DMZ two day tour - day 2

Khe Sanh Hill Fights, the former US combat base, "The defense of Khe Sanh became one of the largest sieges of the war and commanded heavy international attention in the media one of several climactic phases of the Tet Offensive".
You could picture the battle field as abandoned helicopters and restored bunkers are part of the area. Being a bit lucky I managed to get on one of the remaining C-130 Hercules. What a feeling to be sitting in the those seats..

The C-130 Hercules were used in the Battle of Kham Duc, when the North Vietnamese army forced U.S.-led forces to abandon the Kham Duc Special Forces Camp (Wikipedia).

Inside the Hercules..

Hercules cabin.

C-130 from a distance. You wouldn't tell, but there are corn fields around now..

And now? Now there are coffee plantation and corn fields around. 

Coffee plantation in the former US combat base.

Moving next to the Vinh Moc Tunnels. Unlike the Cu Chi Tunnels serving military campaigns in Saigon, these tunnels were made for survival of around 60 families who lived in the tunnels; as many as 17 children were born inside the tunnels. I was given an opportunity to meet one of the children, a grown up man now, handicapped mentally and physically.

People developed the underground city to avoid the heavy US bombing happening day after day. They could not fight it back so they went hiding, and when on the surface bombs were falling they were laughing at the US army and carried on as usual.

Today all the entrances are well marked and sheltered. In the past it was well covered and extremely well hidden from the US eyes.

Some bombs kept as a memorial, there were tonnes of explosives thrown all over the place.

Air shaft. Well recognized today - totally under cover in the war time.

Communication trails - the most famous one was the Ho Chi Mihn trail. In fact it was around 50 track in pararell, if one was uncovered the Vietkong was making a small detour and creating a new one just next to the old one. This way they ended up with a whole system on paths. Today they are all cold a Ho Chi Mihn Trail.

The organization of the tunnels was incredible, there were kitchen areas, medical rooms, 2 toilets (for few hundreds of people!), food storage, family rooms, etc. There were 13 entry points and even today it is hard to recognize some of them. I could not remember but found it in Wiki: "The villagers initially dug the tunnels to move their village 10 metres underground but the American forces designed bombs that burrowed down 10 metres. Eventually against these odds, the villagers moved the village to a depth of 30 metres". Even though the Americans put much effort in trying to uncover the tunnels they had never found them. How amazing that was to keep it secret and keep hiding all these people for so long!

The food supply point was organized on the island near by. There were boats coming from time to time, parking on the beach and the supplies were carried into the tunnels - I saw at least one entry point on the beach.