Going Underground

Hue is close (although not as close as we thought) to the famous DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) which was the 'no mans land' between North and South Vietnam before reunification. It has the best preserved and least visited tunnels in Vietnam.

So after breakfast on the balcony, we took a minibus and guide to them, stopping on the way to take in a bit of rural Vietnam (buffalo crossing the busy highway, trying to work out how they extract rubber from the trees and watching people working in the rice fields) and have an interesting lunch by the sea on the way.

It turned out to be rather further than we had been led to believe, so the journey itself took about 6 hrs there and back.

We saw the military cemetery where over 10,000 Vietnamese soldiers were buried during the 19 year war (another 5000 odd died clearing up the unexploded bombs afterwards).

The tunnels themselves were the highlight of the day. Built on three levels through the earth there are 4kms of them and it took just 20 months to build them. 400 North Vietnamese lived down there, whilst the war raged. 19 babies were born down there during the period!