DMZ Tour
Trip Start
Dec 01, 2004
1
10
30
Trip End
Apr 08, 2005
Dong Ha,
Vietnam
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Mr. Bin took us to a rubber tree plantation, the sight of an old U.S. Army base, the National Cemetary for North Vietnamese soldiers, and the fighting tunnels of Vinh Moc.
There were acres and acres of rubber trees planted on land that was once dense jungle. The land was potted with bomb craters and had been cleared by napalm. All that was left of the base was one concrete bunker. We listened to stories and asked questions about the Vietnam War. Mr. Bin gave us a lot of information that we did not learn in school or from Hollywood
01 - The Condom Jungle
. At the national cemetery we saw 10,000 graves and one of them belonged to a 12 year boy. He had joined the army at 8 years old. The tunnels in the village of Vinh Moc were used by the villagers as means to avoid U.S. bomb attacks. They had bedrooms, family rooms, meeting rooms, emergency room, maternity ward (17 babies were born underground), toilet, fresh water wells, etc... They were dug out of the dense clay near the ocean during the day and at night the excavated material was dumped in the ocean. They were very small and stuffy. It was hard to believe people lived down there for 8 years.We were brought back to the bus-stop restaurant at about 4 p.m. where we thought we would be boarding our open tour bus. Instead, due to a misunderstanding, we paid for a local bus to Hue.
Gino
