Our lovely bus drivers kicked us off the bus in the middle of the road. We had no idea where we were and we were being hassled by a million guys to take a ride on their xe om, or motorcycle. We eventually got far enough away to pull out a map and get our bearings. As we made our way to the hotel area we had our first experience trying the cross the road. There are so many people on motorcycles and bicycles and they are all driving like a bunch of crazies... We found it's best to just walk and they usually go around you! We also saw a pretty bad motorcycle accident and that has sufficiently scared us into never renting a motorbike, ever! I'm pretty sure that the only cars on the road are taxis and tourist buses, no locals own cars.
The first day we just walked around town and rested, since there wasn't much of that on the bus ride. That night we were invited to join the family that was running our hotel for dinner. We had rice soup with chicken and for dessert, we had a green bean pudding type thing... We were scared to try it at first due to it's name, but we didn't want to be rude, so we ate it and it wasn't all that bad.
The next day we went on a De-Militarized Zone(DMZ) tour. The DMZ was a 10km strip of no-man's land straddling the Ben Hai River, near the 17th parallel, which divided Vietnam before the war.
As we drove north, it was interesting to think about the history of the area we were covering. When you begin to filter out the satellite dishes, communist flags, power lines, advertisements, and other modern changes, you realize that you are seeing the same place that so many American soldiers saw on their way to the front so many years ago. The same animals, foliage, rivers, landscape and people:
Our tour began with a stop at a place known as "The Rockpile," which was a tall rocky peak where American artillery was placed to support surrounding bases and patrols near the DMZ.
They had a picture from during the war, so I tried to get a pic from a similar location to see the changes.
Then:
Now:
Our next stop was the highly anticipated Ho Chi Minh Trail, and we were imagining a rudimentary dirt trail, concealed below dense layers of jungle canopy. Unfortunately, the part of the trail that we visited is now known as the Ho Chi Minh Highway.
However, there was a small monument commemorating the trail, along with a river crossing where no bridge existed.
We were very near the Laos border, and the tour guide explained that during the rainy season, another of the main arteries of the trail that crossed into Laos was used.
From there we continued on to Khe Sanh, home of an large American base during the early parts of the war. It was attacked in early 1968 and was abandoned later that year. More than 200 American troops were killed there during the attack, along with several thousand North Vietnamese Army(NVA) soldiers. There is a small museum on the grounds of the base which contained some good relics from the war, if you could stand to sort through the propaganda.
UH-1H:
M-41:
155mm:
Airfield (I'm pretty sure it was reconstructed):
Finally, our last stop was at the Vinh Moc tunnels, on the north side of the DMZ. This was where a village of 300 or so people built tunnels and spent most of their time underground for nearly 6 years to avoid bombing, as the village was helping the North Vietnamese Army transfer supplies to sea. It was cold and wet, literally within 50 meters of the South China Sea.
A family of four is said to have lived in rooms such as these:
Here I am in one for scale:
One of the exits:
That concluded the interesting parts of our DMZ tour. We should mention that many of the facts mentioned here come from local sources, which we have found to be somewhere in the range between somewhat accurate to total b.s. With that said, if we have made any errors, feel free to let me know so we can fix them.
Next stop - Hoi An!
- Mattie and Julian
Location:Hue, Vietnam
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