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..

DMZ two day tour - day 1

What was a DMZ?
A DEMILITARIZED ZONE was a piece of land that was established by the Geneva Conference (July 20, 1954) theoretically ending the war between the French and the independence movement of the French states, including Vietnam. The independence was granted to Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam,
DMZ was a boundary established at Ben Hai River (5 km to each side) to separate Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the North (pro communist) and Republic of Vietnam in the South (pro democratic), declared as a demilitarized zone with both government troops barred from this area.



the Peace Bridge captured on the photograph, before it was destroyed with the UN bombing



The Bridge was rebuilt, but not in its exact position. The new bridge was built just next to the remainings of the old one. Nowadays the Vietnamese government wants to bring back the original bridge so it is possible there will be two bridges over Ben Hai river soon.

A model of the DMZ, picture taken in the DMZ museum. You can see a highway #9, Ho Chi Mihn Trail and many more.



Under the terms of the Geneva Accords, civilians were to be given the opportunity to move freely between the two provisional states for a 300-day period. It was meant to end with 1956 elections, which never came to play. South Vietnam refused to take part in "free elections" questioning the ability of the Communist North of being able to held really free elections. This followed with an independence declaration from the South, rejecting the Geneva Accords and declaring South Vietnam to be independent state. This is foreseen as a culmination of American policy to establish am anti-communist state in the region to stop the Kremlin offense of taking the control over whole Indochina region.

More information can be found here : http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/genevacc.htm

I spent 2 full days travelling in the area and watching the remaining after the Vietnam War. And there is lots to see and weep about.

I had the luck of having a private Vietnamese tour guide whose family and himself fought in the war on the southern side. His history and commentary to the Vietnam modern history were unforgettable.

My DMZ tour guide - I will never forget him and his commentary on the history of Vietnam.

 

What will stay in my memory from these two days?

The air shed in Dong Ha, with crack in the walls from bombs, now surrounded with ordinary houses. Completely hidden from the street view for most tourists, only the locals know...

The Rockpile  - the mountain on which Americans carried one of their observation points. Quite inaccessible on the foot, the supply for the troops was carried from the air with helicopters. One cannot climb it today either. Special passes are needed from the government. A pass is around $200 and is usually granted only for American veterans who keep coming back and cry for their friends who never made their return. They don't speak much, just walk around and look and cry. It must be a very difficult emotional trip for them...

The Rockpile - the US Army stationery point

As you can see there are no trees and the nature around is quite poor. This is a reminder after the Americans - the amount of chemicals and TNT they used to clean up the space in order to be able to see anything.. it still has not cleared from the soil..

Vietnam is an amazing country, reach in natural beauty. Imagine what it would have been without all the wars that run through this country in the past centuries.

We went to see one of hundreds of unnamed soldier cemeteries. So many men and young boys were gone and never identified. Looking through names and dates of those identified, the average age was 19/20... It reminded me a lot of Polish history and the similarities between the countries from the was perspective. The sad thing also is that it looks like there is a new way of making money - people who are trying to understand their family roots and find their beloved - they are creating a demand for looking for old papers, war remaining, soldier traces, and what should have been a duty of a state to provide to those families - now certain people are taking advantage of them and charging big money for the "research" services.

Ben Hai River and the Peace Bridge. Very memorable place for all Vietnamese. This is where the border was established and the bridge was like a boundary between two worlds. It was even painted with two colours - painted red for the communist part and the southern portion with yellow. The existing bridge is not the original one, it was rebuilt but not in its exact position after Americans bombed it in 1967. From what I have understood they are going to rebuilt the bridge in its original position.

There were huge megaphones installed on both sides of the river - a remaining of the propaganda war. Each evening the communist propaganda would transmit its news to the southern part. Of course the southern part would response with a similar thing, giving their own news directed to the North. And so the next day the northern side would put a bigger and more powerful megaphone to transmit louder and farther... and so on. There is at least one of those megaphones left there on the northern part, with bullet points in it.. The size of the megaphone is ridiculous even now.

Memorial of the old Peace Bridge - the arch at the old Hien Luong Bridge over the Ben Hai River

A way to Dong Ha - taking a local train, am I being too brave?

So where do I start with this one hmmm.. With the journey maybe. This time it was a day train with hard seats. As it was not convenient to try and get it organized on my own, I booked it through the hotel service desk. It saves you the journey to the station and back and also it makes a taxi booking to get to the station in the same time. Sometimes you have to be smart with managing your time!
OK all I can say about the train it that the experience was sensational. So far I have experienced the overnight buses and trained but never the day one. With hard seats.

Train ticket - note how smart - some agencies are stapling the bottom part where the real price is. Tourist pay a 'tourist price' if booked through an agent.

Unfortunately I have not taken any photos, but I will try and describe as much in details as I can. So first of all the staff at the station were very friendly though not speaking a word in English. As usual, when the time was coming, someone came specifically to tell that the I can move onto the platform. Making sure it was the right one was easy, enough to take the ticket out and someone would start nodding and pointing that I am OK or I need to change. Platform was slowly getting full and some people were trying to make a conversation, limited to few words like "good", "OK", "hello", "where are you from". Being the only white and European on the platform was definitely dragging their attention. Not many times they can see a tourist hoping on a local train!

Train station - you could not tell if it was Vietnam or Poland... for most of the Polish stations would look even less appealing to this.

The carriages were open space with no compartments, hard wooden seats just like in any other very old train. What was different, it was the crates in the windows. I am not joking! There was a full steel crate in each window.That was new to me, coming from country where using the train services can move you back in time to 60-70 of the last century, I have never seen crates on a train.

People were taking their sites, and taking out their food and entertainment stuff on the little tables. It was normal to take the shoes off and start preparing their food. They would have boxes with rice or noodles with some meet and vegetables. I guess you never think of how other nationalities are travelling and in a country like Vietnam, a train journey is no different, but instead of having sandwiches and snack they would bring their own rice/noodles and mix it before eating.

There was also a train food service. A lady with a little trolley where she kept cooked rice with some toppings, drinks and local snacks. Not wanting to take my chances this time I skipped it, grateful for a bottle of water and some nuts I carried with me.
People around me were smiling and offering to share their lunches with him. People rarely smile to each other in Poland and seldom offer to share their food on a journey. How different was to join the Vietnamese train and see how people are happily travelling squeezed in uncomfortable seats, but yet smiling.

The journey wasn't too long, few hours altogether. In Dong Ha I hopped out just to realize that I am in the middle of nowhere. Literally, there was only a small train station and nothing else. One biker was waiting to offer his taxi services but I refused.

After all I knew where I wanted to go, and asking for a general direction was not sounding too difficult.
Coming out from the station I met a man and asked him for directions. Luckily he was one of the hotel owners and he had also DMZ guided tours to offer - ones recommended by Lonely Planet as the best ones.

So he pointed me in the direction of his hotel promising to join me in a short while to see if we can make a deal for DMZ tour.

Window View - DMZ Hotel

Window View DMZ Hotel

And so you see, once again everything was working like I would have never better planned myself.