Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and Vinh Moc Tunnels

Although as I type this, Phillip and I are in Hanoi, I need to finish describing our adventures in Hue. During my last post, the humidity had gotten to me a bit. Phillip and I took it easy the next couple of days and we were both fine. One of the things we did during our easy days was cross the nearest bridge over the Perfume River and sit in the park.

on a park bench next to the Perfume River in Hue

     We actually went to the supermarket across the bridge for toothpaste, then saw the park and went walking along the river in the shade, taking our time, and just enjoying being in Vietnam. Did we get hot and sweaty anyway? Well, of course! Plenty of hydration and we were fine. The tree under which we were sitting for the above picture had these odd, fig-shaped fruits that kept falling on the grass and sidewalk as we rested there. I figure that whatever it was is not edible, as plenty of the over-ripe fruits covered the ground for unwary pedestrians to step and slip on. Yes, I stepped. No, I didn't slip, but I did slide a bit.

watch out for this falling fruit!

Friday evening, Linh, our guide who met us again for coffee Thursday morning, arranged for us to take a boat trip on the river with a friend of hers who operated one of the dragon boats. We are still amazed at how low the barges sit in the water.

barge on the river

     Yesterday, we had a full-day private tour with Hung (pronounced "Hoong") to the DMZ and Vinh Moc tunnels. Hung is the owner of a restaurant and private car tour service and speaks fluent Vietnamese, English, and French. He can speak some Spanish and is learning German. Phillip ate at his restaurant when I was under the weather and got along well with him. Hung's tour cost less than half of what I had found on the Internet and was personalized.

Long Hung Church, a relic of the war

     Hung's first stop for us was a Catholic Church, Long Hung (no connection to him) Church, that had been heavily damaged in 1972. By 1972, the US military presence had decreased greatly from high numbers of troops just a few years earlier.  However, US military equipment was used by the South Vietnamse Army whose troops fought for two years after the US troops left the country. The damage here was from small arms fire and what Hung said was damage when a tank tried to drive in, but didn't make it all the way.

This church, which was not a museum, was, as the Catholic Church wanted it to be, preserved, as nature takes it over, a relic and memorial to war.

     For the young people who never studied the Vietnam War during high school history, this demilitarized zone was established in 1954 when North and South Vietnam were created as separate countries. The Ben Hai River, at about the 17th parallel, was the boundary, and the area within about 2 miles either side of it was declared to be demilitaried, i.e., troops from both sides were barred from the area. However, a lot of the fiercest and most devastating battles of the war occurred near here. Today, over forty-five years after the end of the war, most of the area has been reclaimed for farming.

a mechanical rice harvestor in action

      One area that has been preserved is the tunnel complex of Vinh Moc. Unlike the Cu Chi tunnels in the south, these tunnels were not used for fighting. Bombs from both sides were dropped on the area and the regular people needed a place to be safe.

display of bomb dropped in the Vinh Moc area

    The local population dug the Vinh Moc tunnels for their own protection when bombing raids started. Begun in 1964, the three levels of the tunnels took three years to build.

preparing to head into the tunnels

in the tunnels

The tunnels were built here because the soil has a high clay content. Hung said that farther south, the tunnels that were built collapsed if they were over 7 meters deep. These go 23 meters deep.

flooding was an issue - muddy floor from yesterday's light rain

Up to 400 villagers lived in these tunnels, with a family of four having a nook area off a walkway tunnel. Seventeen babies were born in the tunnels.

A family nook to the right, near the unlit light bulb

The tunnel systen had thirteen entrance/exits: 6 on land and 7 to the sea.

Can you find the tunnel exit? I think not.

Although these tunnels were taller, so it was easier for us and not as claustrophobic as Cu Chi, it was good to make our way out of them.

I used my phone flashlight as no lights in these tunnels

After our tunnel visit, we headed to a nearby beach for lunch. A nice sea breeze cooled us as we had a lunch of fried noodles with squid and vegetables.

beach of the Vietnam Sea near Vinh Moc

We drove over the Ben Hai River going to and from Vinh Moc. A monument to the DMZ and two colors of paint on the bridge are about all that is at that specific location. 

DMZ marker

     Hung stopped at one final spot before our return drive to Hue, a cemetary for the Vietnamese soldiers, both North and South, who died. Some of the remains had been identified and marked, but most were unknown and several large grave markers represented many soldiers buried in one grave. Always a somber reflection.

lost during war

    Hung took us back to our hotel, and this morning he also drove us to the airport. Easy flight to Hanoi and we have another student-led tour in about half an hour. 

Hue: A Royal Feast and Imperial Palace

Phillip and I are in Hue, another city in Central Vietnam. Two days ago, we took a private car for the 3-1/2 hour drive from Hoi An, north thru the Hai Van Pass, to Hue. The road was interesting, with outstanding views as we climbed the mountain. Hai Van translates to "Ocean Cloud," so the pictures have a bit of haze from the moisture in the air.

view to the east from Hai Van Pass road

The pass was high enough that my ears popped both going up and coming down the other side. We stopped at the top of the pass for a break before we continued on to Hue.

lakes in the mountains

This road was two lanes; however, cars, motorcycles, and heavily laden trucks weren't the only things using it!

second time we saw cows on this road

The road had many switchbacks and steep grade signs.

over a dozen switchbacks on each side of the mountain pass

I was hoping that Hue, being on the north side of the mountains, would be cooler or less humid than Hoi An and Danang. Nope. Still hot and humid! It is a more modern city than Hoi An because Hue saw much fighting during the war. A lot of the city buildings, except those preserved in the Citadel, are less than forty years old.
     The Citadel and the Imperial City within it have the UNESCO World Heritage designation. This complex is significant because the emperors of the Ngyuen Dynasty ruled Vietnam from there for almost 200 years. They were the last dynasty in Vietnam, ending in 1945.
     The Citadel is a thick wall, 11 km in circumference, surrounded by a moat and guard towers. Inside the Citadel is the 4 square km Imperial Palace, the actual home of the emperors.

entrance to the Imperial City

     Buildings accessible by only royalty had a yellow tile roof. A green tile roof signified non-royals (mandarins, soldiers, foreighners). Note that the royal family were the only ones who went in thru the center of the entrance. A moat encircled the citadel, but the second, interior moat around the Imperial Palace was stocked with alligators. Not today, though! No aligators for decades.

just lily pads today, no alligators

     During the Tet Offensive in 1968, most of the Imperial City was bombed, but more than ten buildings are still intact and preserved.

foundation of destroyed buiding seen thru intact gate

      Phillip and I were escorted on our Imperial City tour by two wonderful young ladies, Linh and Huong, from "Let's Hue," the local group of university students who practice their English thru free tours of local sights. Both spoke great English, especially Linh, who was finishing her fourth year at the university and is actually the leader of Let's Hue.

Huong and Linh of Let's Hue

    Unfortunately for me, the heat and humidity made me nauseous during the tour. Phillip was very sweet, fanning me to cool me down.

Linh and Huong were impressed with Phillip's care and concern

     When we left the Citadel, we headed for a restaurant that Linh was told had air conditioning. It didn't, but it had fans and a shady patio. More importantly, it was a royal food restaurant!

candle inside the pineapple (Phillip said the brown item was a corn fritter nugget)

     The lady who owned it is a food artist. She has a set menu, which we ordered for Phillip and the girls. I didn't eat, just drank water. I missed a great meal, but I was able to see the beautiful presentations.

phoenix (pate in a crepe wrapper, sliced)

     My photos do not do justice to the beauty of the food. Before the pate course, they were served a delicious soup, but I didn't get a good picture of it. All three had several servings of the soup!

rooster (fried spring rolls)

Multiple courses, all artfully presented.

dragon, a carved cucumber and carrots (green papaya salad)

This royal food would have been created for the emperor, so it had to entertain and please his eye as well as his palate.

turtle (fried rice)

After Phillip, Linh and Huong finished lunch, we returned to our hotel and parted ways with the girls. Phillip and I stayed in the air conditioned room yesterday afternoon and I drank lots of water. I'm fine today, although we are taking it easy, just going a couple of km on shorter walks, then back to the air conditioning.

Water Buffalo Cowpokes

     Another adventure! Today, Phillip and I went on a tour entitiled "Countryside and Cooking." Although it wasn't advertised as a private tour, it was. Joy and Ruby were our tour guides, arriving at our hotel with helmets and on their motorcycles we went. Joy and Ruby were very safe drivers. The speed limit in town is 30 km/hour, aka 18 mph. We had no problems in traffic, but were glad they were driving, not us! No stop signs in town. None at all.
     We stopped at a market and a coffee shop on our way out of town. Love that iced coffee! Joy and Ruby were happy that it was relatively cool (i.e., not terribly hot!) today.

Ruby, Pat, and Joy

     Riding thru the countryside, we passed rice fields in various stages of harvest readiness.

rice almost ready to be harvested

Some fields were being harvested, by machine if the farmer was rich enough, by hand if they weren't. In all the harvested fields, the plants were collected to be used as cattle feed during the rainy season.

rice stems after harvesting the rice, to be fed to cattle

We weren't riding on wide streets in the country, more like concrete paths, raised above the fields. No cars, just motorcycles and bicycles.

our road thru the fields

Like Ecuador, Vietnam has bovine road mainentance, as cows and water buffalo grazed what we would call the road right-of-way.

animals graze right up to the road

Joy and Ruby stopped under some trees next to a man with a water buffalo. This guy (the water buffalo, not the man) had been tamed to give rides. Regular water buffalo, like our cows, don't take too kindly to people on their backs.

His skin felt thinner than that of our cows

And then we went for a ride down the path! The sway of the animal walking was front-to-back, not side to side, so it took a few steps to get used to, but our water buffalo was quite docile.

I rode him along the track, then the handler got on with me and took him into the water. Their thinner skin means that they love being in the water and mud. When the handler turned him to the water, he perked up and went right in.

After our water buffalo ride, Joy and Ruby took us to a rug weaver. Two women weave traditional rugs using natural fiber and dyes. It takes then four hours to complete about a 6' x 8' rug. They had fun with us when we tried it! We could do it, but not as fast as them.

rug weaving

More countryside driving, viewing traditional houses and stopping at a farmer's house to see the garden.

And then they girls dropped us off at a cooking school in town. Our teacher taught us to make a different version of crispy pancake (this one had an egg in it), seasoned fish cooked in banana leaves, fried spring rolls, and my favorite, chicken papaya salad.

ingredients for chicken papaya salad

The salad used shredded green papaya, which tastes noting like the ripe, sweet fruit of the mature papaya. The finished salad is eaten with rice chips.

eating the salad

And yes, Phillip is fully participating in the cooking classes!

flipping the spring rolls as they fry

Tomorrow is a travel day. We leave Hoi An and head for the town of Hue, another UNESCO Heritage Site. We have rreally enjoyed our adventures in Hoi An!

Hoi An: Old Town, cooking class and 18 cent beer

Bougainvillea, decorating sidewalks throughout Old Town section

     Hoi An, just south of Danang, is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Its protected historical status was recognized even during the Vietnam War. Both sides agreed not to bomb the city, and they kept their word. The French architecture and ancient buildings are intact and preserved thru the UNESCO designation. And a beautiful city it is! We are here for five nights and have toured the Old Town with our student guides, wandered the city, enjoyed $5 foot massages, taken a cooking class, and ridden in a basket boat.
     Nhi and Duong met us Friday morning and led us thru five of the historic structures of Old Town, sharing the history of the city and the importance of the buildings. The girls are both university students, actually driving their motorbikes from Danang to lead our tour! Both spoke English. Nhi was more experienced with the tours; Duong was only on her second tour, so it was great fun to encourage Duong when Nhi let her lead the discussion.

Nhi and Duong of HoianMates

     Several historic buildings are assembly halls, as Hoi An was a prominent trading port. The Chinese traders of the 1800s built assembly halls, highly decorated in accordance with their culture.

     While Nhi and Duong were leading our tour, we came across groups of schoolchildren, also on tours!

Our student guides were so helpful with the details of the historic sights that we would have missed without them. For example, the pillars in the Tam Ky house were decorated with mother of pearl. Only when Nhi directed me to examine them closer, did I see the birds. The mother of pearl had been inflaid to form over 100 birds on the pillars.

in the Tam Ky house

     During the evenings, Phillip and I walk in the night market. Lighted lanterns hang across the streets and in front of almost all the business.

garlic-shaped lanterns to ward off evil

     Yesterday, we spent the day on boat rides and a cooking class. The day started at about 8:20 am when we were picked up at our hotel by a van and taken to the market next to the river. Our guide, Hai, gave us shopping baskets and the group (8 of us) went with her to get the food we would prepare later.

selecting produce in the market

     No grocery stores or packaged food here. Fresh vegetables, fresh noodles, fresh meat. A surprising lack of flies and bugs, but the produce and meat move so quickly, the bugs don't have a chance to find it.

three kinds of fresh rice noodles

Once we had our food, we boarded a boat on the Thu Bon River for the 30 minute ride to our class.

on the Thu Bon River

     At a tributary to the river, we transferred from the motorized boat into basket boats for the final leg of of trip. The women in the next picture are two young ladies from Denmark who were part of our tour.

basket boat

     While in the basket boats, which were paddled by a guide, Phillip and I fished for little crabs. A piece of chicken on a string attached to a short stick. The guide manuevered the basket boat to the trees growing out of the water and we fished. The little crabs grabbed the chicken and we hauled our catch in! We didn't keep any, as they were about two inches across (we have garden spiders bigger than that) but it was fun.

crab caught with a piece of chicken

     We arrived at the cooking class location, palm covered pavillions set up with tables for us. Our first lesson was about rice. We hulled rice, ground rice, and in this picture, made rice paper.

rice batter poured over material above steaming water

Hai was our cooking teacher. She demonstrated for us, then we went to our stations and made the dishes.

Hai demonstrating fresh spring rolls

In addition to supervising our preparation, Hai also took pictures for us. Notice that Phillip is cooking.

Our work area under the pavillion

We made four different dishes, however, Phillip and I both ate the sizzling pancake without taking a picture, so here are three of the four!

fresh spring rolls

fried noodles with shrimp

pho (I already stirred in the bean sprouts and herbs)

We received a pamphlet with the recipes we made and a pair of cooking chopsticks when the class was over. With full bellies, the van returned us to our hotel.
     After sunset yesterday, we walked back to the night market, had dinner, got another $5 foot massage, and then finished the evening with a 4,000 dong fresh beer. That beer, which was surprisingly tasty, cost $0.18. Yes, 18 cent beer!

fresh beer

    Today, we just wandered around an area in which we hadn't ventured yet. We have a foot massage in a few minutes, complimentary from the hotel because we booked a suite. Tomorrow: a countryside tour with another cooking class.