Khe Sanh and Vinh Moc

(Khe San US chopper crash)

Less than a week ago, I might have thought the title to this blog entry referred to a tasty Vietnamese noodle dish, but after today, I know differently. Setting out on motorbikes with a "guide", Truan, who we met at a restaurant a day earlier, we left our hotel in the early morning hours for the hundred plus kilometer trip. Our goal was to see a bit of the war history and get off the beaten tourist path, if at all possible.

After two days on Ha Long Bay with 17 other tourists on the "Dragon Pearl" (our boat)and twenty other boats around ours, finding unchartered waters was proving a challenge in Vietnam. And at all of the tourist stops, the environment was being taxed by the reckless handling and overuse of natural resources. Ha Long Bay is comprised of more than 3,000 islands of varying sizes. Because of its rare beauty, it has been identified as a World Heritage Site, which has the unfortunate effect of placing it in the eye of the tourist storm.

In that storm, trash and gasoline carpet the surface of the water tarnishing nature's invitation to swim in the aqua green water. In Vietnam's rush to usher in tourist dollars, the past ten years has seen dramatic growth in the industry, but with little or no environmental safeguards or regulation. Ha Long Bay is certainly no secret and it's continuing demise reminded me of the many short sighted decisions humans often make. Ha Long Bay is not so long for this world. A few more years of daily visits hundreds of tourists staying on heavily polluting diesel powered Chinese junk-its and the bay's ecology and beauty will be lost forever.

Following that experience, Jason and I agreed that we would not take another tour while in Vietnam. Instead, we would search for areas not on the tourist hot spots. Finding those spots was reasonably easy, getting there was another story. Already reminicsing about our Easy Rider days in Sapa, we were eager to relive the freedom of the open road. No more mini-van or mini-bus, it was motorbike time.

Hopping a flight from Hanoi to Hue, Vietnam, Jason mapped out a few areas of military significance during the Vietnam War. Stopping for lunch at a cafe in an alley in downtown Hue, Truan welcomed us to his restaurant and immediately pulled up a chair to join us. Within minutes he had handed us a book with recommendations for on other travelers he had taken on tours. His English was not great, but we understood his points. Explaining to Truan that we wanted to do a motorbike tour, he said, "no problem" and gave us a "complete package" price of 640,000 Vietnamese Dong (or $40 US).

As planned, Truan delivered us to two motorbikes. Getting out of Hue was our first foray into seeing Vietnam at the ground level. Throngs of motorbikes, bicycles, mini-vans and taxis jockeyed for position along each inch of the road and merged like a drunk basket weave at each intersection. It is an experience unjustly served by words, but more aptly felt with your left hand thumb on the horn, your right hand on the throttle and front break, your left foot on your gear peddles and your right foot manning the rear brake while you search for your lane in a sea of moving people. It was exhilarating.

Reaching the city limits, bike traffic dropped off, but was replaced by a larger menace, massive dump trucks and passenger buses traveling from Saigon to Hanoi. On a two-lane road, one lane for each direction, whether you understand physics or not, one quickly learns the force of wind displaced by the front grill of a very large object moving at 65 kph as it is passing. Also not going unnoticed is the very loud sounding horn, seemingly borrowed from the Dukes of Hazard set, blaring in your ear and squeezing your chest as your eyes desire to shut in avoidance of the potential ugly and losing outcome from an unsuccessful pass. And even if the pass is successful, you are then left to choke on black fumes blowing from the tailpipe and chew on road dirt stirred into a small tornado awaiting your entry as you trail behind. Yes, this was the taste of freedom.

An hour into our ride, we stopped for a quick drink (non-alcholic of course, unless we were on a suicide mission). Truan mentioned that we were 16 km from Khe Sanh, a former US military base Jason had read about. 16 km seemed like a breeze and we returned to the road anxious to get to our first designated stop. An hour and a half plus a fuel stop later, we were still 10 kilomters from Khe Sanh soon realizing that Truan had said "60" and not "16" kilometers.

We had journeyed for almost three hours, there was no turning back. Without fanfare, Truan turned right onto a small one lane road with 5 foot green shrubbery on either side. One kilometer down the roughly paved road and we parked in front of a house with a large gate to the side. There were no cars or motorbikes in sight. It looked as if we perhaps Truan had made a wrong turn. Truan spoke to the man at the house and 50,000 Vietnamese Dong later, he was opening the side gate, a gate that at one time lead to a hell on earth, Khe Sanh firebase.

Khe Sanh was the northernmost US combat airbase in Vietnam during the war, situated 7 miles from the Laotian border and approx 40 kilometers south of the 17th parallel, also known as the demilitarized zone ("DMZ"). In 1968, the North Vietnamese army launched an offensive on the base using 20,000 troops. The Battle of Khe Sanh lasted months, with both sides taking heavy casulaties. In the end, it is reported that the People's Army of Vietnam suffered more than 9,000 casualties and the US casualties ranged from 205 to 500 (depends on source).

Standing in the middle of the remanants of the base in the blistering sun with 95% humidity, surrounded by green mountains everywhere the eye could see, I wondered what we the US military was thinking when it stationed soldiers in the middle of nowhere to hold a piece of hill top. Driving in the heat of day passing tiny villages in the last 60 kilometers on Highway 9, thought to parallel the famous Ho Chi Minh Trail, it was difficult to believe we were heading to a site of strategic importance. Having no military background, I don't know the "ins and outs" of war, but armed with a noodle of common sense and an inkling for the pragmatic, it was surprising that experienced generals would focus so many resources and attention in the middle of the jungle.

The terrain was thick with foliage, most of which grew back after being exposed to napalm (fire bomb) and agent orange (deforestation chemical). For years, the US struggled to find the N. Vietnamese Army's supply lines and tunnels. An hour trekking through the Vietnamese jungle would prove challenging for the experienced jungle ranger, much less the conventionally trained soldier. The N. Vietnamese knew the terrain as it was their home. They had the support of the local villagers and craftily constructed tunnel networks and hid in old mines to escape harm by massive US bombing raids.

Our visit was during a pleasant time of year, no monsoon and not yet the hottest month of the season. Imagining long term exposure to the heat, humidity and mosquitoes without air conditioning was bad enough, add to that incoming artillery, rocket, mortar, machine gun and small arms fire aimed at your demise made it pure hell. Thirty plus years later and Khe Sanh is generally viewed as a military blunder by the US. The theory behind the base in the middle of nowhere was to search and destroy the N. Vietnamese supply lines, but the base was too far from US supply lines and in unfamiliar terrain for the conventionally trained US troops.

The N. Vietnamese Army's seige on Khe Sanh is credited with weakening the American people's support of the war as images from the base were televised on the nightly news. Ultimately, after many casualites and loss of aircraft trying to land and resupply the base, the US pulled out of the base, which began the slow withdrawal from the war altogether.

During my visit to the barron base where little vegitation grows today from chemicals in the soil, a Vietnamese man approached with a knap sack bag, the contents of which he emptied onto a wood board. He thumbed through the metals holding pieces up for my inspection while he said two words, "Viet Cong". He was a local villager and had searched for scrap metal from the soils of war. Offering to sell me the metals, I scanned the scraps and found five US dogtags which hit the pit of my stomach. The skeptic in me questioned their authenticity, but the realist in me knew that they were probably harvested from the battle lorn soil. I held each of the tags in my hand, reviewing the name, blood type and religion of each man's tag. Holding the tags was an eery feeling that brought the past suffering of other's to the present.
Anger and sadness filled me as I believed the tags already belonged to the families of the fallen soldiers and that this man was now trying to profit from their sale.

Forty-five minutes into our tour of the old base, Truan motioned that we had to leave in order to see the remaining sights. We motored off the base, down the nondescript road, in the middle of nowhere leaving a dusty trail of red soil behind. Cruising what turned out to be sixty kilometers each way down Highway 9, we passed small villages, beautiful streams and scenic mountains. It was hard to believe that the area had once seen the ugliness of war.

After a fresh vegetarian lunch in a small town near the DMZ and one hundred kilometers of countryside later, we arrived at the village of Vinh Moc. In the mid-1960s, the village was comprised similar to the nearby villages in Vietnam today, thatch roofs, bamboo walls, raised on stilts five feet off of the ground. North of the 17th parallel, the village was located in N. Vietnam. In an attempt to fight the N. Vietnamese Army, the village sustained massive bombing raids. Resilient and hard working, the villagers constructed many kilomters of multi-storied tunnels for sleeping, eating, medical care, meetings, school, all the ongoings of daily life.

Massive bombing raids overhead left huge craters on the surface, the scars of which can still be seen today walking above the tunnel network. Arriving at 4:00 p.m. in the afternoon, Jason and I were introduced to Minh, our guide for the tunnels. Minh's english was good and his knowledge of the village and war was excellent as he was personally familiar with both. Thirty-four years old, Minh did not have any memories of his father as he was killed in the Vietnam War when Minh was a few years old. Minh's family was from Vinh Moc and as a little boy he had spent many days in the tunnels, most of which he did not remember.

(Underground mock up of maternity ward where 17 babies were born.)

Touring the tunnels where 94 families had lived for years with Minh was educational and touching. Minh explained that the Vietnamese people like the American people, but not the US government. He was friendly, warm and responsive to our barrage of questions attempting to grasp the essence of life in the tunnels. Descending into the tunnels, Jason and I hunched over, our backpacks scraping the tunnel ceiling. We passed sleeping quarters for families, the size of which were three feet by seven feet with a height of perhaps three feet. The tunnel network was elaborate with air shafts, underground wells and a smokeless kitchen.

(High point in tunnel where I could actually stand up.)

While some of the tunnels remained undetected during the war, others collapsed under heavy bombs dropped from B-52 bombers. When caught in a collapsed tunnel, people often died from lack of oxygen if not killed in the initial blast. Crouching through the tunnels for twenty minutes and I was already missing daylight. It was difficult to imagine living each day in darkness with only kerosene lamps and lard candles as the only source of light for days on end. Soon enough though, Jason and I would have our own lighting issues.

(Jason ascends out of tunnel.)

As 5:30 p.m. rolled around, the sun began to set and we asked Truan if we should get started on our return to Hue, approximately 100 kilometers from Vinh Moc. In spite of his lack of concern for driving home after dusk, Jason and I, hands, feet and bum still vibrating from our first 150 kilometers on the motorbikes passing and getting passed by gargantuate vehicles, were eager to cover as much road in the remainder of daylight. We raced back across the 17th Parallel, marked by the Ben Hai River, as the sun set over the green rice patties to our right.

Running low on petrol and sun behind the horizon, Truan and I switched bikes at the gas station as my lights were not working, apparently not of concern to him as my "new" bike did not have functioning tail lights either. With sunglasses and bright sunlight, the constant moving obtacles in front, behind and around you were easy to spot and take evasive action when necessary, however at night without sunglasses blocking the dust and wind, new challenges were before us.

On the motorbike, your face and chest become the windshield, deflecting bugs, gravel and soot from the truck and bus exhaust. Pedestrians and cyclists jutted out from unmarked side roads into the narrow bike lanes in the pitch black of night. Trying to keep the bike tires on the white line separating the road from the graveled bike lane was our best and only navigational tool. I kept a steady eye on my rear view mirror as fast approaching vehicles with a grill of lights approached. As they neared, they sounded their crazy horns as if I didn't know they were already on my tail. Without the need for convincing I pulled over into the narrow margin on the side of the road and reduced my speed as the vehicles swung out into the opposing lanes to ensure they missed clipping my bike.

After twelve hours and several hundred kilometers later, we rolled into Hue. In the mirror of the elevator, I got the first glimpse of what looked like a firefighter returning from battling a blaze for days on end. My face was covered with black dirt which, when combined with sweat took on a grease like appearance. But the dirt was of no concern as we reflected on the historic and moving sights of the day. Afterall, we were lucky, coming back to air conditioning, a warm meal and a comfortable bed.