Rain and darkness greeted us in Vinh (pronounced “Wing”). This was the first substantial amount of rain on our trip to date and the forecast promised plenty more. The bus ride had left our bodies sore from the incessant twisting and turning of the mountainous roads and we were happy to decline the aggressive offers from the cab drivers. We started walking down the street towards the bus station. Along our walk, we were invited to join a group of friends eating snails and drinking local beer from a keg. We happily obliged and shared a tiny seat at a tiny table using toothpicks to coax tiny snails from their tiny shells. Our ability to speak and understand Vietnamese was still in its infancy and we relied on the international language of facial expressions and gesturing. Vietnam was welcoming us with open arms.
The train station was a 20 minute walk down the rainy sidewalks. We declined several motorcycle taxi rides, which seemed like a soggy proposition in the drizzling rain. Bus and train stations are easily distinguished by the ring of vendors aggressively selling snacks and refreshments. After avoiding the sales pitches, we secured our tickets for the train ride to Hue (pronounced “Way”). The train was departing just 20 minutes after we got our tickets, canceling any dinner plans. Road weary and hungry, we reluctantly climbed onto the train.
The platform had been full of university students returning home from a week of classes and our train was just as crowded. Our seats were constructed of wooden slats and we sat two wide facing another bench that seated two passengers. This resulted in half of the train car facing opposite to the direction of travel. Along the wall of the car was a tiny table about the size of a sheet of paper and provided a valuable asset for catching some sleep later in the trip. The first hour or two was fun and exiting as we sat and talked with the university students. Once they had grown weary for struggling though speaking english to us, we were left with occasionally smiling politely as our eyes met. After two or three stops, only the long distance travelers remained on the train and everyone was jockeying for a comfortable location to try and sleep. A man of 70 (or older) curled his petite frame up on the hard bench, a woman with her two children slept on a mat provided by the train’s staff and another man had cleverly rigged a hammock between two benches and looked the most comfortable by far.
Our slumber would be intermittently interrupted by a strange sound, shaking of the train, a stop at some unknown coastal town or just the inherent stiffness supplied by the wooden bench. Earlier, I had asked the conductor to wake us once we had reached our stop and, luckily, he followed through. We stumbled off the train and into the inky black night of rainy Hue. We found ourselves in an unknown city with no accommodations, disoriented, groggy and extremely uncomfortable at 3:00 am. Our taxi driver took us to a hotel where the night attendant was sleeping in the lobby. Looking as tired as we felt, he showed us to our room and we slipped into a slumber that only a long travel day can offer. Phonsovan, Laos to Hue, Vietnam was truly, a marathon day of traveling.
Hue, Vietnam was once the capital of the ancient Ngyuen Empire. Several dynasties ruled the kingdom from this port town and built impressive monuments that testified to the richness of the land. Arguably the most grand structure is located in the city of Hue. The Citadel is a walled city ringed by a moat 100 feet wide. Bridges allow access across the moat and through a gate. The Citadel is surrounded by a 20 foot tall and 30 foot wide brick wall. An entire city can be found inside the citadel. Clothing stores, restaurants, karaoke clubs and all other typical stores are all within the ancient city. Deeper inside the wall is the Imperial City. A second moat and a second wall restrict access to the royal grounds. Entrance is permitted only through the West gate. Three gates are under the pavilion guarding the entrance. There is one large arched door with two smaller doorways on either side. As is typical with the tombs we would later visit, the center door is only to be crossed by the emperor. 
Nearly 40 years of war have left much of the historical sites in Vietnam damaged, neglected or completely destroyed. This was very much the case with the Imperial City. The royal palace had been completely destroyed and nothing but a foundation remained. This is also true with the gate that stretched in front of the wall that designates the royal family’s living quarters, known as the Purple City. Crumbling walls, foundations of buildings filled the majority of the Purple City. Only remnant structures remained: a covered walkway, the theatre, a reading room and library. We observed some construction that looked like it was aiming at rebuilding the historical structures using traditional techniques standards. The Imperial City was a shadow of its former glory, representing the losses suffered between World War 2 and the end of the American War (referred to in the USA as the Vietnam War).
rulers.
The cold weather and long travel days began to catch up with Stacey. After insisting she wasn’t getting sick, her body told other signs. She ran a fever for two days and was unable to do much other than watch HBO in our comfortable hotel room. I, however, could not escape the nagging reminder of the more recent history this area held… The Vietnam War.
For most of my life, anytime the word “Vietnam” was used it was exclusively in relation to the civil war that America involved itself. In order to get a grasp on the magnitude of the war I signed up for a tour to the demilitarized zone (DMZ), Vinh Moc and the U.S. military base, Khe Sahn.
The van picked arrived at our hotel at 7 a.m. and we ran a circuit through Hue to pick up the other 13 travels that had booked the tour. The DMZ lies about 60 miles to the North of Hue along a road lined with rice patties, brushy forest and tiny little towns built on stilts. Our van delivered us to our start of the tour in Dong Ha. Our guide gave us a brief introduction to the tour and a rough timeline of the day to come. We stopped first at an area where the Ho Chi Minh trail once passed. The trees had succumbed to the proliferation of agent orange and the area consisted of a scrubby forest clawing back from eradication. This location served as an important river crossing along the trail to support North Vietnamese troops in the South during the war.
A couple quick shots of the area and we drove further up the valley to the Khe Sanh U.S. military base. U.S. command knew that NVA soldiers in southern Vietnam must receive all their supplies by land from the North. They constructed Khe Sanh as a forward operating base to disrupt this supply route and choke the southern NVA forces. The terrain to the West (Laos) was mountainous and impassable, forcing the route to the Eastern slope of the mountain range. Combined with US presence between the mountains and sea created a rock and a hard place for the NVA troops supply chain. Khe Sanh saw the most action in 1968 when the NVA attacked with 3 divisions. The base was supplied by cargo planes landing at first, then parachuting food and ammunition in once the fighting became to intense to land. The base was held, with massive air support that flew aggressive bombing missions. The US lost over 500 of the some 6,000 soldiers based at Khe Sanh, while estimates of NVA losses range from 7,000 to more than 15,000. 
Very little remains of the original base. A museum stands near the historic airfield that tells the story of Khe Sanh, written by the NVA perspective. Visitors can walk through a handful of restored trenches and bunkers that American soldiers found shelter from NVA artillery. Most of the structures were looted by locals after the US decommissioned the base, selling the metal for scrap or utilizing it in reconstructing their homes. Coffee plantations now cover much of the former battlefields, restoring life to a once barren land littered with bomb craters. Life appears to have returned to normal, however a visitor to this area can’t help but feel the lasting effects of the conflict that ended two generations ago.
The war displaced thousands, if not millions of Vietnamese. Those who weren’t fighting were often supporting either side through farming, ferrying supplies and providing intelligence on troop movements. Many villages sought refuge from the aerial bombing underground, either in natural caves or manmade tunnels. Vinh Moc tunnels lie on the Northern edge of the DMZ, along the coast of the South China Sea. The tunnels took 18 months to build and reached a depth of over 60 feet, with three main levels. The tunnels were built under the cover of thick bamboo and darkness, while the dirt was dumped into the sea to avoid detection from air reconiscence. Villagers would stay in the tunnels for up to 5 days in alcoves designated for each family. The tunnels were complete with a well, meeting hall and maternity ward in which 17 births occurred. The Vinh Moc tunnels provide a testament to the strength, ingenuity and audacity of the Vietnamese people.
We exchanged dimly lit tunnels for sunlight and started back in our bus to Hue. I heavily reflected on the impacts of the war and the pure struggle that many people here experienced, and continue to experience. Having known nothing but war for so long, Vietnam appears to be finally recovering, both emotionally and economically from years of conflict. Young and old alike have truly made us welcome in this ancient land.
Images from the market in Hue
Images from the market in Hue
