Vietnam tour turns to romance

Sunday, February 08, 2004

By John Freeman

A dozen years ago, before the young and hip landed in Vietnam with their "Rough Guides" and dog-eared copies of "The Beach," James Sullivan was there as a 27-year-old MFA graduate with some time to kill.

	"Over the Moat: Love Among the Ruins of Imperial Vietnam By James Sullivan Picador ($15)

He had bounced around a bit and was ready to return to Boston. His friend David Relin, however, had other ideas -- a year in Bangkok, Thailand.

There was a highway that hugged the coast from Saigon to Hanoi; they could get to Bangkok on bicycles.

"Three months, you're in, you're out" of Vietnam, Relin said then, giving his friend the you-only-live-once sell, "and you got a few more stories to tell when you're an old man and all those Sullivan grandkids start asking what the world was like in the 20th century."

Happily, Sullivan took the bait and wrote this story of how a clueless young American loaded up his mountain bike and took to the roads of Vietnam to prove he could finish the grueling 2,000-kilometer ride to Bangkok.

If you're the kind of reader who wishes Jack Kerouac had lived long enough to discover the Far East, this title should be at the top of your bedside stack. Not only does Sullivan sketch Vietnam in detail, he also imbues this story with a whiff of romanticism that has unfortunately become a bugaboo in current travel writing.

As the book opens, Sullivan has finished his ride but is reluctant to leave. His mind is occupied by a girl named Thuy, who he had met only a few times. It seems silly to let this stranger delay him, yet when the train leaves the station, Sullivan has leapt off, bicycle in tow. Here begins his real journey; until that moment he was touring, now -- itinerary to the wind -- he is traveling.

Any movie producer would be sensing a good story here. After all, there is the young American with a whopping ignorance and touching curiosity. There is the beautiful, moist-lipped Vietnam-ese girl, whose big family invites him in for meals and conversation.

And then there is the bevy of other suitors, which the American somewhat arrogantly overlooked: the dentist and the pilot, the young man with a gymnast's bulging biceps.

Sullivan's bristling at their presence makes him realize how much he cares for Thuy.

Weaving courtship with travelogue, the book evolves into a touching story about a man who falls in love with a country through a woman. This sounds like dangerous territory, but Sullivan is a careful writer.

He draws our senses to the strange, lush texture of life in Vietnam -- meals in which tables are loaded down with mung bean and lotus pudding, mounds of sticky rice, skinned chickens and cinder pots of incense.

There is the quality of light as the sun drops like a bowling ball from the sky at night. Everything about this country seems strange to him, and by virtue of Sullivan's elegant descriptions, to us, too.

The writer excuses us our ignorance and invites us along to watch the courtship rituals and romantic machinations of his affair. He gives us a free pass to laugh when Thuy asks him, "Do you feel delicious?" referring not to Sullivan but the food she'd served.

He brings us along as fireworks and Roman candles burst during the Tet Offensive anniversary.

Sullivan allows us to appreciate how long ago that was, that in some cases time can in fact heal certain wounds.

Within this space, where curiosity meets forgiveness, "Over the Moat" creates a romance that will warm even the most reluctant of hearts.

John Freeman is a freelance writer in New York.

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