Open Writing

Based upon knowledge gleaned from the two Canadians about the state of the road south of Vinh and reminding myself that a railway journey was recommended I decided to book a sleeping berth on the night train to Hue. Entering the sleeping compartment of the Reunification Express I was confronted by an American couple each with their own berth and two Vietnamese men who were sharing. My bunk was fine; the toilet diabolical.

Arriving in Hue at 6 am I quickly booked into a hotel and took myself off to a restaurant for breakfast. I spent the day exploring this ancient capital which is now designated as a UNESCO heritage site. The legacy of historic Chinese culture is much in evidence. It is not only the French and the Americans who have attempted to leave their mark on the nation. A bus trip to the demilitarised zone was on offer.

Rising at 5.15 the next morning the bus stopped off after an hour for breakfast. We were then taken to a bleak landscape but one which contained evidence of human occupation. Ka Sha, near the Cambodian border, had been a major US Air Force base during the American War. B52s had flown countless missions over North Vietnam and into Cambodia. It had been one of those bases which the North Vietnamese army had attacked in the weeks prior to the Tet Offensive of 1968. Although it was of no strategic value to the North Vietnamese the Americans fortified it with a massive influx of troops. In retrospect this misreading by the Americans was the turning point of the war. The North Vietnamese Army successfully misled them into believing that a major attack would be made in the central region of the country which included Ka Sha.

On the eve of the Tet New Year a major offensive was launched on many fronts in the south of the country, including Ho Chi Minn City, then called Saigon. The Americans and their allies never recovered from this series of miscalculations and the remaining seven years of the war were essentially concerned with damage limitation actions culminating in ultimate abandonment and withdrawal leaving the South Vietnamese to their fate.

I was later taken to some of the tunnels used by the North Vietnamese. Although primarily built to allow the army to move around undetected they also came into use by non-combatants as shelter from American bombing. People would live underground for weeks on end. The section I visited was only one of two which have been preserved. Hundreds of kilometres of underground tunnels have been allowed to fall into decay since the end of the war. This tunnel was somewhat narrow for a big European like me whilst a fairly low roof caused me to stoop in order to make any progress.

There are extra dugout sections which I was told were used for specific purposes; maternity; latrine; sleeping. By the time I emerged on the beach after some thirty minutes claustrophobia had left its mark on me. Goodness knows what it was like for complete families.

On the way back to Hue we were taken off the bus and given a conducted tour through a hill tribe village. Many of my fellow passengers started taking photographs of the inhabitants. I merely took photographs of the photographers. It was too much like a human zoo for my liking and I made a point of expressing my disapproval to the tour guide in front of my fellow passengers. I indicated that I thought this part of the tour should be eliminated from the itinerary, a view I put in writing to the Vietnamese Embassy in London upon my return to the UK.