Chapter Five 
INDO-CHINA 
T the suggestion of Monsieur Jean Delacour, the well-known 
French ornithologist, my brother and I made an expedition 
in 1927 to Annam, the northeast province of Indo-China. We em- 
barked at the London docks on a Japanese boat which took us 
as far as Singapore, and here we spent some days before proceed- 
ing in a French ship to Saigon, the capital of Indo-China. 
At Singapore we were able to get our first glimpse of Chinese 
life. The rickshaw boys were most in evidence as they fairly 
swarmed the narrow streets, and itinerant vendors could be seen 
carrying everything on bamboo poles balanced on their shoulders, 
even to portable stoves in full operation, with a variety of hot 
dishes aboard which were served in the street to anyone inter- 
ested. Other nationalities were prominent too, especially Japanese 
ladies, who could be seen riding around in rickshaws smiling at 
any likely client. 
We arrived at the entrance to the Saigon River, on which 
Saigon stands, late one afternoon and it was dark before we got 
very far. The winding course was very tricky at night, and our big 
French liner got stuck temporarily several times on the way. The 
up-river trip took about six hours. 
Saigon seemed to us to be hotter than Singapore, but provided 
plenty of interest for the few days we were there, especially its 
Botanical Gardens and the Chinese sampans clustered along the 
river banks. 
We were naturally anxious to get on, and as we had just missed 
the coastal boat that would have taken us north to Annam we 
decided to go by the overland route. This meant taking the train 
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