Not the most exciting day out ever, the DMZ tour to be brutally honest. Not for the amount of driving involved anyway. Would be better for yanks to be patriotic I’d imagine. We went down the Vinh Moc tunnels in a very spectacular coastal setting, a very well preserved rabbit warren of tiny passageways going down to 23m below surface. There were built by the Vietnamese civilians for shelter purposes. Next we stopped at the Rockpile, which is, errrrrrr, a pile of rocks but was the site of some serious battles apparently. Then there was the site of some bridge which is no longer there, over the river dividing north and south vietnam. Next was a minority village stop which is really nothing more than a chance for the annoying kids to try and extort money from you. Final stop was the famous Khe Sanh American airbase, but again there is little of it left, apart from a huge area where nothing can still grow after the huge bloodshed, and loads of bullet casings strewn all over the place.
Chickened out on a Minsk but have got a little Honda bike for today, so have toured around some tombs near to Hue. It’s been quite interesting trying to drive around here, as there is basically only one road rule – try not to hit anything. Tomorrow morning I’m catching my trusty E1 “express” train from here down to Nha Trang, it’s a 12 hour journey starting at 11am, and I have a sleeper car, so I’ve got 36 hours in bed starting from tonight! I could have got an overnight bus instead, but the lure of a full bed in a train is just too tempting…
Time for the first dinner of today. I’m having to eat four meals a day as the portions are so small!