DMZ and tunnels

After biking the Ho Chi Minh trail I went out for food and beers.  I ended up in a club with an English guy Jim and a Scottish girl Paula, had a really good night, got to bed at 5am.

I woke up hanging, but had to force myself to get on the bike and ride to Dong Ha, my next stop up the coast. The ride was shite, it started raining, the road was covered in watery mud, it was slightly uphill, there was a headwind, my bottom bracket on my bike was getting worse and there were loads of busses and lorries coming past.  I got to Dong Ha pretty fed up and was starting to doubt my decision to cycle.

I got up in the morning, checked out of hotel and headed to a cafe for breaky.  As I was leaving a local guy started talking to me, I told him my plan to cycle to the Laos border and showed him the play in my bottom bracket.  He didn't know anywhere but his mate suggested a guy on the other side of the road. He had a street stall for bike maintenance. He replaced the spindle, bearings and cups for about £3!

Whilst my bike was bing repaired I was chatting to the first guy.  He was telling me about the demilitarized zone and tunnels just north of Dong Ha.  I knew they were there but didnt want to add two days of cycling in the wrong direction to see them.  The guy offered to take me on a tour on the back of his moped to see them for £12, I said yes.

By this time it was almost lunch time, he took me to have lunch with his family.  I sat down with them in their home and had some grub.  He then disappeared to go and do something (not sure what) so I was left sitting in this Vietnamese house with a family I had just met, we struggled to communicate in English but got by.

So after I was sitting on the back of a scooter heading up to see the demilitarized (DMZ) zone.  After Vietnam gained independence from France the North wanted to be communist but the south wanted to be capitalist.  The two respective leaders could not agree on a way forward so decided to have two counties divided in the middle by the Ben Hai river.  5km either ride of the river was declared a DMZ and UN peacekeepers were stationed at the border. It was like this from about 1954 to 1960, then it all got a bit messy. The North were fighting for a unified communist state and the south were fighting for capitalism. The south were supported by the US who were trying to stop the spread of communism and the North were supported by the Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea and Czechoslovakia.

Then we headed to the tunnels. A network of underground tunnels that housed thousands of North Vietnamese during the American bombing. Whole villages were living underground for four years. Pretty awesome to walk through them.

We stopped at some memorials.  The had big signs saying 'we hate the US aggressors' on all their monuments.

It was a good day, it turned out much different then expected! Tomorrow I will set of on the bike with a new bottom bracket and head towards the Laos border. 69 km up into the mountains, sounds like fun! Who knows what stories tomorrow will bring?