The DMZ

Another early start for us this morning! Our hotel kindly allowed us to order some breakfast before we left at 7am for our bus ride and tour up to the old de-militarised zone between then North and South Vietnam. The morning was spent heading up to Dong Ha where we picked up our tour guide, a lady called Thu, before continuing up to part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and seeing the river which was used to transport weaponry from the North to the South. Then we went to the remains of the Khe Sanh American Military base which has been converted into a museum. It contains some helicopters, tanks and planes used in the war as well as rebuilt old bunkers. As we were wandering around we saw a bride and groom having wedding photos taken which seemed slightly strange...
Our next stop was an ethnic minority village, the bus pulled over at the side of the road next to a few wooden-stilted houses with children and animals outside. We were expected to go and take photos of this, but most on the tour felt this was an invasion of privacy and unnecessary.
After a particularly unspectacular lunch but a good chance to catch up with some of the others on the tour, we were back on the bus and heading to the Vịnh Mốc tunnels. These are a network of hand dug tunnels just under 2km long which go down in three levels to a maximum of 30 metres with multiple entrances and exits. Inside the tunnels there were small holes 2m x 2m for each family to live, a maternity room, a meeting room, wells and one toilet. The tunnels were used for around 6 years to hide from the American bombing and families could hide out for up to 5 days at a time. Ducking through these tight spaces made us realise how difficult and cramped it must have been.
Our last stop was a war cemetery built on the remains of an American firebase with 3000 graves, most of which were unnamed, being told this is one of the smaller cemetery's of its time just brought home how many lives were lost.
Back in Hué we booked our bus for tomorrow, not an early start for once! Then settled on another great Indian for dinner. We met a couple who have been traveling for 11 months so far, they had some great stories and they gave us some good advice (especially regarding India).Read more