Northern Central Vietnam The Demilitarized Zone (Dmz)

With military sights scattered along and around Highway 9, the Demilitarized Zone covers a radius of about 25km south and west of ®ng Hà. A complete visit to the tourist-approved sites takes time, energy, and a fair amount of money if you’re planning to go with a guide. Touring solo and still seeing everything is nearly impossible, and Let’s Go recommends that independent explorers take at least two days in the area. A good motorcycle, an excellent map, and patience are also useful—it can be tricky to spot sights whose importance now remains merely in national, and sometimes personal, memory.

After the French were defeated by the Vi_t Minh in 1954, a conference was set up in Geneva to decide the future of Vietnam. Virtually without its consent, the country was split into two, divided by the B\n H=i River at the 17th parallel. For 55 days, people could move between the two nations. Then the borders closed—and the national election, scheduled to take place two years later and reunite the country, never occurred. During this time, H· Chí Minh was given control of the Communist northern state, powered by the Vi_t Minh, while power-hungry Ng® ình Di_m ruled over the supposedly democratic South Vietnam. US troops, afraid that the spread of Communism to the southern state would have a domino effect in Southeast Asia, came to central Vietnam in 1965 to “aid” the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN; the southern army) by building a string of bases in the DMZ. Though it was the French who first created Hwy. 9, it was American troops who paved the road. Vi_t Cÿng ambushes, however, soon made the road dangerous. To prevent attacks and improve visibility along the highway, US troops sprayed nearly 20 million gallons of Agent Orange, the now-infamous toxic chemical, throughout the area to kill the jungle vegetation that crowded the road. The troops also used Agent White to kill the bamboo that often hid rebels from view. A third chemical, Agent Blue, targeted rice fields. When American troops retreated from the DMZ, they heavily bombed their own bases to ensure that the Vietnamese would not be able to use them. By 1972, the Americans, realizing that they could not win the war, decided to leave. A new demarcation line between the North and South was established at the Qu=ng Tr¢ River. This shaky peace did not last long—the National Liberation Front (NLF) conquered the South by 1975, reunifying the country at last.

Memories of the war are rekindled as visitors traverse landscapes familiar to them through first-hand experience or second-hand knowledge. The mark left by the war and the occupation remains alive within the memories of the area’s inhabitants. Some Vietnamese recall the lingering US soldiers as their first English teachers. Others simply remember those days as a time when many men were forced to fight, often without a choice. In recent years, Agent Orange’s adverse effects on both Vietnamese and US citizens has become the subject of many lawsuits. During his November 2000 visit to the country, US President Bill Clinton promised to aid the Vietnamese government in its efforts to ameliorate the caustic effects of the chemical. Also in 2000, the US donated US$3 million of mine-clearing equipment to the country and began to research the locations of mines, though many remain, making the countryside dangerous to wanderers.

Transportation

You can book tours or English-speaking guides at tourist agencies in ®ng Hà , in order to avoid the 2hr. commute from Hu\. ®ng Hà serves as the best base from which to explore the DMZ. Most tourists, though, opt for an easy, pre-arranged daytrip from Hu\. Tourist offices and many hotels offer full-day trips with transport and air-conditioning (US$8-12). Some tours also include breakfast. Two-day trips to the DMZ run US$20-30. Shop around before signing up, as smaller agencies often offer tours of equivalent quality for lower prices; keep in mind, however, that sketchy, disreputable outfits abound. The Phú Xuñn Tourist Office, 21 Tr<n Cao Vñn (☎848 686), offers full-day tours with breakfast, guide, and air-conditioned transport for US$10, while Mr. Do at the Stop and Go Cafe, 4 B\n Nghé, arranges motorbike trips for US$15 per person. Tours leave at 6am and return around 7pm, with drop-off at your hotel. Visitors who want to visit the Qu=ng Tr¢ Citadel can catch one of the frequent buses heading south on their way to Hu\ (30min.; 15,000). The short distance (13km) makes Qu=ng Tr¢ easily accessible by motorbike (20,000 one-way; 40,000-50,000 round-trip, including wait).

Orientation And Practical Information

Many former military bases and other sights of the DMZ lie west of ®ng Hà on Highway 9, itself a historical landmark. Paved by the US military in 1966, it was designed to facilitate the transport of ammunition and supplies from the east to the bases that stretched toward the mountains of Laos. Tours of the DMZ usually begin on this road, but require backtracking to ®ng Hà more than once. Cam Lÿ lies 13km west from ®ng Hà down Hwy. 9, while another 5km reveals a dirt road which leads to the spot where Camp Carroll once stood. Head 15km west from Cam Lÿ to get a glimpse of the Rockpile. Thirty kilometers from the Rockpile after the a Kr®ng Bridge is the former Khe Sanh combat base and the memorial museum that stands in its place. About 20km farther, the remains of the Làng Vñy Special Force Camp rest on a ridge 9km before the Lao border. To visit the sights north of ®ng Hà, head back on Hwy. 9 past Camp Carroll, and about 15km before ®ng Hà town, turn left onto Hwy. 15. Built by the French before the war, this road is now known throughout Vietnam as the H· Chí Minh Trail. Fourteen kilometers north is a short dirt path that leads to the bunker at C·n Tiˆn. Continuing 8km north on Hwy. 15 leads to the Tr™ng S£n National Cemetery. From here, head back down to Hwy. 9, taking a left onto Hwy. 75, which connects Hwy. 15 to Hwy. 1. Heading north on Hwy. 1 will take you to Gio Linh, a town where the former Doc Mi]u military base was located. The DMZ tour continues north with a stop after 4km at the B\n H=i River and the Hi\n L™£ng Bridge. Two kilometers after the bridge, turn right onto Cai Lai. A 15km drive east will take you to the Vænh M#c Tunnels. To get to Qu=ng Tr¢ Citadel and La Vang Church, head back south to Hwy. 1 and, after passing ®ng Hà, continue for 13km past the remnants of the American military airport at Ai T. Alternatively, flag down a bus heading south and make sure to exit when you hit the city of Qu=ng Tr¢ (15,000).

Sights

Though the actual Demilitarized Zone spans 5km north and 5km south of the B\n H=i River, the sights in the area today known as the DMZ reach as far as 60km west, 15km south, and over 25km north of ®ng Hà. About 17 American military bases were set up in the area; today, some of these bases have museums or monuments, while others have been entirely erased from the landscape.

Cam Lÿ. Fifteen kilometers west of ®ng Hà lies the town of Cam Lÿ. Though it was once a small US military base, today no remnants of war can be found. When the US troops abandoned the area in 1972, the NLF took over the town. After the war, its citizens destroyed any remaining battle scars and slowly rebuilt their town, placing markets on the foundations of bases.

Camp Carroll. Five kilometers west of Cam Lÿ, an unpaved road turns left off Hwy. 9 to the old US base at Camp Carroll. Four kilometers farther from the paved road lies a bunker foundation and a pile of rocks that marks the spot of the former military base, whose function was to supply the Rockpile and Khe Sanh with artillery. When the DMZ was attacked in 1972 by the NLF troops arriving from Laos, Camp Carroll was where ARVN Colonel Phåm Vn ính surrendered to the North. Ironically, after the surrender he became an officer in the NLF—part of a propaganda effort to assure southerners that surrender would not be fatal.

The Rockpile. Twenty-eight kilometers from ®ng Hà and 7km from Camp Carroll lies a 288m tall, unassuming green mountain—alias the Rockpile. The valley in between it and its neighboring mountain, Razor Back, harbored the DÆu MÆu military base. US Marines thought the base to be a safe helicopter landing pad until 1967, when it was assailed by Vi_t Minh commandos. Now nothing remains of the old base except for the mountains that harbored it. Some guides have pictures of the mountains and the surrounding region during the war, and they invite visitors to compare the empty stretch of land—cleared by Agent Orange—to the coffee fields which presently fill the countryside. Like some of the other sights, the Rockpile should be no more than a short stop on the way to Khe Sanh.

A Krông Bridge. Built in 1999, this bridge connects the H· Chí Minh Trail to the Phong Nha Caves —during the war, troops traversed the waters by ferry. From the bridge, it’s about 1000km to the former southern stronghold.

Bru Minority Village. Though it wasn’t a site of battle itself, the village of the Bru minority has become a stop on some tours of the DMZ. During the American War, 10% of the Bru people took up arms to fight alongside the South Vietnamese government and the US troops, while 90% supported the North. Today, there is not much to see other than begging children.

Khe Sanh Combat Base. This base is a highlight of the DMZ. Established in 1966, 10km from the a Kr®ng bridge, the base housed 5000 US marines whose mission was to prevent the NLF from going south on the H· Chí Minh Trail. Though the Lao government did not officially support the northern regime, inhabitants of the mountains that neighbor the Vietnamese border aided the NLF. In the T\t Offensive of 1968, Khe Sanh was used as a decoy to move American forces out of the south while they targeted H· Chí Minh City. As the US troops pulled back to return south, 40,000 more NLF soldiers descended upon Khe Sanh. The fighting continued until airborne American reinforcements came from Thailand. About 500 US soldiers and over 10,000 northern soldiers died during the ensuing combat.

Poignantly, many of these military sites have reverted to rice paddies and wild grass—Khe Sanh is now covered in coffee plantations. Tourists will need some help from guides to reconstruct the history of the region, though landmines are frightening reminders of the past. In 2002, when the area started receiving a decent number of foreign tourists, the government built a museum. Inside, visitors can see photographs of locals, the NLF, and members of the Vi_t Cÿng, alongside weapon displays and war maps. Outside the museum, visitors can step into small bunkers, view remnants of bombs, and see a monument built in 1999 to commemorate the war’s NLF soldiers. For American tourists, a trip to this museum is an eerie but interesting experience—captions mention with pride how the North Vietnamese made the American base “a living hell.” (☎780 587. Open daily 7am-5pm. 15,000.)

Làng Vñy Special Forces Camp. This Special Forces Camp, not just a pile of rubble, housed only 24 US soldiers, who fought alongside the Bru and the ARVN. This camp is known for an infamous 1968 attack, when the northern army brought tanks along the river from Laos via bamboo ferries. With four tanks coming from the west, two from the east, and five from the south, the NLF completely bewildered US troops. During the battle the NLF captured the Lao border, located just 7km away.

C·N Tiên Firebase. From Cam Lÿ, Hwy. 15 heads north to both C·n Tiˆn Firebase and Tr™ng S£n National Cemetery (see below). First built by the French, C·n Tiˆn was taken over by American troops when they arrived in Vietnam. In 1967, the base was attacked and taken by the NLF. About 14km west on Hwy. 15, there is a 2km dirt path, accessible by motorbike or foot, that leads to the site of the former base. At the top of the path is a concrete bunker used by American troops. If you look closely at the wall to your left upon entering the bunker, you can see, in addition to many bullet holes, the word “CALIFORNIA” inscribed by a homesick soldier. So much crossfire took place between NLF and US forces that new battalions had to be sent constantly to sustain the firebase.

Tr™ng S£n National Cemetery. Eight kilometers farther north on Hwy. 15 are signs that point visitors to the gate of Tr™ng S£n, one of the three national cemeteries in Vietnam. Created in 1975, the cemetery holds over 10,000 graves. During the war, when a soldier or fighter fell, he was buried on the spot of his death. However, since neither of the Vietnamese armies wore identification tags, friends of the fallen would write down the deceased soldier’s name and the name of his village. In 1975, when the war was over, the government began to exhume corpses of northern army soldiers and supporters of the northern government. Thanks to the efforts of their comrades, many of the soldiers’ remains were retrieved, allowing families to identify their loved ones and engage in proper ancestor worship. Many grievers who were unable to find their family members’ burial sites turned to fortune tellers. You might therefore see pictures and fake tombstones placed on the unmarked graves that psychics pick out. Most graves are marked by tombstones with the words “Li_t Sæ,” meaning “martyr,” followed by the name of the deceased, his home village, the year that he entered the army, and the year of his death. The tombstones’ inscriptions relay that some of the dead NLF soldiers (those with the middle name “Thi”) were women and others were boys as young as 12. However, only those who fought with the north were afforded a place in the national cemetery. When the corpses of ARVN soldiers were retrieved, they were buried in civil cemeteries, denying their claim to a place in military memory. In the center of the cemetery is a large monument of NLF soldiers and Vi_t Cÿng guerrillas with the inscription “Lest we forget.”

Gio Linh. North of ®ng Hà on Hwy. 1 is a small town that was once Doc Mi]u military base for US troops. A US Army M41 tank and two reconstructed bunkers mark the landscape; littering the sides of the path are bombshells and impact craters. The area around the base is bare; its trees were chopped down by the American army for a better view of the surroundings. Farther down Hwy. 1 is a memorial commemorating NLF soldiers, with a sculpture of three soldiers standing victoriously atop stone stairs. The large central character is a woman, representing the many females who volunteered to fight with the NLF.

B\N H=i River And Hi\N L™£ng Bridge. Dividing North and South Vietnam, the small gray bridge that connects the two banks was destroyed in 1967. During the time of separation, the two sides are said to have placed speakers on either side of the river to communicate with one other. To send a letter from the southern bank of the river to the northern bank took two months, as it was sent first to HCMC, then to Laos, then to Bangkok, then to Moscow, and then to North Vietnam. Rebuilt in 1975 to commemorate the Demilitarized Zone, the Hi\n L™£ng Bridge stands as a monument, while a newer and larger bridge serves as the means of transportation. Both foreigners and Vietnamese visit the historical junction, whose yellow gate and red signs reclaim the once-imperial colors of the king for the new socialist government with a sign that reads “H· Ch© T¢ch Mu®n Nâm”—“H· Chí Minh alive forever.”

Vænh MC Tunnels. Located on the northern side of the Hi\n L™£ng Bridge, these tunnels were built by locals in an effort to shield themselves from the US forces. While the American Army never crossed the northern border on land, the area was constantly under aerial attack. Aware that many soldiers of the NLF and their armed supporters resided in the area, the US incessantly bombed the villages that stretched along the northern border. The network of tunnels you can visit today is only one of the 11 built in the area, but it’s the only one that survived. While the underground village took only 18 months to construct, its inhabitants remained in the dark corridors for four years during the war. Over those years, 300 people occupied the 2km long tunnels of Vænh M#c. Children attended school and adults had town meetings in a main “meeting chamber.” Aware that similar structures had collapsed under the force of US bombs, the inhabitants of Vænh M#c built a bomb shelter as part of the tunnels that descended 23m into the ground. Throughout the tunnels, visitors can see the small rooms that served as cramped living quarters for families of four to five people, the fresh-water wells, and the tiny corridors that marked the village walls. There are 13 entrances to the tunnels. Villagers would leave the tunnels in between bombings to get food from the woods above and the sea below. Before entering the tunnels, visitors can peruse pictures of inhabitants and other images of the war on the walls of the small pink museum. Behind the tunnels is a beautiful stretch of beaches, where tourist buses often make a stop and allow visitors to rest and sunbathe. Twenty-eight kilometers north of the tunnels is C·n C¤ Island, which was used by the NLF to prevent US and southern Vietnamese soldiers from moving north. (☎823 238. Open daily 6am-6pm. Informational booklets in Vietnamese and English 10,000; collections of war pictures 30,000. 15,000.)

Qu=ng Tr¡ Citadel. On the 13km journey to the Citadel, you will cross over the Qu=ng Tr¢ river, the newer demarcation line between North and South (as of 1972), where prisoners of war were swapped. Two kilometers down the road are the remains of Ai T military airport, a huge cement area where US planes brought supplies to the south. About 3km farther down Hwy. 1, take a left on Tr<n H™ng åo. The remains of Tr™£ng B· D_, a school riddled with bombs and gunfire during the war, is preserved by the Vietnamese government as evidence of American destruction. About 500m down the road, take a right at L• Thái T® to the Citadel. Constructed in 1820 by King Minh Mång, it was occupied by the ARVN during the American War. In May of 1972, the Citadel was attacked by northern forces, who took hold of the southern camp. In July of the same year, the southern army attempted to reclaim the Citadel: intense warfare lasted 81 days, at the end of which 328,000 metric tons of American bombs claimed the lives of the northern attackers, along with the Citadel walls. Though the structure was totally devastated by the war, a war memorial commemorating those who fought and perished has been built in its place. Check out the affecting before-and-after pictures of the Citadel. (Open daily 7am-5:30pm. 15,000.)

La Vang Church. Along Hwy. 1, about 12km north of ®ng Hà and 1km south of the Citadel, is the road to La Vang Church. The road is new and has no name, but a large sign marks the site. The church was originally constructed in 1889 by the French to mark the spot where the Virgin Mary was sighted in 1798. While much of the area was destroyed by American bombs during the war, the bombs that landed immediately next to the memorial miraculously never exploded. In early August, many locals gather to praise Mary, and every third year there is a much larger pilgrimage attended by Catholics from around the world.