Hue and the DMZ

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Friday morning we arrived in Hue by plane at about 8.30am after leaving our hotel in Hanoi at 4.45am! Because of our short time in Hue we had to make the most of it and we went straight out to the Citadel on foot.
The Citadel is an enormous square built in 1804 and surrounded by 10km's of walls, 4 metres high and 2 metres thick and surrounded by a 30 metre wide moat. Within the Citadel is another mini citadel that was the royal residence. The citadel area was interesting and we took a cyclo ride around for an hour. Our driver/peddler was pretty interesting and gave some commentary with his smatterings of english. He took us to some temples, Ho Chi Minh's parents house, a display of captured US tanks etc. We also saw the tallest flag pole in Vietnam which is nearly 40 metres high and has an enormous Vietnamese flag flying at the top. At the end of our cyclo ride we went to the Imperial Enclosure/Forbidden Purple City, this was where the royal family lived during their reign. It was fairly similar to the forbidden city in China in the way that it was set out, unfortunately during the siege of Hue, the majority of the buildings were destroyed in the bombings and the battles. Now all that remains are walls, stair cases and the Royal library. The city is gradually rebuilding the palace but for now it contains a lot of stones and grass.

Today (Saturday) was our tour down to the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone). We boarded a bus at about 6am and drove for about 2 hours where they fed us breakfast in a little restaurant. After that we continued to our first stop which was the Rockpile. The Rockpile is essentially a big mountain with very steep slopes. It was home to some marines during the war who operated a radar base on top. There are a lot of mountains around it and some have no vegetation on them. This is apparently from the napalm and defoliants such as agent orange and has had a permanent effect on the landscape. From here we passed plenty of bomb craters and drove through other various sites of battles and bases. We had a more major stop at Khe Sanh base. The base was just a small garrison until intelligence detected thousands of Vietcong massing just over the Laos border. To protect the base, the American command reinforced the base with thousands of soldiers and tanks. Eventually the Vietnamese attacked the base, but never captured it, losing about 10,000 people in casualties. It turned out that the attack on Khe Sanh was just a diversion as a few days after the attack commenced the Tet Offensive began (when every major town in the south was attacked simultaneously). There wasn't much of the base left because after the war the Vietnamese destroyed everything of the Americans. What is left are a few bunkers, a tank, two helicopters and a small museum. The original landing strip is also there but it just looks like an overgrown dirt track these days. After Khe Sanh we saw Hien Luong Bridge. This looks pretty much just like a bridge suprisingly enough, but it was a major part of the Ho Chi Minh trail over which the Vietnamese transported supplies down to the battlefields in the south.
The next stage took us to the DMZ itself, this was the border between the north and south for two years and both sides looked at each other from bunkers across the river. The bridge in the middle used to be painted half red and half yellow to signify the different sides until it got bombed. Around the river there was a 5km area of no-mans land, which is now a massive flat area that has been turned into rice paddies. The last major stop of the tour was the Vinh Moc tunnels. These tunnels are right up against the coast within walking distance of the beach and were built by civilians as a place to take refuge from the massive bombing missions that happened around them and against them. The villagers built a massive 1.2km's of tunnels from between 12 and 25 metres deep and capable of holding 300 people max. The tunnels have 64 rooms for families, a common area and a maternity room. While it sounds big, the rooms aren't even big enough to stand up in and it would be virtually impossible for a western family to fit in there together lying side by side. The tunnels hadn't been modified much for tourists which made them more interesting, but the lighting inside was pretty bad, so it was hard to see much inside, which again probably made it more authentic. The tunnels were used by the villagers over 6 years, with the longest stay inside about 5 nights and 5 days continuously.
The tour ended up being pretty good, especially since it only cost us $9 each, and unlike Halong Bay, our tour guide could actually speak good english!

Tomorrow we are leaving Hue early by train to Danang, and then by bus to Hoi An and were there for about 5 days.

S & B

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Comments

[Dianne]

Hi
Hi Guys, great photo's once again, i noticed Bianca that you seem to fit into the tunnels better than Scott, I'm still trying to decide who your father is!!!. Loved the look of all the yummy spices, very colourful. Fancy hotel room, I not sure how you two will settle into real life when you get back to oz. i guess you are looking forward to your 4 days in Hoi An. I woder how much room Bianca has left in her suitcase, or has she started using yours as well Scott? Love from us all , including your kitties