An early start this morning for quite a long trip to Hoi An. Have to cover about 280 kms which does not sound far but the roads are poorly maintained here and travel is slow. We were looking forward to today as this part of the trip covered the jungle and the mountains of the infamous and ingenious Ho Chi Minh trail. As an avid reader of books relating to the American – Vietnam War this area was of particular interest to me as I would finally get to see in real life what I had read about.

First stop was the Dak To battlefield. Had a look at the two Russian tanks which took part in Dak To battle also known as the summer of fire. This was one of the fiercest battlefield of the Central Highlands and the strongest base of the USA during the war time.

The Battle of Đắk Tô was a series of major engagements of the American-Vietnam War that took place between 3–22 November 1967, in Kontum Province, in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. The action at Đắk Tô was one of a series of Peoples Army of Vietnam (PAVN) offensive initiatives that began during the second half of the year. North Vietnamese attacks in this and neighboring provinces became known as "the border battles."

During the summer of 1967, heavy contact with PAVN forces in the area prompted the launching of Operation Greeley, a combined search and destroy effort by elements of the US Army's Infantry and Airborne Brigades, along with the Army of the Republic of Vietnam's 42nd Infantry Regiment and Airborne units. The fighting was intense and lasted into the fall, when the North Vietnamese seemingly withdrew.

By late October, however, U.S. intelligence indicated that local communist units had been reinforced and combined into the 1st PAVN Division, which was tasked with the capture of Đắk Tô and the destruction of a brigade-size U.S. unit. Information provided by a PAVN defector provided the allies a good indication of the locations and intentions of North Vietnamese forces. This intelligence prompted the launching of Operation MacArthur, and brought the units back to the area along with more reinforcements from the ARVN Airborne Division. The battles that erupted on the hill masses south and southeast of Đắk Tô became some of the hardest-fought and bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War.

About 5km south of Dak To is Charlie Hill. The hill was a fortified South Vietnamese stronghold before the VC tried to overrun it. The South Vietnamese officer in charge, Colonel Ngoc Minh, decided that he would neither surrender nor retreat and the battle became a fierce fight to the death. Unusually for a guerrilla war, this was a prolonged battle. The VC laid siege to the hill for 1 ½ months before they managed to kill Colonel Minh and 150 South Vietnamese troops, who had made their last stand here. Although largely forgotten in the West, the battle is well known, even now, in Vietnam, The reason for this is largely because the fight was commemorated by a popular song, 'Nguoi 0 Lai Charlie' (The People Stayed in Charlie). Not surprisingly, the hill was heavily mined during the war and is still considered unsafe to climb.

The Ho Chi Minh Trail was used by the North Vietnamese as a route for its troops to get into the South. They also used the trail as a supply route – for weapons, food and equipment. The Ho Chi Minh Trail ran along the Laos/Cambodia and Vietnam borders and was dominated by jungles. In total the 'trail’ was about 1,000 kilometres in length and consisted of many parts. The ‘trail’ consisted of dummy routes that served the only purpose of confusing the Americans but was, in places, 80 kilometres wide. It is thought that up to 40,000 people were used to keep the route open. The natural environment gave the trail excellent cover as the jungle could provide as much as three canopies of tree cover, which disguised what was going on at ground level. The American response to this was to use defoliants – the most famous being Agent Orange – to kill off the greenery that gave cover to those using the trail. However, while large areas of jungle were effectively killed off, the task was too great and the Ho Chi Minh Trail was used for the duration of the war against the Americans in South Vietnam.

As we travelled along the narrow road which is now a small part of this infamous trail it is hard to believe the carnage that took place here. Clearly the "dummy routes" still exist because our driver managed to get lost several times!!

We got to see Charlie Hill from the toilet block of a roadside petrol station.......not exactly what we were expecting as part of our tour. Got to take a quick photo before being rushed back into the car by our guide. Not sure what the rush was but he said something about police being around??? Is this still a sensitive place.......I’m not sure as our guide was obviously reluctant to tell us anything. I guess my biggest question was why offer a tour and then not tell the paying customers about what they are seeing???

We seemed to spend most of the day taking wrong turns but neither the driver nor guide told us anything.....perhaps they thought we would not notice we were going back and forward along the same stretch of road before finally turning onto another road!!!!

Stopped for lunch at another small roadside cafe where we were offered the choice of beef and rice....or rice and beef!!! We really did not care as we know that after today we will be spoilt for choice in Hoi An.

Continued driving and getting lost passing through mountains seeing rice paddies along the way......so much for the itinerary given to us by the tour company. By midafternoon I asked the guide when we would be seeing the Cham tower as I had a feeling we were getting closer to our destination. You can imagine my surprise when he said we would not be seeing this site as the roads had been too rough......Hello.....what did I pay for???? By this stage I was SO angry I could barely speak. How dare the tour company fail to honour its own itinerary – I will be telling everyone to avoid this company and not have their holiday spoilt by the biggest scam I have encountered in Vietnam. So to anyone reading this blog avoid using DalatTrip. (www.dalattrip.com) Find another company or plan it yourself and save a fortune.

Arrived in my beloved Hoi An at about 4.30pm and got dropped off at our hotel. Could not wait to see the back of the guide and driver who have managed to ruin the first part of our holiday BUT never fear we will now be able to enjoy the second part of our holiday – I have organised this myself and am confident that everything will be fine from now on.

Live and learn......I guess that is the best I can say I have taken away from this tour. Look forward to my next blog where I will be able to make you green with envy when you see the wondrous beauty that is Hoi An.

Bye for now. xxx