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Published: August 8th 2007
Hue Palace
Suz and Ryan take a breakHue is a city like no other in Vietnam. Once the home of the Emperors who had ruled before the revolution, it is surrounded by huge castle walls and a moat that are large enough to have survived the war and it's unrelenting bombing. Most of the buildings inside the city were destroyed however, and with the exception of some of the palace buildings, all have been replaced by hotels and shophouses which have spilled outside the castle walls and along the riverfront. Hue is just south of the infamous DMZ, and saw more than it's fair share of fighting as the North and South moved back and forth across it's walls, changing the colors of the large flagpole in front of the palace. It is also the home of the monk who set himself on fire in protest of the war, creating just on of the famous photographs which many of the people here wear on the backs of t-shirts. T-shirts that they wear with a welcoming smile, as if to say "look how far we have come."
We take to the streets on bicycles (not as scary as you might have imagined since we are getting a
Ho Chi Minh Trail Monument
This is all that's left of the trail feel for the traffic), and move in and out of the palace walls to find cafes, restaurants, and boutiques of clothes and artsy knicknacks. It's a bohemian city, where you can enjoy coffee by the river, sitting under the shade of tall trees in the park, or a beer with a game of pool;. We explore the palace: walking among the ruins and imagining how grand it once was; looking through elaborate collections of royal costumes and opium pipes; watching the Vietnamese slowly try to restore it back to it's former grandeur. Since the palace has no importance to the people anymore other than tourism, it is used now as a gathering place for festivals and celebrations.
A must here is the tour of the DMZ, that cliched buzzword for what was the dividing line for North and South Vietnam after WW II. At least they say it is a must. With the way our booked tours have gone so far, I would say it's at best a "maybe". But Tracy and Ryan didn't come half-way across the world to just sit in cafes and shoot pool, so with time breathing down our necks, we booked a tour at
Kids on the Ho Chi Minh Trail
I paid 2 bucks for this photo our hotel lobby.
The tour was 12 hours long (aren't they all?). 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., breakfast and lunch included. If you've read the other blogs, you already know the story. One and a half hours to breakfast, we eat, another one and a half hours to a 5 minute photo-op, and then we're on the bus again. Trying to pack all the sights into one day always means long hours of travel. With the scenery being what it is, my eyes don't mind so much, but my butt and legs always wish they had walked somewhere instead.
First stop was a bridge along the Ho Chi Minh trail. The bridge wasn't actually here during the war, but was built years later, as people no longer found it necessary to move supplies through a deep ravine under cover of darkness. On one end, down the road that leads to "Hamburger Hill", is a stone monument which states that this is part of the trail, but other than that there is nothing else to our first sight. This didn't stop the people from setting up shop here of course. Dozens of kids followed us off the bus, begging
U.S. Bunker
A re-creation for money and wanting their photos taken. I took 2 kids' photos and became an instant celebrity with the bills I handed them. Ryan entertained an audience by magically pulling his thumb apart. 10 minutes are up, back on the bus.
We pull over to the side of the road and all pile out to look at a lone mountain of sheer stone in the middle of a valley. This was "the rockpile" we are told, a lookout post of the U.S. military. The hills surrounding is are still scarred and devoid of trees from the countless amount of napalm sprayed over them. This was a very important site, we are told. 5 minutes are up, back on the bus.
Our bus strains to get up a mountain and parks in a large gravel lot surrounded by coffee plants. We enter into a compound which houses some old U.S. helicopters, sandbag bunkers, a collection of huge bombshells, and a museum. We walk around on the concrete path, peering inside the bunkers and war machines, and make our way to a monument erected in one corner. A plaque on the far side quotes a U.S. Secretary of Defense as
Secretary's Statement
Far side of the monument at Khe Sanh saying
this place had been "hell on Earth". Inside the museum, uniforms and guns form both sides are displayed in glass cases. The walls above them are covered in photographs from the battle fields around this mountaintop base. They have captions underneath them. The Vietnamese pictures are always soldiers smiling or looking determined as they gaze with rifles in hand up the mountain. Their captions read things like: "Our brothers moving forward!", or "Victory! Our soldiers take the Imperialist's base!" The U.S. pictures are soldiers crouching in bunkers or men carrying the wounded. Their captions read things like "living in the Vietnam "hell on Earth"", or "U.S. soldiers ask why he must die like this".
Suz reads a comment book in the front lobby of the museum. Inside are the reactions of all who have visited, many of them U.S. war veterans. They talk about what is was like to be here and how many memories were brought back that they had buried long ago. Almost all the other comments bash George Bush and remark at how America never learns from history. One man has written a poem about awakening from the nightmare of Vietnam, only to find himself
living out his dream in Iraq.
On our way out of the museum, I'm suprised to find a man selling old Vietnamese war medals and U.S. dog tags. They all look old and tarnished, but still bear the names and rankings of the men who had wore them. Suz and I look at each other and hope they are cheap replicas.
We find out from our guide book that nothing at the base is authentic. Everything had been donated or brought in from other places in Vietnam. When the U.S. evacuated the base, they destroyed everything with explosives so that it could not be used for propaganda purposes by the North Vietnamese. 500 marines and 10,000 Vietnamese soldiers died in the assault on the U.S. base, an assault that was ultimately just a distraction for the massive Tet offensive in the south. I looked back at the rows of bushes which surround the 35 year old monument. All those people died for a coffee plantation. One hour is up, back on the bus.
It is now time for lunch, so we retrace our journey back to the office of our tour company, along a strip of city
The Dividing Line
The bridge that now connects North and South. The statue in the background is of the waiting soldier's families. street that houses the offices of many other tourism companies. As we eat a basic meal of fried rice, spring rolls, and tofu in tomato sauce, we chat with a man from Boston who sits with us at our table. We all agree that the tour has been pretty unexciting, and hope that we see more on the second half. The wall of the office are covered in pictures and information about MAG (Mines Advisory Group), the British group of specialists who are committed to removing all the UXO (unexploded ordinance) from war torn Asia. I look at the pictures of them working side by side with villages from Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam; lifting 500 pound bombs; brushing away dirt on buried rockets; carefully sweeping a narrow strip of land inch by inch with a metal detector. Thirty-five years have passed since the 10 year war had ravaged these countries, and MAG was still cleaning up. They have a lot more work to do. Lunchtime is over, back on the bus.
It's another hour before we cross a long bridge and stop on the other side. We all march off the bus and discover a smaller wooden bridge with
Descending
The short tunnels are the perfect size for Suz a large gate, next to the concrete one we had driven over. The river it crosses was the exact line which divided North Vietnam from South Vietnam. Directly facing us on the opposite side of the river stands an enormous statue of a woman with two children. It symbolizes the soldiers families, waiting to be reunited with their men who have fought for so long in the war. The bridge had at one time been painted half red, half blue, and during the war had been destroyed and rebulit countless of times. It stands now painted only one color, fenced off and unwatched by guardtowers. Ryan and I notice another structure on our side of the river, 500 meters to the left of the river. We walk over and realize it is an old concrete bunker blackened by age, part of it's wall missing. I ask the guide what it was used for and am told it was left over from the French. They had guarded this river too, decades before America had tried their hand at occupying Vietnam. The result was the same. Five minutes are up, back on the bus.
It must be another hour and a
Suz in the Tunnels
Blinded by the light half before we park in another gravel lot that is surrounded by wood. Walking past the ever-present touts who sell snacks and beverages, we are led through the trees that grow out of huge bomb craters on either sides of the path. A curious concrete gutter runs alongside us, although it's too deep to have just held water. Just before approaching what sounds like the ocean, we are led into a small museum. Pictures on the walls show people living underground. They carry children, have meals, hold meetings , and stand guard at the entryways. Some pictures show men carrying bombs and ammunitions through the concrete gutters outside. Their paths are not deep enough to hide the men, but do put their heads at ground level. A large model in the corner shows the landscape of the land we are on, and the maze of tunnels that lie below.
We leave the museum and enter a small entrance in the ground outside. It is dark and confining, I have to crouch to fit inside. The tunnel walls are smoothed soil, nothing more. Some occasional lights show us the way, but Suz switches on our flashlight for a better view.
My Strange Guide
Same expression as Suz had in the last picture We descend into the ground deeper and deeper, passing small rooms the size of closets which used to house a family of four. Alcoves for guards, meeting rooms, hospitals, and maternity wards are all revealed to us with the use of plaster models.
The tunnels are a complex maze. If not for the help of a small stranger behind me, we would have gotten lost. He points and shines a flashlight down corridors and around turns, eager to help and herd us along. Even though I knew we have only gone down, I see sunlight at the end of one long tunnel.
"Ungh?" questions the stranger, pointing towards the light.
"Um, yeah. Let's go see what's down there." I say.
The two of us run down the passageway and I find myself looking at the ocean. The coastline below me is reached by a path running up to the small hole in the hill that I am standing in. I turn around and pull out the camera, seeing my companion for the first time. He is a small man, missing several fingers and most of his teeth. He has a hunchback limp and an expressionless blank stare
which suggests he is handicapped in some way. Pointing to the camera, then to himself, he lumbers over to the tunnel entrance and poses, still expressionless. I snap a picture. He immediately holds out his hand and I give him a dollar. We hurry back into the tunnel to catch up witht he others, the stranger leading. I notice his limp makes him very nimble and perfectly suited for the passages, as if he's been living there his entire life.
The group descends ever deeper into the tunnel system, further and further from the bomb craters above us. Suddenly, we arrive just above the beach on a concrete walkway. Adjusting to the sunlight, our group leans on a wall while a guide who has been waiting for us begins to speak. He tells us the tunnels were used to supply a naval base on an island far off the coast. People from nearby villages fled to the tunnels during the bombing, and during the night would sneak out and paddle the two hour journey to the island. For years the villagers lived in hiding, and many children were born in the tunnels during that time.
When the U.S.
Tunnels Coast
Fishing boats lining the beach figured out who was supplying the naval base, they bombed the area relentlessly. Tunnels collapsed and the villagers went deeper and deeper to protect themselves. Needing food, they would only emerge at night to run supplies and tend to farmland. Many died, but with a persistence they had developed with the French, they never stopped assisting the North Vietnamese Army.
We walk down the concrete walkway, then move back upwards through another system of tunnels. Once we emerge, we are back at the parking lot fighting off pleas for Coca-colas and Pringles. One hour is up, and everyone files back to the bus for our two hour trip back to Hue.
We are all on board except for Tracy and Suz who went to visit the little girls room. The bus is running, and our tour guide is eyeing the empty seats nervously. She approaches Ryan and I and asks us where the ladies are.
"They went to the toilet." I say with a smirk. "In five minutes they will be back on the bus."
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mompat
non-member comment
Wow, what an experience even if it was predictable and cost a few dollar bills. Sort of mind boggling from your description.