Vietnam Part 3

The Imperial City of Hue in central Vietnam was formerly the capital of Vietnam until the French colinization. The Citadel is the former capital building in the heart of Hue. Its a huge castle with a large moat surrounding it. In 1968 the NVA invaded Hue and captured the city. It took the US and South Vietnam Army 3 weeks to retake the city.

Hue is just south of the DMZ which was the official dividing line between North and South Vietnam. This is the region that saw alot of the fighting durring the war. A local told me that many water buffalow are still killed when they step on a mine or unexploded bombs. This seems to be a reocurring theme in South East Asia.

We took a day long bus tour of the DMZ and some of the surrounding battlefields. On our tour was a American Vet who flew Cobra gunship hellicopters in 1970-71. This was his first trip back to Vietnam since 1971. He brought along his original map of the DMZ area from the war. Since he was a chopper pilot he had a birds eye view of the area and was able to point out alot of the sites. He was a better tour guide then out tour guide was. He shared stories with us of his life and death experiences. It was quite interesting.

We drove accross the DMZ into North Vietnam throught the flat rice patties which still have huge craters from the 5-52 Archlight bombing missions. We visited some more NVA caves and drove back to the south and visited Firebase Alpha 1 and Alpha 2, the Rockpile, and finally Khe Sanh. The hills around the DMZ are still bare from all the Agent Orange that was dropped to help reduce the folliage that hid the NVA soilders. Plants are only now starting to regrow.

After another day or so in Hue we traveled back down to Da Nang and caught a flight to Bangkok. We have now been in Bangkok for 6 days. Basically just lounging around and shopping. Today we sent back our 6th box full of stuff home. We cant wait to get home it will be like Christmas when we open all the boxes.

Tonight we take an overnight train to the south of Thailand. We plan on spending the next 2 1/2 weeks on the southern Island of Kho Pagn Nan and Kho Tao. Then back to Bangkok for 2 or 3 nights and off to the middle east. Our time in South East Asia has been fun, but we are about ready for a change of scenery and food. We love the cuisine here, but you can only eat so much rice and noodles before you want a good old American Hamburger.