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Tues 28th Oct
A quiet day today after the full day tour the previous day. After breakfast we headed around to the Main Street and hired cyclo drivers to take us around the city for an hour. That was quite relaxing but got very hot by the time we finished.
When we got off it was too early for lunch so we decided to have a massage but after failing to find the one I found in Trip advisor we just went into the first one we found. It cost 200,000 dong and was pretty crap compared to our place in Hanoi. Mine was more of any oily rub than anything . The lady had no strength in her fingers so I didn't enjoy it as much as our others. Pat said hers wasn't bad.
After my oily rub we headed down the same street which is the main tourist area and had a drink at a pub and did some more shopping before lunch. It started pouring when we were having the massage and just got worse in the afternoon.
We headed back after lunch to our hotel and just went out again for dinner at the same place we had a drink earlier in the day. One thing you really notice coming from Australia is the smoking in restaurants. The westerners really love it - especially English and Aussies!
Wednesday 29th October
Very early start for a full day tour of the DMZ with 2 other couples. One Dutch and one Kiwi.
The weather had cleared so was nice and sunny and we headed off North to pick up our guide at Dong Ha which is about 70kms from Hue.
The guide spoke very good English and was very knowledgable of all Vietnam history and locations so she was very informative as we drive along.
Once the guide joined us we headed west on highway 9 which goes to Laos. Our first stop was to take photo of a mountain the US called the Rockpile. It was called this as after the defoliant agent orange was used it was reduced to a pile of rock.
From there we headed to Khe Sanh combat base which was a large US combat base and air strip the U.S. built 20 kms from Laos border. This whole area for miles and miles was destroyed by the US with agent orange so the U.S. Could see the northern Vietnamese army coming and they could hide in the bushes. Apparently they used 20,000,000 gallons of chemicals in this area. The effects of this have caused so much health issues to the Vietnamese even today with genetic issues as a result of being passed down through the generations . Very sad. The foliage has only started growing back in recent years and there are no large trees anywhere in this area.
The Khe Sanh base has a small museum on it with some interesting artefacts of the war in it. The grounds of the base still have bunkers you can walk through and wreckage of air craft and bombs around. All very surreal to think what happened here . The U.S. lost the battle here too.
I had to have my dag moment here and couldn't let the moment pass of listening to Cold Chisel's Khe Sanh as I walked around the grounds. I have managed to hear this song in so many places around the world and have always called it my memory song as it always triggers memories of places and people that have been in my life and now to have listened to it while being at the actual Khe Sanh was really special.
From Khe Sanh we headed back along the way we came and stopped for a walk at Dakron bridge and through the little village there. Nice little wooden houses on stilts and quite well built by the looks of it.
From there it was lunch at a small restaurant and then back up through Dong Ha to Vinh Moc tunnels up highway 1 North.
The tunnels were built by the town of Vinh Moc when they could no longer live above ground due to the bombing by the US. The whole area has bomb craters everywhere and we saw photos of the area which looked like the moon . Nothing left standing.
The tunnels took 20 months to build and are on the 3 layers. 15,18 and 23 meters. The ground is clay so was perfect for this. We climbed down through one of the 13 entrances which they have put electricity in for some light now. Each family there had a small alcove the size of a single bed . Quiet amazing that they lived like this for 6 years. We walked through several different tunnels which I had to stoop for. Felt sorry for the Dutch couple - he was 6'8 and she was about 6' 3 . ( so Colleen and Peter not a place for you 2 to visit maybe:)
There was a small museum there and a local guy pointed to photo of a baby which was him who was born in the tunnels. Apparently there was about 23 babies born there.
From the tunnels we headed back to the Ben Hai river which was the border between North and South in the DMZ. On each side of the river are massive speaker systems that both sides used for proganda messages to each other . We walked over the bridge there which was painted in 2 colours. Blue for North and yellow for South .
From there we stopped at a war graveyard - many graves marked as unknown soldier. Over 100,000 Vietnamese still listed as missing from the war. Vietnamese did not wear dog tags so very difficult to identify bodies. Even today they still find US bones and tags so they identify but not the same with the locals.
From there we headed back to Dong Ha to drop our guide off and headed back to Hue. Around 360 kms and nearly 12 hours of travelling but got to see some amazing sites and saw things from the other side.
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