Dong Hoi, Dong Ha and the DMZ

The train ride to Dong Hoi was great for the first 5 hours, beautiful scenery and much calmer than the roads. However there were only hard seats left when we booked and we had to sit on different sides of the train. This left us open to the experience of locals with no concept of personal space. At one point Jono had one person sleeping under him and three people squeezed onto the two person hard seat (sized for two vietnamese people). The granny opposite me thought it was fine to put her feet up on the seat and lean them on me. Now I am not that worried by granny feet but both of us had been to the toilet before this.. the loo is a metal surface with a hole that goes down to the tracks, one of the lovely hoses included so the entire floor is wet. She had been twice and one of the trips she took toilet paper, so her feet as they slipped out of her plastic sandals and onto my leg were radioactive as far as I was concerned. Shaking that memory off will be hard.

So we did eventually arrive in Dong Hoi and managed to bargain our way down to 40, 000 dong for the cab to the hotel. The owner was really lovely and cooked us some noodles when we arrived.

We awoke to a downpour, and the owner explained it was Reunifcation/Liberation day which meant he was booked out and all the rooms would be double the price the next day and most are also booked out. So we thought we would go to Dong Ha and get to the DMZ (demilitarised zone) from there. We were aiming to avoid Dong Ha as lonely planet says there is no conceivable reason to visit save to go to the DMZ but the owner of the hotel said there would be more accommodation choices there. So off we went to the bus station. We arrived to have a very helpful chick tell us that there are no buses to Dong Ha (this we gleaned from the fact she said no to every question we asked, leaning back in her chair and trying to pretend we were not there). A nice guy thankfully explained to us that we could get off in Dong Ha (if we asked the driver) but we had to buy a ticket to Hue.

Our bus was a minivan which had probably survived the Vietnam war. It leaked from every possible corner, join and window. We were pushed to the back seat and the pimp who tried to run the show attempted to pack as many people and bags of stuff as possible onto the bus. At the high point we had our packs on our laps on the back seat breathing in not only passive smoke from some genius who thought it was okay to smoke on a fully packed bus with all the windows closed because of the torrential rain but also exhaust fumes flowing in through the rust holes in the floor.

Dong Ha was all lonely planet said it would be and then a little more revolting. The hotel had dead cockaroachs and cigarette butts on the floor and a shiny stretchy sheet that seemed to come off the bed leaving you sleeping on a bare mattress. Jono didn't even tell me about the used syringes on the window sill until after we left.

The owner of the hotel was very friendly though and he took us on a tour in a minivan to the DMZ (just us and the girl we met in Ninh Binh). The Vinh Moc tunnels were really amazing to see. There are 3 levels; the deepest is 24m underground and they extend an amazing distance. There were lots of little family rooms on the cilivian level and then rooms for soldiers on the military level. The tunnels were tall enough to walk through with a stoop for us but I would not want to be a tall european and try to get around. The tunnels had a few exits to the beach and there were a few ventilation shafts (one of which was made from the most succesiful US bomb attempt- it didn't explode). They gave you perspective on how deep down you were. It was impressive and very sobering to think people lived there for 4 years. 17 babies were born down there.

We also saw the Khe San combat base which doesn't really exist since the US destroyed the entire thing before they left so there was nothing for propoganda (they found some stiff though). We climbed onto one of the tanks and generally got a bit freaked out in the thick fog that surrounds the place. There was a combat helicopter and a chinook transport helicopter there. They were still very well intact but they didn't look like the kind of thing a government defense force would pay for, more like an enthusaists toy. We got to see the difference between AK-47s(Russian made for North Vietnamese) and M-16s(US). The AK was much smaller but apparently would work after being submerged in water or buried hidden underground for months, whereas the M-16 generally did more malfunctiong than actual firing.

A minor hick up with getting a bus out of Dong Ha to Hue but after a few kms of walking and some bargaining we got on a minivan. We had an amusing time trying to improve our vietnamese learning the phrases for no thank you, i don't want that, i don't like that and leave me alone to try to get rid of the persistent drink selling vendors.