* Booked the popular all-day tour of the DMZ (demilitarized zone), which involve stops both south and north of the DMZ including the Rockpile, Khe Sanh base, the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the Vinh Moc tunnels, and the Doc Mieu Firebase
The Good (and the Bad):
* The reality is there isn’t much to see on the tour – most of the sites (save for the Vinh Moc tunnels) have simply moved on from their use in the war: cleared forests have grown back, destroyed rice fields are once again green, and specific pieces of land that were strategic in war time are now just pieces of modern life in Vietnam. That said, going to these places is tremendously powerful. Having been born after the war ended, I only know second-hand the impact the Vietnam War had in shaping a generation. To visit these sites is to see, with a bit of imagination, the reality of the Vietnam War for the soldiers asked to fight, and to in turn better understand the very nature of war and what it really means when US foreign policy dictates that we take such steps.
* The reality is there isn’t much to see on the tour – most of the sites (save for the Vinh Moc tunnels) have simply moved on from their use in the war: cleared forests have grown back, destroyed rice fields are once again green, and specific pieces of land that were strategic in war time are now just pieces of modern life in Vietnam. That said, going to these places is tremendously powerful. Having been born after the war ended, I only know second-hand the impact the Vietnam War had in shaping a generation. To visit these sites is to see, with a bit of imagination, the reality of the Vietnam War for the soldiers asked to fight, and to in turn better understand the very nature of war and what it really means when US foreign policy dictates that we take such steps.
As a review, Vietnam was divided into two countries in 1954 after Hi Chi Minh defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu. The dividing line was near the 17th parallel, which in practice meant the boundary followed the Ben Hai River from the west coast (border with Laos) to the east coast (the South China Sea). The area 5km to the north and south of this boundary was the DMZ, and military personnel on both sides were barred from this area.
The tour to the DMZ begins very early in the morning, between 6-7AM depending on when the tour bus picks you up at your hotel. Then, it’s a ~2 hour drive (on a tremendously bumpy road) north to the town of Dong Ha, the launching point for DMZ tours. Dong Ha is still South of the actual DMZ, but the morning part of the tour is spent seeing sites in this southern area.
The first site is the so-called “Rockpile”, which is literally just a pile of rocks (aptly named, then). It rises 240m above sea level and 210m above the area, and is totally inaccessible except by helicopter. The US used the top of this as a lookout point, to both keep an eye on the DMZ and activity along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Next is a stop on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. But first, on the way, there is some great scenery of the landscape which really gives a great idea of the setting our armed forces faced during the war.
Eventually, you get to a part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, marked by a plaque but today is just a paved road with a bridge. During the war, it was an important supply line the North used to get materiel into South Vietnam and to the Vietcong.
After this stop, you drive to the remains of the US Base at Khe Sanh. This base was built in 1962 and, five years later, became the site of one of the bigger battles of the Vietnam War. As the North Vietnamese advanced, the US dropped a significant amount of bombs in the area. Eventually, the base was abandoned. What remains is a large field that contains some bunkers, a nice collection of US tanks and planes, some bombshells, and a museum (that was unfortunately closed when we went). The airstrip is no longer there, replaced instead by coffee plants.
After lunch, the tour takes you through the DMZ to the old “North” Vietnam, to the Vinh Moc Tunnels. The Vinh Moc tunnels are a system of tunnels built by the villagers of Vinh Moc to avoid US bombing during the war (the US believed the villagers were supporting the North Vietnamese army who had an outpost on a nearby island that they used to interfere with US planes on their way to bomb Hanoi). Unlike the Cu Chi Tunnels in the South (see previous blog post), these tunnels were built so that the villagers could live their lives and be protected from bombings, as opposed to Cu Chi which were primarily used for fighting. As a result, these tunnels are wider and higher, much easier for walking. Within the tunnels of Vinh Moc, nearly 60 families lived for as many as 5 days in a row for a period of 6 years; 17 children were born in the tunnels. There were three levels of tunnels, the deepest at ~30m. They led to all sorts of destinations, the one we walked in went to the sea. They are a testament to the tremendous power of these villagers' will to live during difficult and life-threatening times.
Finally, the tour takes you back South, this time to the southern border of the DMZ to the Doc Mieu firebase. During its time, this was an important military base as it was the northern most US base before getting to the DMZ. Now all that remains is this tank, everything else has been removed by the Vietnamese so they can use the land for farming and living. The tank proved too heavy to move.
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