81 歳の陸軍退役軍人がベトナム🇻🇳 に帰国、さらにタイとカンボジア🌏 へ世界一周へ出発！

81 歳の陸軍退役軍人がベトナム🇻🇳 に帰国、さらにタイとカンボジア🌏 へ世界一周へ出発！

In this episode, we follow Bill Hershidy nearly 60 years back in time, chasing a mountain, a memory, and a war that tore him from his young family. Along the way, we run into crocodiles, riverboats, sacred ruins, hidden tunnels, and a few surprises we never saw coming. So, buckle up. This is one wild ride. In the late 1960s, Angela’s dad, Bill, found himself in southern Vietnam. Like so many other young men at the time. He was stationed at a pop-up city of sandbags and olive drab tarps. The military base sprawled out a top the local rice patties at the foot of a lone jungle covered peak near Sui Da. It was known as Mui Badin, which literally translates to Black Lady Mountain, although it’s known more commonly as Black Virgin Mountain. It was an unforgettable geographic feature that occupied Bill’s brain for decades. The base itself was far enough behind the front lines to be safely out of harm’s way. Or at least that’s what the Americans thought until the North Vietnamese famously launched a surprise attack known as the Tet offensive on January 30th, 1968. In the months that ensued, thousands of Americans were wounded and killed along with tens of thousands of North Vietnamese. Bill was a munitions officer tasked with making sure the right ammo got into the right gun in the right place at the right time. He was just 24 years old. After getting back home to his wife Jane and their young family, Bill swore he’d never go back to Vietnam. But time does funny things. As Angela and I now live in Thailand, we invited Bill and Jane to come visit us. And that’s when the call of the Black Virgin Mountain resurfaced. Bill spent countless hours researching online and on Google Maps. And finally, he was certain he’d found it. But was there anything left? Were there any remnants of the old base? Nearly 60 years later, we were going to find out. Welcome to Thailand, Emma and Popsy. [Music] [Applause] Getting from Louisiana to Thailand is no easy feat, but Bill and Jane landed in Bangkok with more energy than most adventurers half their age. [Music] All right. What’d you get? These are mine. [Music] Grandma and Pop’s first to ride. We wasted no time introducing them to this magnificent city, serving up Michelin rated meals, chaotic streets, and enough culture shock to rattle even the most seasoned passport stamp collector. [Music] We took them to Watpo, home of the world’s chillest giant Buddha, stretching out half a football field in length. These sacred grounds are also the birthplace of Thai massage, where students still learn to twist tourists into pretzels with alarming confidence. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] One of the things I love about Bangkok is that if you turn left, you can instantly travel 100red years into the past. But hang a right and you’re suddenly catapulted 10 years into the future. Leaving Thailand’s ancient past behind, we crossed the Chao Pria River to bring Bill and Jane to Icon, a $ 1.7 billion mega mall where Buddha’s teachings of non-attachment are bodys slammed by the likes of Louis Baton and Lamborghini. For a husband, this is perhaps the most dangerous place in all of Thailand. [Music] We celebrated Bill’s 81st birthday at the Gardens of Denzor Palace, just a few minutes walk from our apartment. Once a royal residence now turned restaurant, the dreamy gardens are complete with swans, peacocks, koi, and bunnies. A serene oasis in the heart of a mega city and a memorable place to celebrate another magnificent milestone. [Music] Happy birthday, dear. Happy birthday. Happy birthday to you. Yay. Look, he’s 18. Oh, that’s 81. I’m reading it backwards. [Music] Actually, it doesn’t feel any better. [Music] We’re on a dinner cruise on the river. [Music] As our boat glided past temples and towers, we retreated to delicious food, craft cocktails, a soothing breeze, and a skyline that morphed from sunset hues and neon chaos. With ancient temples and rooftop bars, all clamoring for our attention. [Music] [Music] Bill and Jane later treated us to afternoon tea at the author’s lounge in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Ernest Hemingway, Ian Fleming, Oscar Wild, Joseph Conrad, Arthur Conan Doyle, Tennessee Williams, they’ve all lounged here, conceiving clever lines for their next masterpieces. And it’s not just famous authors who are drawn to this colonial oasis. Queen Elizabeth, Princess Dye, Alfred Hitchcock, Tom Cruz, Audrey Hepern, MC Jagger, Elizabeth Taylor, Elton John. They’re all legends that are woven into the fabric of this historic place. [Music] With Bangkok under our busy belts, we landed in Chiang Mai and checked into a wonderful boutique hotel inside the Oldtown Moat. Surrounded by golden spires, red sunglers scent of something sizzling on a grill. [Music] Another night, another Michelin table. Housed in a restored 1937 colonial mansion, The House by Ginger is a farm table experience that blends oldworld elegance with quirky eclectic charm. The restaurant features a mix of vintage furnishings, including comfy sofas and chent curtains, creating a cozy and thoroughly satisfying dining [Music] experience. The next day, we drove north into the countryside for a private elephant sanctuary experience. No rides, no circus tricks. just mud, jungle, and a few hours walking alongside beings that carry more wisdom in their eyes than most people I know. [Music] These animals are amazing and the people who are taking care of them obviously love them so much which is very touching. The the place is beautiful. The elephants are beautiful. The people are beautiful. It’s It’s wonderful. [Music] How many years ago? Uh four years ago. And so you were attacked by in a different place. Another place from the elephant running. So 4 years ago she was in a different place and an elephant attacked her. The males get pent up and they have to have sexual release or whatever and if they get too they they can get you know crazy in the head. Crazy. Yeah. Just like human. Yes. Yeah. [Music] [Music] just unbelievable. You know, we they teach sometimes as far as just guiding the tour. And that’s what’s so interesting is he’s so full of knowledge and then they’re behaving like you would want them to. I’m sure we’re able to put the their their behavior together with what he’s telling us. This is really interesting. Very interesting. You sure you want to do that? [Music] A thank [Music] you. We finally gave the Michelin guys a night off and instead signed up for grandma’s cooking school. Although honestly, this place felt more like a community college campus for starving adults than a matriarch’s homey kitchen. We toured the herb and chili gardens before firing up the burners and firing up the taste buds. [Music] I have uh hot and sour soup uh with chicken. Okay. And I’ve got green curry with chicken. And I’ve got chicken with chicken. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Across the street from our hotel stood Wat Chedetti Lwang, a 600-year-old temple that once housed the famous Emerald Buddha. Partly crumbled by an earthquake in the distant past, this magnificent structure still dominates Chiang Mai’s old town like a sacred skyscraper. While Angela and Jane stayed in Bangkok for some muchdeserved RNR, that is rest and retail therapy, Bill and I booked a guy’s trip to Cambodia. We left our ladies and credit cards behind with the same confidence that one leaves teenagers at home with a liquor cabinet. [Music] Once we landed in CM Reap, my old friend cowboy was waiting for us. He’s equal parts tuk tuk pilot, chaos creator, and country music evangelist. He drove us deep into the Cambodian countryside. No briefing, no itinerary, no questions asked. We passed a rusty gate into a dusty compound where the air smelled of something old and carnivorous. This is an economy built on teeth and skin and even crocodile oil. Absolutely nothing goes to waste here. The crocodile is your friend. Yeah. Look inside. All right, let’s go look. Okay. Okay. [Music] No sense of personal space. I guess this is the Wild West, Pops. Welcome to the Wild West. Look at this guy moving. [Music] They’re like, “You look delicious.” [Music] The meat we can uh the owner here can sell to the the market, the restaurants. Yeah. uh and uh not die to kill by people before like okay one how many m how many kilo I can get the by for kim and about the screen we can do the for the soup and [Music] ble okay oil all for sale I see I see expensive very expensive yeah for the people come there like uh point you had some the the sick cosmetic. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Pitfalling our way out of the crocodile farm, Cowboy brought us to the muddy river banks where we climbed aboard a long narrow boat and churned into the jungle to a village that’s only accessible by water during this time of year, the rainy season. The homes here are held together by little more than wood and hope. [Music] It’s calling me like a rainbow. [Music] The river soon spilled into Tanlay Sap, Cambodia’s inland ocean and the largest freshwater lake in all of Southeast Asia. All right, Angela and Nama, you need to be right. Coming to you from Cambodia. [Music] Just as the sky caught fire, Cowboy stripped down to his tidy whies and dove head first into the murky crocinfested lake like it was his own private swimming pool. Oh, okay. Look me. One, two, three. Crocodileinfested waters. If there’s ever been a real life cowboy in the jungle, this guy’s [Music] [Music] it. Take him home. Time to grow. West Virginia. Take me home. Of course, no trip to CM Reap is complete without visiting the big three. Anchor, what? Topram and Bayan. Each a stunning repository of history and mystery, slowly being strangled by the jungle and by time [Music] At 81 years old, Bill powered his way through these sweltering stone halls as nimly as the local monks and monkeys that call this place home. [Music] The stones often have holes and those were for rods, pieces of wood that they would stick in there and then elephants could drag these massive stones. Scientists don’t know exactly how this was done. As you can see, they fit so perfectly together, and yet they’re all unique shapes and [Music] sizes. Pops, he’s always been a fan of these treasure hunting shows on TV, the reality shows, the the mysteries of the ancient past. So for him, this really is special because he’s not just seeing it now in reality shows or documentaries, but he’s actually exploring it and getting up close and personal to it right here at the source. [Music] carvings are from the 12th century and this design is the same used by Louis Vuitton. Everyone know about Louis about elev but originally copy from Cambodia. So these women were wearing Louis Vuitton a thousand years ago. Yeah. [Music] while Bill enjoyed some well-earned rest back at the hotel. Cowboy brought me back to a place I’ve been before. The last time I stood here, lush green rice patties extended in every direction all the way to the horizon. But it’s rainy season now and the rice fields are gone. Replaced by a shallow serpent fililled sea. All right, back away crab. Same place we went last time, last year. But now you’re taking me back. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Oh, crab. Crab. And this is egg also. Eggs. Uh, what kind of eggs? Hello. Yes. Oh, snake. I see snake. Is it good? No. Your doctor? Yeah. No. No. No. No. Yeah. Your doctor before tried it with me. Oh, wow. Good. Yeah. Yummy. Okay, I’ll take your word for it. Yum. Yum. That night, I went down to Pub Street, hoping to find a shaky plastic chair and a cold anchor beer to wash down some tuk tuk dust. But as it turns out, the sometimes sleepy town of Seamreap isn’t so sleepy when locals migrate here from the countryside to celebrate Halloween. Devils, DJs, vampires, zombies, and a level of debauchery that suggested no one’s working tomorrow. I’ve seen stranger things than Halloween and see him reap, but not many. On our last day in Cambodia, Cowboy rolled up in a borrowed van with his wife and two kids to personally escort Bill and I back to the airport. Once they realized that Bill and I were far less dangerous than the crocs, scorpions, and snakes that their dad manhandles every day, the kids soon sat in our laps during this hour-long drive, fascinated by my Apple Watch and by our strange dialect. That’s the thing about travel. You come for the sunsets and sights, but you leave thinking about the people you met along the way. Back in Bangkok, we drove south to Patia, home to the Sanctuary of Truth, a massive all-wood structure that looks like a pirate ship plowed right into a monastery. It’s over 300 ft tall and held together without a single nail or screw. It’s been under construction since 1981, and in fact, it always will be. As the purpose of this magnificent marvel is to ensure that Thailand’s ancient architectural arts are never lost, every inch is handcarved, blending Thai, Hindu, Buddhist, and Camra influences into one massive mindbending monument to philosophy, art, and perpetual impermanence. [Music] Nice. [Music] After a late beachfront lunch at Oasis restaurant, we made our way back to Bangkok. After all, we had a big trip coming up. [Music] At last, it was time. Bill, now 81, was going back to Vietnam for the first time since 1968. Hi, Pops. You’re 24 years old. You get a three-word message from your 81-year-old self, and it says, “I’m in Vietnam.” What does your 24year-old self say? God help me. We checked into the historic Caravl Hotel, famously known as the press headquarters during the war, where all the major news networks and newspapers reported back to an increasingly anxious world. Its rooftop bar was where foreign correspondents and spies swapped stories over stiff drinks while watching flares light up an ever advancing enemy. We were here for one thing, to find new, the black virgin mountain still deeply lodged in Bill’s memory like a leftover piece of shrapnel. [Music] You are drinking a heart of darkness beer in Saigon. Heart of Darkness is a brewery here in Ho Chi Min City. But that is the first beer you’ve had in how long? Um, probably eight 18 years. First beer in 18 years. It seems to be going down well. It’s delicious. Heading northeast from Saigon, we stopped at an art gallery where all of the works are crafted by disabled locals. So this is a place where handicapped people are working on original works of art. This was something that was instituted right after the war to help disabled people provide for themselves and their families. So they are using um very old techniques, everything from uh broken eggshells to inlaid pearl in these incredible works of art. And everyone here has a major disability and so uh the artworks are not only beautiful but they’re going to help support people who have challenges supporting their own families. So Pops, how familiar does this look? Is it is it radically different? This would have been open cleared area and so you’re saying the fence would have been barb wire and Right. It was not that that designated the the end of the of the property that they defended. That was barb wire that was and and there were little um temporary shelters that they used for the guards to sit in. Got to figure that I I left in 60 68 uh and 50 50 years. It’s it’s not going to be the same. I wouldn’t expect it to be the same. Was this where the Ted offensive happened or was it more? It was all around us. All around us. All around us. It was. I mean, we woke up that morning and somebody said, “Hey, Saigon’s been hit.” What? Saigon’s been hit? You got to be kidding me. After that, it was it was it it was all over the place. I mean, it was total total chaos. You never expected Saigon to be attacked. I mean, it just it, you know, just wasn’t conceivable. wasn’t wasn’t really conceivable and for it to be h to happen like it did. Um, you know, somebody kind of ignored some stuff. I it had to have been I didn’t walk around the base camp uh armed. I mean, I had I had a weapon. I had a 45 and a and an M16, but I kept it in my in my hooch. Yeah. Uh not then. Yeah. You know, you you I I carried both pistol and um rifle. uh rifle and God knows what I would have done with it. You know, never conceived of killing anybody and thank God I didn’t or didn’t have to. But uh most of the time mortar attacks and and or attacks came at night because that’s just more effective. Sure. Uh chaos, right? At this point in time, if they were shooting they were were shooting u uh mortars, I wouldn’t even get out of bed. If they were But if they were shooting rockets, I’d get out a split second after that thing exploded. And you can you you could hear the difference. You you could just hear and feel the difference. And it’s two different things to be attacked with mortars and then be attacked by uh see more of that stuff. Be attacked by u um the the rockets cuz they those rockets my god those things are oh they were horrible. We also toured a less trotten section of the coochie tunnels. This was the other side of the war. A network of underground passageways used by the North Vietnamese to evade detection. mount attacks and quite literally live beneath the battlefield. So, I know coming to see the tunnels was not on your priority list. You were more interested in seeing the places where you were stationed, but does this give you any different kind of perspective on Yes. Like what are your thoughts at the moment? I just kind of wish to God I didn’t have to get down in there. Yeah. Cuz I’m I’m I’m claustrophobic. [Music] [Music] Wow. Okay. Wow. [Music] So, is this the kind you would have flown back and forth, say, to Saigon? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Me sitting up here. That’s what I was saying. The ants and I I’ve got pictures of me like but hanging, you know. Yeah. like a fool. Just Just like a fool. Just Just because I could do [Music] it. Finally, we saw it growing on the distant horizon. Nui Baden, the Black Virgin Mountain. We circled around the east side of the peak looking for just the right angle, the precise spot where Bill had snapped his blurry photos and 8 mm videos. This was smaller and we were further away from it. That is the the small hill that was just coming out of view on that picture that we had. We think the slope of the mountain in the photo and then this tree obscures the second slope in the picture. But I think the slope of this mountain is pretty indisputable. I mean it if not there’s another slope just like it on the other side or something. But the rice farmers have since reclaimed that base. Roads have moved and military landmarks have long since packed up and left. We asked some roadside locals for help, and a few old-timers nodded in vague directions, but most were too young to recall such specifics. The jungle’s gone, the barbedwire bunkers are gone. All that remains now are farmland and ghosts. And yet, with their help and with a drone’s eye view, we finally found it. The place where Bill likely stood nearly six decades ago. The scene, a rural gas station, might not have been all that dramatic to be honest, but that moment of realization certainly was. It was a trip that required 60 years of time travel and circumventing the globe [Music] twice. A literal full circle moment with his adult daughter beside him as well as the wife that patiently waited for his safe return all those years ago. [Music] That night we found ourselves at Anan Saigon celebrating Bill and Jane’s 59 years together in a place ironically that once did everything it could to keep them apart. [Music] [Music] When Angela and I first started mapping out Bill and Jane’s excellent adventure. We expected temples and tuk tuks. We expected Michelin stars and rooftop bars. But along the way, we also found cowboys and crocodiles, ledges and legends, tunnels, and truth. Bill finally found his mountain. And we all learned that travel isn’t always about the places you go. It’s about the people you go with. We also learned that sometimes the only way forward is back.

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Nearly 60 years after leaving Vietnam as a young munitions officer during the war, 81-year-old Bill Herschede returns to the place he swore he’d never see again. In this touching travel documentary, Mike and Angela journey with Angela’s parents – Bill and Jane – through Thailand, Cambodia, and ultimately back to Vietnam, to rediscover a mountain, a memory, and a life interrupted by war.

Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam Guide: Ken Nguyen (www.facebook.com/kentourguide.nguyen.9)
Siem Reap, Cambodia Guide: Cowboy (www.cowboycambodia.com)
Angkor Wat Guide: Chhoum Sokha (WhatsApp: +855 92883066)

Along the way, we explore:

🇹🇭 Bangkok’s sacred temples, Michelin ⭐ restaurants, and chaotic markets

🐘 Private elephant sanctuaries and cooking schools in Chiang Mai

🐊 Crocodile farms, floating villages, and ancient ruins in Cambodia

🕳️ Hidden tunnels and the haunting landscapes of Vietnam

🏔️ And finally, Black Virgin Mountain (Núi Bà Đen) — the place that lurked in Bill’s memories for decades

What started as a family vacation turned into something deeper: a full-circle journey about love, resilience, and the things that stay with us long after the war is over.

🔔 Subscribe for more travel documentaries and untold human stories from around the world.

👍 Like this video if it moved you — and drop a comment if you’ve ever returned to a place that changed you.

📍 Filmed in various locations across Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

CHAPTERS:
00:00 – Introduction
00:30 – The Vietnam War
02:36 – Bangkok, Thailand
08:59 – Chiang Mai, Thailand
10:05 – Elephant Sanctuary
15:10 – Siem Reap, Cambodia
25:31 – Sanctuary of Truth (Pattaya, Thailand)
27:02 – Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (Saigon)
29:46 – Cu Chi Base Camp
32:31 – Cu Chi Tunnels
34:30 – Black Virgin Mountain (Núi Bà Đen)

#VietnamWar #BlackVirginMountain #TravelDocumentary #VietnamVlog #CambodiaTravel #ThailandVlog #ReturnToVietnam #CuChiTunnels #AngkorWat #ElephantSanctuary #AroundTheWorldWeGo

ABOUT AROUND THE WORLD WE GO:
Join empty-nesters Mike and Angela as they travel around the globe in search of friends, food, fun and adventure. Mike and Angela have visited 60+ countries, including a 9-month around-the-world journey with their children. Sometimes splurging and sometimes scrimping, Mike and Angela share their favorite travel tips and secret discoveries.

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✅ http://www.youtube.com/AroundTheWorldWeGo
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