'CHARLIE don't surf,' says the Robert Duvall character of the Vietnamese in Apocalypse Now. Well, now he does. Last weekend, in scenes as reminiscently cliched as the whole '60s 'thing', long-haired California types descended on a stretch of gleaming white sand known as China Beach and shared a few waves with the locals.
The circumstances were as extraordinary as the setting was incongruous; this once war-ravaged country and its people playing host to the very participants, and their descendants, who did the ravaging. This time the foreign invaders came armed not with bombs, but surf boards and peace symbols.
For Hong Kong resident Dave Garcia, who hatched the idea of the surf competition with friend Bruce Aitken of Sport Asia, it was like unleashing a tidal wave of memories of his youth, which had long been held at bay.
He had surfed China Beach, the infamous rest and relaxation resort, during the war. As a GI he was involved in the assault on nearby Hamburger Hill, so-called because of the large number of American soldiers slaughtered in the attack, and made an emotionalpilgrimage back there during the event.
'It brought back some heavy memories, but life must go on,' he said. 'We found what we thought was the hill, but we couldn't find the exact spot where we were because it had changed so much. It used to be thick jungle and now it's just tiered forest. We had also been on a 17-hour drinking binge and so we had changed quite a lot as well.
'The nice part was to go back and do the surfing. I had some real fond memories of relaxing at China Beach and it was great to get back there and do it again.' Surfing had hardly been a cultural exchange during the war. During the past 20 years few boards have been spotted but for the occasional visitor in the recent wave of tourism and a bunch of American high school scholars who brought a few along on a field trip last December. But Aitken and Garcia had successfully helped stage the Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi marathons, so why not surfing? One year later, dozens of beach-types frolicked in the murky waters off Da Nang (the brochures described it as crystal clear and deep blue - beyond even the exaggerations of an estate agent), and performed such surfer-speak tricks as 'cut-backs', 'bottom turns', 'floaters' and 're-entries'. Admittedly, the four Vietnamese taking part in the Saigon Floating Hotel Surf Pro, who were there courtesy of a wild card on the grounds that it was their beach, didn't pull off the manoeuvres as well as the 32 other professionals.
