I soon found out how expensive everything was in Saigon. So, I asked around, and I learned of a Korean hotel that cost about a quarter the price of the ones in which Americans usually stayed in the capital. It would leave me enough money each day for a couple of decent meals and a beer. It was in Cholon, which was essentially Saigon’s Chinatown, with about a half million residents of Chinese descent. I regretted that the government had closed Cholon’s Grand Monde, the biggest casino in Southeast Asia, supposedly because it was being run by river pirates. Maybe the officials weren’t getting a big enough cut. But tucked away in the alleyways were small gambling joints, like Lo Tien (Happy Skies) and Hai Tien (Sea Skies). Word was you could find American generals playing blackjack in there.
I went into the hotel and said to the old man at the desk, “How are you, sir?” in the basic Japanese I had learned in the marines. Most older Koreans speak Japanese because in 1910 their country had been unwillingly annexed by Japan and their own language forbidden.
He answered, Genkidesu, arigatō—“I am doing well, thank you.” His low rates were good enough for me. I wasn’t looking for tennis courts and spa treatments. I checked in. And, keeping a promise to the Beechcraft pilot, the first thing I did was to take a long shower. I still didn’t have a change of clothes, but I washed out my shirt and underwear, wrung them out, and then let them dry out in the Saigon sun. Every day, I went back to the French agent’s house for my cash, then on to the US consulate to see my buddy Heller, checking in to see if they had received my passport. This went on for about four days. Meanwhile, my ship was sailing farther and farther away. I kept trying to convince Heller to skip the formalities:
“I’ve gone around the world three times without a passport,” I implored him. “I spent five months in the US Marine Corps in Subic Bay in the Philippines; I know my way around there. Why can’t you put me on a military transport plane to Clark Air Base on Luzon Island, and I can fly to Manila from there? You must have planes going there all day long bringing boys out and bringing boys in.”
Heller didn’t feel like getting creative with my case. But, finally, the passport came in. There it was, its blank pages somehow full of promise, stamped January 26, 1968—exactly a week after my arrival—and bearing a photo of me looking rather grim.
I was happy now, but just for a minute, because Heller reminded me that this was only half of it. Now I had to bring the passport to the State Department of South Vietnam and obtain an exit visa. And it wouldn’t be cheap. Heller said I would have to bribe the clerk there about 9,000 piastres—roughly $900.
I said to him, “You know I’m living on forty dollars a day! Where the hell do you think I’m going to find nine hundred bucks?’
“Don’t worry,” Heller replied. “We’ll lend you the money.” He was obviously used to this. I signed for the “loan.”
With that, Heller took a grey lockbox out of his drawer, counted out some cash, and slid the money in an envelope and sealed it. He called over one of the younger consular officials and, handing him the envelope, told him to escort me to the South Vietnamese State Department Building.
We went over there, and the lines wrapped out the door and around the building. It was like the movie Casablanca: people waiting, waiting, waiting to leave the Vichy-controlled Moroccan city as they fled the Nazis, and some never would. I had it a bit easier because the consular official was with me; still, it took about two hours of going from window to window, filling out paperwork. Then we sat down with the guy who was going to receive the “fee.”
The young guy oversaw the whole transaction, I didn’t so much as touch the money. I don’t think that he or Heller got kickbacks—he just didn’t trust me with the $900. But here was my country condoning the official corruption rampant in the South Vietnamese government during the war. I appreciated the American taxpayers back in the States who would pay $900 to Uncle Sam that year to cover my bribe.
I showed him my shiny new passport—which, after all that trouble, didn’t interest him in the slightest—and then I handed over the fat envelope of cash. How do you like this: the arrogant fellow had the nerve to count it. In front of the US consulate official! He made some kind of checkmark on one of my forms and then said, “We will notify the American consulate when your visa is ready.” He wouldn’t even give it to me then and there. Hurry up and wait. My ship would surely be out in the Pacific Ocean halfway to the States by the time the visa came through.