We have just arrived in the central Vietnamese city of
Hoi-An from Hue this morning. Since we are running short on time we have been
trying to squeeze as much as we can into as little time as possible so after
wandering around the Imperial Palace of Hue (pronounced “way”) we followed it
up with a tour of the Vietnam War’s DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) north of Hue.
I will pick up with our train trip from Sapa in the Northern
Hills to Hanoi. Almost predictably it didn’t quite work out as planned;
actually it didn’t work out at all. The train was fully booked and we were forced to
take a sleeper bus to Hanoi. The road was twisted and bumpy and consequnetly sleep was sparse
by the time we arrived in the bus station on the outskirts of Hanoi on Tuesday (20th Nov)
morning. However despite the difficulties we were endeavored to continue on to Hue. After a few bus trips between three different Hanoi bus
stations, we at last found a sleeper bus that was plying its route down Highway
1 between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City with Hue on route and pulling out at 8.00am we were on “our way
to Hue”.
The sleeper buses have fully reclining seats on which you can lie
flat out on so they are quite comfortable. This in combination with our route
down the main arterial route of the country should have meant a very
comfortable and quick trip, or so we thought. First problem is the road; Highway
1 is not really a Highway at all, more like just your average two lane road
with a very poor surface and lots of slow moving traffic making overtaking
difficult. It also appears to be impossible to go more than 30km without coming
across some sort of road works. Next problem is the buses; despite looking
reasonably modern from the outside they don’t seem to be capable of going more
than 60km/h (mph) and the shocks don’t appear to exist either so the bus
wallows its way along even the smoothest sections of the much vaunted Highway 1.
The advice we had received on the journey time was about 12 hours, but we had
heard as little as 11 hours and as much as 16. Experience told us 16 hours
would be the most likely, but we were dumped off in central Hue at 1.30am, a full 17 and a half hours after pulling out of Hanoi!
Sitting on the banks of the Perfume River (Song Huong), Hue
is the old imperial capital of Vietnam. It was established by the Nguyen
dynasty and rose to prominence at the start of 19th century ruling much
of Indochina and filled the void left by the crumbling the Khmer Empire. They
built their imposing Citadel and Forbidden city within on the north bank of the
river in 1804 and changed the name of the city from Phu Xuan to Hue, thus
becoming the capital of Vietnam. With the arrival of the French in 1858, the
tried and tested colonial method of retaining a monarch to rule the local
populace while the colonial masters received the economic benefits of the
region’s trade was employed, so the Nguyens were allowed to stay in their palace
and rule by the French. The Nguyens downfall when it came, lay not with the foreigners,
but within the city itself when Hue’s most famous son Ho Chi Minh starting
resisting imperialist rule under the flag of Communism. The royal days of rule
in Vietnam were numbered and they abdicated in 1945 and the capital was moved
to Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh city) in the south. In the war years Hue and the Citadel were also the scene of a bloody battle during the Tet offensive in 1968
and much of the palace and its grounds were destroyed by American bombs. The
citizens of the city also endured a tough time during this period as thousands deemed to be Southern sympathisers were killed in a
wholesale slaughter by the occupying NVA (North Vietnamese Army).
From our hotel on the south bank on Wednesday (21st Nov) we wandered across the
river towards the Citadel. The Citadel is a huge fort and Inside lies the Imperial enclosure which is also
surrounded by a huge brick wall and moat. Within this enclosure is the royal
residence full of palaces, temples, gardens canals and of course the Forbidden
Purple City where the emperor spent his days. A fair bit of imagination is
required for the Purple City as much of it was destroyed and overgrown. Although
never fear the restorers are here! The whole area is now a hive of activity
with people, cutting, fixing, hammering and painting the enclosure back to its
former grandeur. At the end of the war, the Communist government decided that it
was a feudal relic and left the ruins to be swallowed by the vegetation. But soon
they saw the benefits from a growing tourism industry and this coupled with
little encouragement from neighbouring governments, they are now keen on restoring
the former building and grounds. And they would appear to be making a pretty
good job of it so far, with the Hall of Supreme Harmony being the most
impressive piece of restoration on view.
We then went in search of a few pagodas which, had been
touted as a tourist attraction but proved to be pretty disappointing. However,
we came across an old market which in Asian terms is nothing special had the usual fruits, meat
and trinkets on sale, but had at least one other unique product over other
countries: coffee. Oh yes, the Vietnamese love their coffee and they like it strong, but
this is no ordinary coffee. One day in Vietnam a man’s pet weasel ate his coffee
beans. Without his morning coffee the man was getting caffeine withdrawal
symptoms and when the beans passed through the weasel, in his desperation he
decided to fish out the beans from the poo and make himself a cuppa. He decided
that it was the tastiest coffee he ever had, so did his neighbours and soon the
whole country was feeding weasels their coffee beans. So the weasel poo coffee was for sale at the market and a vendor was trying to entice me with a
whiff. To be honest it smelled super strong but great, however despite the
vendor instigating a bout of bargaining with me, where he halved his price
without me saying a word I wasn’t tempted in the slightest!
Thursday (22nd Nov) was Thanksgiving and I thought a tour of the DMZ
would be a great way to celebrate it. My wife didn’t think seeing the sights of
a war where America was defeated and roundly criticised for their methods of
warfare was the best way to celebrate the festival. However time was of the
essence in this trip and we couldn’t wait another day, so my long suffering
(yes, after only a year and half she is long suffering!) and I were off to the
DMZ. Like many people of my age, much of my knowledge of the Vietnam War is
based around Vietnam War films, many of which have been become part of our
popular youth culture. Completely aware that the War was not just about the
banter and relationships of young men set in a Purple Haze to the Soundtrack of
the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix and that some fierce fighting and terrible atrocities
took place, I was keen to see some of the sights. So we took off on our packed
tour bus for the DMZ.
After the French defeat in Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam was divided
along the 17th parallel with the communist government in the North
and a capitalist president, Ngo Dinh Diem in the South. President Diem, who was backed by the West, was a stubborn and
unpopular leader and refused to hold elections, which
would have undoubtedly reunified Vietnam under a communist government. The area
around the Ben Hai river became the dividing line between the two
administrations and the north started opposing the south by establishing and
supplying a Southern Guerilla Communist movement, the VC (Viet Cong). The NVA
attempted an invasion in 1964 and fearing the domino effect, America stepped in
on behalf of the southern government to oppose both the NVA and the VC. After initially
appearing to stabilise the south, the 1968 Tet offensive turned the war on its
head. The NVA and VC initially made huge advances but they couldn’t hold their
ground and the US force actually regained all lost territory. However by this
time the propaganda war had already been lost and many Americans were questioning
the point of their involvement. Soon America was reducing their involvement and
in 1973 they withdrew completely. Without the American support the days of the
Southern Government were numbered and it all ended in 1975 when the Northern
tanks crashed through the gates of the Presidential Palace. Vietnam was once
again reunited under Communist Rule.
Our tour took us around the sights and battlefields of the
DMZ, which was the area around the former border that saw a lot of action
during the war. The tour was long with a
lot of driving between the various sights including the Ho Chi Minh trail and
cemeteries but the highlight was the Khe Sanh Combat base and the Vinh Moc
tunnels. Khe San was an American base high in the mountains close to the Laos
border. It was initially supplied by road, but this was cut off by the NVA, so
it could only be supplied by air. It
then came under fierce attack from the NVA and was besieged for 5 months. It
had all the making of another Dien Bien Phu, but the American army put in
massive resources into reopening the supply road and managed to lift the siege.
As this occurred, however the Tet offensive was triggered and with American resources
concentrating on Khe Sanh siege, the cities in the South were under defended and
many easily came under temporary communist control. After the Tet offensive, the
Khe Sanh Base was immediately forgot about by both sides and both American and
NVA force left the area by the summer of 1968. At the base today there is a
museum with a comically biased portrayal of the battle as some sort of glorious
victory for the NVA. There are also restored American bunkers, tanks,
helicopters and even a supply plane, it was quite interesting although being
part of a tour group we had less than an hour to look around. It was soon back
on the bus on the road again.
The Vinh Moc tunnels were built by the villagers as air raid
shelters from American bombs. The village lying just across the border in the
North was bombed relentlessly by America as it was supplying an Anti-Aircraft
battery disrupting American missions to Hanoi. There is a huge network of
tunnels, the deepest going down 15 metres to protect from the American drilling
bombs. We got to walk through the tiny tunnels where the villagers spent up to
five days continuously continuing life as normal, equipping the tunnels with a
school and even a maternity room. It was certainly a testament to the
resilience of the villagers that they stayed on in such conditions but
apparently the military tunnels south of Ho Chi Minh City are even smaller and
the soldiers of the VC spent much longer underground.
Once the tour was over, we were back in Hue for
Thanksgiving dinner. No of course not a real one, we had to make do with
pumpkin soup and a burger! The beer is cheap super cheap in Hue,
costing nothing. Yes, nothing! Our hotel was giving out free beer during happy hour, 6 glasses I
had, absolutely free! Beat that!
Today we made our way further south to the old port city of
Hoi An and because my wife could not stomach another 17+ hour bus journey lurching our way along Highway1 we will fly from here to Hanoi in two days time. Where along with the capital’s
sights, we still have to squeeze in a tour of the world famous Halong Bay!
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