An early pick up this morning as we joined a day trip to the De-Militarized Zone. First a quick stop at Dong Ha town to pick up our guide, then west along Highway 9 past the 'rock pile' (former US artillery base on top of a mountain), a brief stop at an 'ethnic monirty village' before arriving at Khe Sanh Combat base, where one of the bloodiest battles of the war was fought (with some US equipment left behind for tourists to take photos of !)Back along Highway 9 we stopped at Dak Rong bridge, formally part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail but now rebuilt as a modern concrete road bridge thanks to money from Fidel Castro.
After lunch back at Dong Ha town, we headed north on Highway 1, crossing the Ben Hai river, which lies on the 17th parallel and so formally formed the border between North and South Vietnam, which the DMZ extending 5km either side of it. We drove alongside Cua Tung beach before arriving at the Vinh Moc tunnels - not VC tunnels like the Cu Chi ones we saw in Saigon but a network of tunnels built 12-23 metres underground by villages fed up of being bombed ! We walked through a section of tunnels and felt very claustrophobic !!
Back to town for our last night in Hue, then a four hour bus trip to Hoi An in the morning.
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