Monday, May 7, 2007

Hue (DMZ, Dong Ha), Vietnam - 5May07

DMZ= Demiliterized Zone during American (Vietnamese) War

The tour was 6am, so woke up really early for that. Like usual, the bus got a delayed of 40 minutes. i was seated beside of a Vietnamese old lady. Surprisingly, she spoke really good English (later the China guy i met said he over heard that, the lady was stayed in Australia for a few years). People in her generation normally speak French rather than English.

The old lady started to told me the story of one Vietnamese TV drama. i got quite sleepy then, but she would wake me up to listen to her story. So i kind of heard on/off. Basically the story worked like the Iranian awards winning movie, "Little Shoes". The Vietnamese version got the shoes changed to the school uniform.

Well, it was always me who started to talk first. So i paired up with this Shanghainese guy. He said it was the five one golden week in China, so many chinese are travling abroad. We talked some about traveling stories and even talked some about the political conditions of China and Taiwan. We had a dinner together too.

There was this Australian couple in the tour too. They have been marrief for 40 years. It was just kind of " Wow!" to me. i hope when i was sixty years old and married, my husband would travel together with me and hold my hand when we are crossing the road! i found many old western couples travling together were normally so fun loving and this really make me envious of them.

The DMZ tour had nothing much left to see. However it was very educational on the history of American War, of course, in regards on the stories that the Vietnamese government wanted people to know or believe. i met some travellers who told me the different version of stories. Instead of Viet Cong getting much supports from the tribe people, it was actually some tribes were trained by the American to fight Viet Cong. The North Vietnamese army actually killed many South Veitnamese people when they got to the South.

We went into this Vinh Muok Tunnel. As this was where people lived, so the size of tunnel was basically at least 4 tims bigger than Chu Chi Tunnel. Many big sized westerners were still saying that, this was small. i told them that, then don't even think of to go into Chu Chi Tunnel near Saigon then.



Inside Vinh Moc Tunnel. This 2.8km tunnels is by the sea and larger and taller than the tunnels at Cu Chi, Saigon.



Some 'momuments' inside the small memorial museum at Khe Sanh combat base.



Khe Sanh Combat Base sit silently on a barren plateau, surrounded by vegetation-covered hills that are often obscured by mist and fog.



War Monument at Dong Ha area, should be some where near Highway 1. Dong Ha served as a US Marine Corps command and logistics centre from 1968-69.


MONEY MATTER:
1.) Accommodation: USD 5
2.) Food: 79000 D

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