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War history in Hue
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James here.
After surviving the crazy cyclo ride to the train station, we set out to our next destination city on the Central Coast by the name of Hue. After traveling several months, you would think that we were used to all different modes of transportation. However, it was our first sleeper train and we were a little surprised by it. The sleeping cabin had six beds stacked three high on each side. The train was not the cleanest and we found out that there was no place to sit except for in our bunks, however we did not have enough room to sit upright on the bunk. We worried about storing our big backpacks but luckily we stashed them up top and the other locals in our cabin were friendly. (We had read in our guide book about how it is important to guard your bags, so we were fortunate to find friendly locals in our cabin and felt safe). A small local lady even gave us some tangerines. I slept for most of the ride, but Tris was a little restless and felt like numerous times the train was about to derail. We survived the 13 hour ride and made it to Hue. Before the train departed the station a man gave me a business card for his hotel in Hue and had me give him my name so that we could get picked up from the station. For the first time in my life, I got to the train station and saw my name on a whiteboard held up by a local. I felt pretty important and the hotel was actually nice so we ended up staying there.
Hue is known as one of Vietnam's cultural, religious, and educational centers. It was the political capital from 1802 to 1945 under the 13 emperors of the Nguyen dynasty. After looking around the town a little, we decided to visit some of the sights. The cheapest way to see all the main sites is by taking a motorbike tour. Needless to say, based on Tris' fears, we passed on that option. Instead we rented a taxi to take us to 3 main attractions. It worked out really well since the car had A/C and it was another hot day.
Our first sight that we visited was the Tomb of Tu Duc. He was one of the emperors in the early 1800's and the tomb complex was festooned with frangipani and pine trees and even had a small lake. It was quite impressive, but the heat really distracted us after a while.
The next site we went to see was the Thien Mu Pagoda. This is one of the most famous sites in the area and the home pagoda (pagoda is essentially a temple) of Thich Quang Duc who publicly burned himself to death on the streets of Saigon in 1963 to protest the policies of Ngo Dinh Diem (South Vietnam's non-Communist president). The car that he got out of before lighting himself on fire is displayed on the premises.
The last sight we saw was the massive citadel along the Song Huong River. It was badly damaged during the war, yet some of the buildings still remain inside the 20 foot high wall that is 2.5 kilometers long. Within the Imperial Enclosure is the Forbidden Purple City which was reserved exclusively for the emperor and the only servants allowed inside were eunuchs. Good things times have changed and we got to look around the impressive structure. It is interesting trying to imagine what it would have been like back in its prime with elephants wandering about and other important events happening.
Before coming to Vietnam, Tris and I read a book about the war that was written by a woman who was a child at the time and who was burned by a napalm bomb. She became quite notorious because of a war picture that was taken of her immediately after she was burned, and this photo is the cover of the book. Despite the tragedy of the story and the devastating effects of the war and what followed in Viet Nam, it is a powerful story of survival and resilience. We found it really valuable to do some reading about Viet Nam's history before coming to the country and it definitely helped prepare us for a tour we did of the DMZ (demilitarized zone). It was a full day tour and we got on the bus at 6am and drove two hours outside of Hue to start our tour. After Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh forces overran the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu, the Geneva Accords of mid-1954 provided a temporary division between the north and south of Vietnam at the Ben Hai River. The DMZ consisted of an area 5 km on either side of the this river which was the demarcation line between the north and south, and extended 100 kilometers east to west ending at the border of Laos. The DMZ was intended to be a zone where no fighting was allowed, however when the Americans came to Viet Nam, the DMZ did not remain completely war-free.
Our guide for the tour was a 50 year-old native of Hue, living just outside the DMZ, who was only 7 years old at the beginning of the war. The area was highly volatile and many bombs were dropped here according to our guide. He made an interesting comment about the American soldiers stationed in the area. He said that there were some good soldiers and some bad soldiers. He said he can remember playing soccer with some of the US troops and that there were many soldiers who did not want to be there, but he also said that the area was so heavily bombed that his family moved farther south to try and find shelter from all the bombs. We crossed the Ben Hai River and got a good view of the old bridge on our way to the Vinh Moc Tunnels.
These tunnels are only a small portion of many that were built by the people for protection from the onslaught of bombing that would happen near their homes over the years of the war. Many tunnels were destroyed and people killed in them, but the Vinh Moc tunnels survived.
People did not live in them continuously for 4 years, but about 300 people would gather in the tunnels during bomb raids. They took about 18 months to complete the tunnel system which had 3 different levels and about 13 different entry points readily accessible for people to enter from working on the fields when danger struck. The tunnels were equipped with little alcoves for families to gather and it even had a maternity room where 17 children were born in the tunnels. Sometimes, the people would be down in the tunnels for long periods of time and they did their cooking down there and even had a school room but only 1 bathroom! (at least that's what we were told) We got to go down into the tight quarters and experience the tunnels firsthand. It was a tight squeeze in some areas and very difficult to see even with some lanterns posted along the way. Definitely not a place for anyone who is claustrophobic.
After exploring the caves, we went to view a portion of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Before we got there, we stopped to view Rock Pile Mountain which was a lookout point for US troops. Helicopters would land atop the hill in hopes to see North Vietnamese soldiers and they also used radio signals to detect movement of the enemy. According to our guide, the famous Hamburger Hill was about 100 kilometers away. He also told us that the surrounding hills in this area were heavily dosed with Agent Orange to destroy the thick jungle cover in an attempt by the US to be more easily spot enemy troops. Many people in the area are still experiencing the effects of the hazardous chemicals and birth defects are not uncommon even today, 3 generations later. We then got to see a portion of the Ho Chi Minh trail which has been converted into the paved Ho Chi Minh Highway. This trail was created in 1973, after the American troops left, as a more direct access to the south.
Our last stop on the tour was to visit Khe Sanh Combat Base. It was a US military base perched on a plateau and home to some of the war's most intense fighting. The US forces set up the base to keep the North Vietnamese from invading from the Ho Chi Minh trail from Laos. The base had a couple bunkers and old military aircraft used during the war. There was a transport Army helicopter and an attack Air Force helicopter left on the site along with a tank. There was a small museum established by the Communist government and it definitely did not represent the US in the best light (it was very pro-North Vietnamese fighters).
Overall, it was a long day but it was educational and interesting. It is one thing to read about the Vietnam War, but it really moves you in a different way when you see the former battle sites and remnants left from the war. We really enjoyed the tour.
Latest Comments (2)
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book club (reply)
Apr 17, 2008 08:07 EST by andersontravel
i am so in on the book club. i am hooked on reading...i think i am in the midst of book #40 for the year! the book about vietnam was called 'the girl in the picture: the story of Kim phuc, the photograph, and the vietnam war' by kim chong. in case you want to keep educating yourself about the tragedies of ugly times in history, another quick read but really good is called 'first they killed my fat... show all
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Wow... (reply)
Apr 16, 2008 10:56 EST by lizandtrev
This is facinating, friends. When you have a chance, can you please send me the title of the book you read? Maybe we can have book club across the miles. James, good job keeping our sweet amiga off the motorbikes for safety sake! Talk to you both soon.
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