. Vietnam was a country that had dragged itself from the bowels of poverty into striking economical growth. Its success could be seen in Ho Chi Min city with line after line of elegant shops, small businesses and many restaurants and cafes. At the outer edges of the city and in the country’s rural areas, poverty still haunted millions of its eighty seven million population.
Oliver was heading for just beyond the Hong Bang district to a social work café run by the mother of social work in Vietnam, Madame Nguyen Thi Oanh. Oanh was an elegant seventy seventy year old woman from a wealthy family background. Along with her brothers she had been educated in America. Whilst they had remained in the United States, both now featuring in departments at the highest levels of American politics, Oanh had returned to her country of birth. Madame Nguyen had dedicated her life to campaigning for a fairer social welfare system and for better health care and provision for the many millions in abject poverty. Oanh had fought to raise awareness of the mental illness, drug abuse, wife beating and rape that the communist regime tried to ignore. She was both loved and revered.
Oliver had spent the morning at the British Embassy on La Duan Street, where he had managed to secure a brief meeting with the ambassador’s wife. The embassy was a short walk from the Rex Hotel and Oliver had chanced his luck by pitching up there. Michelle Atram was a very elegant English woman in her early forties. She had agreed to come to the reception to meet Oliver, following the receptionist having made enquiries about the ambassador’s availability. Michelle was very sweet with Oliver, who spun a tale of trying to look up an old colleague of his fathers, a professor from the same medical school, a ‘Robert John Dyer’. Oliver said he and his friends were travelling South East Asia and his father had mentioned that the old rogue Dyer had dropped out on the Mekong Delta. Michelle said it was not usual for the embassy to provide a ‘friends reunited’ service but helpfully told Oliver she knew of no one from the UK who had settled on the Delta. That didn’t mean they hadn’t but she thought it would have come to her attention in the three years they had been in Southern Vietnam. More helpfully she suggested Oliver spoke with Madame Nyueng at her social work café. Every weekday afternoon was a drop in and Oanh and her colleagues knew the Delta better than she ever would. They had regular outreach missions onto the Delta to work with the poorest areas and to help people to build social businesses there.
Oliver had returned to the Rex to lunch with Jamie and Jenny and now found himself leaving the taxi, and standing in a quiet hot street, having paid probably four times the local rate for his journey across town. Oliver wanted to manage the search largely on his own, Jenny was tired from the long haul flight and did not look well. He was more mobile on his own. They would all travel together to the Delta but Oliver was trying to use the first one to two days to try to narrow the area they would search.
Madame Nyueng’s social café was held in the volunteers building and courtyard on Binh Thoi. Oliver tentatively opened the white gate and stepped into the white buildings courtyard. It was a quiet peaceful place with palms and exotic plants and tables with jugs of juice and plates of fruit. Each jug had a small plate on top to prevent unwanted creatures swimming in the sweet drinks.
Oliver could see inside that three women were cooking in the kitchen. He immediately recognised Madame Nyueng as she was some thirty years more senior to her colleagues. Oliver stepped into the hall in front of the café and open kitchen.
“Madame Cheung,” Oliver called hoping he had captured at least an approximation of how to pronounce her name.
“Hello,” she smiled back waving, “Can I help you young man?” she clearly wasn’t fazed by a stranger arriving at her café. On the contrary she was used to regular drop in visits, often international visitors, from the social care profession as she enjoyed worldwide fame in her field.
“I hope so,” Oliver replied, “Would you have five minutes of your time, I’m trying to find an old friend?”
“Yes,” Oanh replied checking with her colleagues that they were okay, “Please take a seat, we don’t open for half an hour. I always like to help if I can.”
They exchanged pleasantries, Oliver spoke with Oanh about her life and her current work. He was genuinely interested in her remarkable work and taken by the presence she held. Oanh was a noble principled woman and he felt sure she would help him if she could. She asked about his travels, his work and his family and a little about London.
“So you are looking for someone, a Vietnamese person?” she asked.
“No, an Englishman who settled out here some twenty years ago, who lives out on the Mekong Delta I’ve been told.” Oliver paused, there was no reaction from Oanh where he thought there might be.
“The Delta is a big place,” she said smiling kindly.
“He was a friend of my fathers, they both lectured at the same medical schools in Oxford and London, he is quite a distinguished man,” Oliver reached into his pocket, “here I have a photograph of him.”
He handed her the photograph, “It is a few years old.”
Oanh studied the photograph, “Where about is he supposed to live on the Delta?”
“I don’t know, sorry.”
“It is a big place,” Oanh smiled again, less warmly than before, “I know only of a few Europeans in the whole region, eco tourist workers, red cross volunteers, twenty at the most.”
“His name is Robert John Dyer, he was, is a professor.”
“Sorry, I don’t know him, he may not be in Vietnam, the Delta begins in Southern China, through Thailand then Laos, runs through Cambodia, it is a very big river, how do you say, yes, you’re looking for a needle in a haystack.” Madame Nyueng handed the photograph back.
“Thank you anyway, we’ll try the Delta ourselves, do a small tour, you never know.” Oliver said.
“I wouldn’t bother,” Oanh said, “if I were you I’d head for the coast, more beautiful, superb beaches, nicer for young people like you.”
“Thank you, I’ll keep that in mind, you’ve been very kind with your time.”
Madame Nyueng Thi Oanh stood as did Oliver and she shook his hand as they said goodbye. Oliver left the courtyard and she waved him goodbye. She watched him cross the street to the waiting yellow taxi, climb in and then drive away. Oanh didn’t believe the cock and bull story about his father knowing Dyer, she knew when someone was being less than straight. So what of it, they had both lied, no harm done.