Dakrong Bridge Vietnam

The current Dakrong Bridge was built in 1975 after reunification. Just west of the main DMZ zone, the bridge was considered the beginning of the Ho Chi Minh Trail network and during the years of conflict with the United States, this access point was hotly contested. The Dakrong Bridge fell many times.

On the edge of the bridge the HCM trail is marked.

The Ho Chi Minh Trail is a concept, not a road. The trail was a vast network, spread across hundreds of miles of terrain extending far into the interior of Laos, a broad avenue of hundreds of kilometres of trails that brought supplies to North Vietnamese troops, usually on the backs of porters or with giant loads precariously perched on overlaid bicycles. You might call it "the path of least resistance," or the "road less bombed or occupied," really. The trail starts in Quang Tri Province, basically anything from the Dakrong Bridge south.Read more