A Light at the End of the Tunnel

Watch out or you might find yourself victim of the aggressive ladies who throw their heavy fruit baskets on your shoulder in the middle of the streets of Hanoi. "Photo. Money" strikes again.
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So, no more buses for now. We decided to take the overnight train from Hanoi to Hue, about 430 miles south of Hanoi. We had a four-person soft-bedded sleeper, which ended up being one of the best nights of sleep we've had the entire trip! Shared it with an Italian couple who were none too pleased with the idea of us partying in our cabin of the train with Ryan and Kelly, so it was an early night, even though there was a group of 70-year old French people two doors down that were well up into the night with about a dozen bottles of wine (not your average French wine) bought from Hanoi. Not too many vineyards in the good ol' capital of Hanoisy.

6-way intersection - no light, no stop sign, no police officer, no rules, only guts.
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Asleep by 12 AM, we arrived in Hue by 10:30 the next morning. The noisy rocking of the train that lulled us to sleep was halted by a Vietnamese lady poking us and pulling covers off us to get up. We even missed breakfast, the sleep was so deep. It was refreshing to get off the train after 12  hours, though. What a beautiful city Hue is! Fresh off the train, Kevin and I checked into a hotel in the heart of the town and rented a motorbike (gulp). Hue is a University town, so it is filled with young people on bikes going to and from school. It's a flash of white as the Vietnamese high school kids ride their bicycles through the streets, the girls in their long white silk outfits and the boys in their crisp white shirts and red ties. Crossing one of the bridges, we observed that the landscape looked somewhat like Cape Cod, with the green marshes strewn throughout the rivers. The city's former name was Thanh Hoa, spawning from the word hoa, meaning 'peace' or 'harmony.' Hue really is just that.

Guys! Guys, are you there?! Just tell us if you're there!

No picture can grasp this situation, as we sit on a balcony for a few hours and watch the madness.
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Kevin and I somehow managed, between his iffy gear-shifting ("It's the bike"), to make it to the Citadel, where we saw the Palaces, Holy Cannons and the Forbidden Purple City, amongst other famous landmarks of the city. The Forbidden Purple City was almost entirely destroyed during the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War, so it really was just an endless field of what was once beautiful temples and buildings. You had to close your eyes to try to envision what it used to look like. Pretty much the only thing which was still intact was the Emperor's Reading Quarters (which was redone in 1993, of course).

Holly had to take a break from the local food and have fried frog legs, yum.
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Kevin was dying to get to the DMZ Zone (the Demilitarised Zone), which is essentially where the majority of the battles took place in the Vietnam War, so we headed north of Hue the next day via bus. Upon arrival in Dong Ha, we were picked up by two guys on motorbikes, who would be our guides for the rest of the day. A lot of people take large tourist buses to check out the sites, but private motorbike tours are the way to go because they will take you places people can't even walk through. We lucked out because our guide served in the South Vietnamese army under orders of the US military, so we got information that not just any regular guide could give. Most of the sites that we visited, he was either personally there in the war (in South Vietnam) or knew directly what was going on via attacks to the places we visited in North Vietnam. Pretty amazing (and quite haunting) stuff.

Nothing like cheap wine and beer to get you through a 12 hour night train.... remind you of anything Erin.
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One of our first stops was a site in the middle of the forest where a 1000 kilo    B-52 bomb hit ground (about as half as big as some bombs dropped - some dropped were up to 2000 kilos). The guide said that there would be one every three feet, but this one was left as "evidence of war" when all the others have been filled in for agriculture. It was like a massive crater on the moon. I was actually expecting a bunch of these craters all over everywhere we went, but the reality is that they had to pick up and move on with their lives just as much as the US would have to if our land was devasted as much as theirs by war. Around the crater, rubber trees were planted in perpectly parellel rows for miles. All rubber trees grown in Vietnam are simply run by the Communist government and no private company can run a private rubber tree farm. That's just an example that, although Vietnam does have a captalistic economy, Communism is still right there in your face.

It was one of the best nights of sleep we have had, literally had to be dragged out of bed.
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Next stop was Con Thien Firebase, this is where our guide was based during the war. This was base that was placed along the DMZ line as a part of many bases running from the border of Laos (on the West coast) to the China Sea on the East coast in order to stop the shipment of supplies by the North Vietnamese via the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Con Thien held about 10,000 troops consisting of US and South Vietnamese military. It was very interesting to sit at the top of the ridge looking out from the one remaining concrete bunker with our guide as he pointed out the areas that everything was located in the base (e.g. headquarters, medical tent, mess hall, lounge tent, air strip, helicopter pads, etc.) Also to help our vision, he pointed to the orange clay from the foot path that we walked up and said, "Imagine this was all that you could see around you because there was not one piece of vegetation within eyesight." This firebase was a site of one of the most major open battles in the war, done to set up the Tet Offensive of 1968, essentially the turning point in the war. Taking the long walk up to this last remaining bunker was pretty intense, thinking about all the people who had fought during the war in this same area and envisioning nothing but clay dirt surrounding what was now peaceful green rolling hills. The deteriorating concrete bunker seemed out of place in the midst of this green tranquility.

Luxury accomodations in the sleeper train.
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Truong Son National Cemetary was pretty overwhelming. It is lined with thousands of Vietnamese soldier's graves with candles and incense burning on each one in tribute. Reading the dates on the graves, I was shocked that there was a grave for a 14-year old boy who was in the Vietnamese Army. Our guide said that sometimes they were even younger than that. There were statues all over the Cemetary, and it was interesting to see all the Vietnamese Army women statues (although their "female assets" were not quite the normal proportion, Kevin happened to notice). It is amazing to think of all the women, civilians and even children that fought in the war on the Vietnamese side.

At least we got the soft bed.
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Lunch consisted of noodles and squid on the shore of Cua Tung Beach. It was interesting how, while we were sipping Sprite and bottled water with our noodles, our drivers were sitting at another table going shot-for-shot with rice whiskey. This might explain why, as soon as Kevin and his guide got on their bike, they only made it about 100 yards away from the restaurant before I see them crash and burn into a cloud of bright red dust. Kevin and this little Vietnamese man are spooning on the ground in a pile of clay, lodged underneath a motorbike and all you could do was... laugh and take pictures. (Hey, they were ok, although Kevin does still complain about a certain pain in his achilles tendon and "claims" something about a "flesh wound").

The good ol' Reunification Express train system.
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The most horrifying part of the entire tour, well, besides praying desperately for my survival on the back of a motorbike behind a crazy driver who had minutes before been taking shots of rice whiskey at lunch, were the Vinh Moc tunnels. During a massive aerial and artillery bombardment of North Vietnam by the US in 1966, the people of Vinh Moc found themselves living in "one of the most heavily bombed and shelled strips of land on the planet." Villagers either fled the town or began tunnelling with their bare hands into the ground for cover. What came of this was an underground base built by the Viet Cong, encouraging Vietnamese villagers to stay, helping to dig and live in the tunnels. There are 2.8 km of underground tunnels that tourists can explore and we were some of the lucky ones able to do it that day. I skipped to the opening of those tunnels without a care in the world. What's the worst thing that could go wrong? Well, these tunnels have never been re-done for tourists (especially the size as Westerners), so I guess you could say that they are the real deal. Let's just say that Kevin was crouched over half-way the entire time, both his shoulders touching the sides of the walls in most areas. The only people in the tunnels at the time we entered were us, the two Dutch people with us, our guide, and, well, us. And the dark. And the walls that were suddenly closing in on me as I descended the first flight of stairs down into the deep dark abyss of the tunnel. I have not been acquainted with claustrophobia until this point in my life and man, it came on strong. I got so overwhelmed with it, I couldn't breathe and felt like my lungs were going to explode. I tried to run out of the abyss, but there were people behind me and you can't get around other people, the tunnel is so narrow. I was able to get through and make it back to the top of the stair where I started hyperventilating, sitting at the top step, not running out of the tunnel for fear that I might pass out before I made it out. Brought to tears by claustrophobia, Kevin came to my aid (starting to feel some tinges of claustrophobia himself - I guess other people freaking out can spawn your own fears) as well as a mentally handicapped old local man who came up behind me in the dark with a flashlight (in hopes to make some money). This might have been the worst thing that could have happened! I was trying to talk myself out of the walls caving in on me and this man would not stop touching me and drooling on my shoulders in the pitch black tunnel. After some coaxing, Kevin got the man to leave and I, miraculously, was able to pull it together. We had told our group to move on, so Kevin and I were left with our own tiny little flashlight and no guide. I didn't want Kevin to not be able to see the tunnels, so I gathered myself and we set off (alone) through the tunnels. As long as we were talking and distracting ourselves with taking pictures, I was A-OK. "Guys! Guys, are you there?! Just tell us if you're there! " we were yelling through the maze of the tunnels looking to find our guide and the Dutch couple. There are not too many signs in the Vinh Moc tunnels. You're pretty much on your own, but we were able to hear the echos of their voices and meet back up with them. Thankfully, there are a few areas throughout the tunnels where it opens out into the world again and you're greeted by the glorious breeze of fresh sea air. I don't think I could have gone through the Vinh Moc tunnels without these openings. There was a bomb shelter in the tunnels that was over 100 feet deep into the depths of the ground. How people could live underground like this with bombs going off all around is beyond me. We were only under there for 20 minutes. It is absolutely my worst nightmare (Mom, I think you would have to agree).

Hue looking a little bit like Cape Cod in the marsh area.
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Our last stop, still shaky from the tunnels and now even more nervous about the shaky motorbikes on the highway, was an old US military tank. Taking pictures of the tank, to our left was a huge field scattered with yellow and purple flowers. Looked like a pretty pleasant place. Apparently, the field had not yet been cleared of (still active) land mines and ordinances that did not explode on impact during the war. There was no sign, warning - nothing. Our guide was bewildered when we told him that the military tank would only draw people to look further, not warn them that there might be military stuff beyond it. He said that animals are blown up by the mines every once and a while. I just hope no curious tourists or people hunting for scrap metal venture too far.

View of the Perfume River from our motorbike.
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A beautiful ride back from the DMZ through the flourescent green rice paddies lit by the orange setting sun. A lot of sites seen, still a tight feeling in the chest, could only be the strain of claustrophobia. So very memorable and well worth it, a lot to think about on our slow bus ride back to Hue.