We are now in Hue which is about 180km further north from Hoi An. It has  proved to be a much more enjoyable place to stay with less of the pushy sales stuff that we had to endure in Hoi An.

We had booked a hotel on-line and they threw in a free pick up from the bus station.  This turned out to be a very nice man waiting with our names on a sign and his motorbike!  One at a time we arrived at the hotel which proved to be very good but on a major road. As Vietnamese drivers can’t even park at the side of the road without pressing their horn it proved to be a noisy and early morning!! However, we discovered on our quest for dinner that there were lots of hotels in quieter streets just around the corner costing 10USD (less than £7) rather than the 20USD we were paying. Needless to say we moved next day and now have a room with satellite TV, high speed wifi, bathroom, fridge, A/C and a little balcony to sit on whilst drinking our aperitifs (how posh are we!??).  The young woman in charge seems genuinely pleased we are staying for Tet, and even brought us hot soup (yum) and a special Tet cake thing (yuck – glutinous rice, salty stuff, no idea what else and wrapped in a strong smelling banana leaf), when we got back wet and cold from our day trip.

The trip was to the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), this included Vinh Moc Tunnels, the 17th Parallel and Khe Sanh American Air force base.  Apart from the shitty weather – constant cool breeze and rain, and the poor tour guide, it was an interesting experience, the one that Neil really wanted to do.

The DMZ was 5 kilometres either side of the river that formed the 17th parallel. It was originally set up at the end of the second world war and the whole episode was reinforced when  the French formally partitioned the country. It became one of the focal points of the war between the North and the South in the 1960’s conflict. The whole area is now paddy fields with any bomb craters now used as fish farms.

The Vinh Moc tunnels are unbelievable. They are similar to those of Cu Chi outside HCMC but are more spectacular and genuine, with more of the original tunnels open to visitors. After the US destroyed the village of Vinh Moc the people went underground in a maze of tunnels, over 3 levels, and up to 30 meters deep. Some of the people lived underground for more than 6 years, 17 children were born there and lived their early years underground. The tunnels are more accessible as they range from 1.6m to 1.9m high.  Just as with Cu Chi, the US found it almost impossible to find them and lost many soldiers to the “guerrillas” from the underground popping up, destroying and killing, then disappearing into nowhere.

Khe Sanh was the scene of one of the bloodiest battles of the war, a 75 day siege. It was another wartime example of some “big nob” in the military making a snap decision that the airbase was to be secured at all cost. 500 US troops were sent home in body bags and 10,000 VC were killed. General Westmoreland‘s, tour of duty ended and within a week the whole idea of defending Khe Sanh was abandoned.

A marine officer had expressed this opinion months before the decision to defend: “You’re not really anywhere. You could lose it and you really haven’t lost a damned thing”.  Westmoreland was obsessed by Khe Sanh as he thought that the TET offensive was a decoy for Khe Sanh. As it turned out, the TET Offensive in the south proved to be one of the final nails in the US coffin as Khe Sanh was the decoy. Hell, it was an airbase on the top of a plateau with nothing but jungle as far as the eye could see. Why could anyone think this was so important?