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Up at 5:30am for our 6am bus (which didnt actually turn up until 7am) to go to the Demalitarized Zone (DMZ).
The DMZ is the area of land around the Ben Hai River, that seperates the North and South of Vietnam.
The area was the setting of many majow battles during the war and still houses badly bombed areas, bases and there are still hundreds of unexploded mines in the area so you really do have to stick to the path!
First stop was the giant memorial statue of 3 Viet Cong soldiers which was placed there when the war ended.
Next we were taken to the Vinh Moc tunnels. Vinh Moc was originally a small fishing village until they came victims to heavy fire and bombing by the US. Instead of moving away, the decided to literally move underground and built tunnels to live in. There is 14km of tunnels altogether up to 26metres underground and they remain unchanged as we were taken through some of them.
The whole village lived in these tunnels, with little dug out areas for their bedrooms for 6 years with no light, while constantly being bombed from up above - the craters are still easily recognisable. They even had a tiny maternity room where 17 babies were born.
We were then taken along the Ho Chi Minh trail, an old supply route for the Viet Cong Soldiers to get weapons from North to South. It took them 3 months for the soldiers to successfully walk this route, as many died from malaria, diseases and of course hidden land mines.
The trail eventually lead us to the Rockpile, which is a tall mountain where at the very top the American Soldiers were based. You cannot walk up the hill as there are still hidden mines surrounding the whole area, and the only way to get up is by helicopter. We looked on from a distance.
Our last stop was the Khe Sanh cambat base, this site was where one of the bloodiest and most horrific battles of the war was taken place. It still had a crashed helicopter, other choppers and bunkers still in their exact place from when the war ended. In the middle of the area was a small museum which held photo's of the devestation along with a guestbook that had USA war veterans returning for the first time since this day.
A very sad but interesting place to visit and hard to believe that this happened about 30-40 years ago.
We then had our 3 hour bus journey back to Hue, which turned into 4hours as we had to change the wheel half way.
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