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'Sorry, this restaurant doesn't do vegetables'
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Arriving in Hue after a horrible bus ride and no sleep at all (anyone traveling Vietnam, I'd recommend paying the extra for the sleeper bus for this journey), i was determined not to waste the day so got myself into the sightseeing mode and booked a motorcycle tour of town (after doing my washing of course! God I'm cool). This took in Thien Mu pagoda, Than Loan Bridge, a french Bunker from the Indo china war, some nice countryside, Tu Ducs tomb and Dien De pagoda. I'll explain the significance of some of these sites, as otherwise its just a list of boring names to you (whereas now it'll be a list of boring explanations to you, oh well, your the ones reading this, its your own fault!).Thien Mu Pagoda is famous for being the place where in 1963 a monk departed in an Austin Motorcar for Saigon, where he publicly burnt himself alive (see rage against the machines first album cover). The car he drove is still here for all to see. Tu Duc was one the emperor of Vietnam from 1848-1883, the longest reigning emperor in fact, and the complex (which he designed himself) is 'set amid fangipani trees and a grove of pines', a fine place to wander around, though not on a day as hot as today. The Thanh Toan bridge is a beautiful piece of architecture, similar in style to that on display in Hoi an, though from my visit its principle use is a place to sleep in the afternoon for locals. The rest of the sites are pretty much just your usual array of pagodas and temples etc. The style of architecture here is similar to that of the Chinese (obviously due to past regimes and the close proximity of china), as opposed to the tacky stucco architecture of the Thai temples, which i don't find very appealing (obviously older temples like the grand palace and the former royal capitals are exceptions there).
Next day was a pretty uneventful one, the main event being that i found i could switch on my air con unit in my room without the remote, so as you only pay for the remote, i could effectively get myself free air con. RESULT.
On my third day in Hue i signed up with a moto driver to do a tour of the DMZ: the demilitarized zone in central Vietnam. Sorry guys, next history is coming here, so stop reading now if you can't be arsed.
The demilitarized zone is the stretch of land 5km either side of the Ben Hai river, which from 1954 to 1975 was like a dividing line between the Republic of Vietnam in the South, and the Democratic republic of Vietnam in the North. Although known as the demilitarized zone, it and its surrounding area were the sites of some of the bloodiest battles of the American war and since 1975, 5000 people have been injured or killed in the area by mines and ordinance. The area itself was vastly bombed by the Americans, and was plastered with claymore mines throughout.
Our first site on the tour was the frame of a church, a dilapidated church in Quang Tri. This was a strategic battle point in taking control of the town and the Vc fought off the American and south Vietnamese troops for 81 days here. There is hardly anything left of the church now, so as a site it isn't much to see, but its quite interesting when you have the history alongside it. Driving on, we turned onto the 'Highway Horros', a 10km stretch of highway so called because alongside it there are 6 official gigantic war cemetaries ( and tons of smaller unofficial ones) housing thousands of graves and tombs of those killed in the wars in the surrounding areas. Even seeing all these graves, its still pretty incomprehensible just how many people died in these battles and wars.
Part of the actual Ho Chi Minh trail was next, which is now just a nice tarmacked stretch of road though it is flanked either side by a dense network of trees, and one gets the impression that during the war these trees would have also covered the road, which i imagine was little more than a dirt track. This is the Famous route that the troops had to use to move from place to place and to transport supplies, as the roads were simply too dangerous due to the ridiculous amount of bombs dropped by America.
Next stop was the Don Meiu fire base, a site of a former battle but now just a statue and then we were onto the Trung son National cemetery. This place is immense. The soldiers are buried in 5 zones, according to where they came from (i.e Hanoi and then north east south and west of Hanoi). I walked into the middle section, saw the four zones around it and thought 'wow, this is pretty huge', then i realsied that i was looking at only part of one of the 5 zones, and in each direction there was an equally big graveyard. It really is hard to comprehend how many people died in these wars.
Next was the showpiece of any of these tours, the Vinh Moc tunnels, which really are an impressive feat of, well engineering i suppose. 2.8 Km of tunnels here took 18 months to build (from 1965 to 67) and range from 15-26 metres in depth. They were used by the Viet Cong up until 1973 and were used by soldiers and families alike: 17 babies were born in the tunnels during this period.
Our lunch stop was at the Cua Tung beach, a fantastic stretch of pristine sand beach lined with seafood restaurants and the Vietnamese equivalent of beach chalets( little open wooden shelters). Knew lunch here was gonna be bad though when the 'seafood' in the restaurant (i.e thew stuff you pick for them to then cook) was floating upside down. I decided there and then seafood wasn't the best option for today so i opted for fried rice and vegetables, only to be told ' sorry, they don't have vegetables here, only rice and seafood' excellent! just rice it is for me then!
That was pretty much the gist of my DMZ tour, and pretty much my day too.
On my final day i did a cycle tour of the citadel, just riding around the outside before going into the inner complex. The citadel was the site of one of the bloodiest battles of the 1968 tet offensive launched by the Viet Cong, and consequently a lot of the original buildings have been destroyed, but it still remains a nice place to stroll around.
In the evening i went for a solitary drink in one of the bars in town, met a few people in there, (Barry, Simon and two danish people:- Sune and Boudi) and ended up having a rather big night and getting rather drunk. On the plus side, i did actually manage to win some pool games, an impressive feat as anyone who's seen me play knows. The Bus ride to Hoi an wasn't the most fun feeling as hungover as i did. aaaw poor me:-(
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| 38. | 'Sorry, this restaurant doesn't do vegetables' - Hue, Vietnam Jun 01, 2007 |
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