The DMZ

I spent all day yesterday lying around reading my book and all night sipping a few brews with some fellow travelers. But this morning I got up for a motorcycle tour of Hue. Despite my “tourist fatigue” I really enjoyed this trip. (“tourist fatigue” is caused by too much time taking pictures, looking at architecture, eyeing big golden Buddhas, etc.)

Hue is the city that divides North Vietnam from the South. It was here that the American military attempted to erect an impassible demilitarized zone (DMZ) across a very thin strip of Vietnam through which no Viet Cong could get to the south. Of course, that only made the VC head into Laos to circumvent the DMZ. And that is why we started bombing the shit out of Laos. But, I’m off track.

One of the first stops on my tour was an unknown hill that overlooked the Perfume River, which runs through Hue. Around me on the hill I stood were reinforced concrete bunkers used to protect the vantage point against the VC. Feet-thick concrete supported artillery and provided protective barriers for soldiers to sleep and eat in the event of mortar attack. And on the other side of the river–the VC side–just trees and dirt. For years American soldiers faced off across this river and exchanged mortar, artillery, and occasional rifle shot.

But that was a bit outside of Hue. In the city proper, on the north shore of the Perfume River, is the citidel which housed the imperial capital of this city before it was conquered by the French and split in two by the subsequent war. The French leveled the complex in the 40s and the Americans finished the job in the 60s and 70s. Today what remains are thick stone walls and a formidable moat.

Hue is an interesting city. As the dividing line of the civil war that still haunts this country, it was the forefront of death and destruction throughout the conflict. While it may have carried the brunt of the violence, the people here are more ambivalent and at peace with what happened that anywhere. Where the south Vietnamese still consider the northerners morally self-righteous and pretentious, the north Vietnamese think the south is backwards and ethically corrupt, Hue straddles this dislike and bears no grudge against either.

Tomorrow I’m going to bus to Hoi An for another stop in a small, relaxing Vietnamese town. Beleive it or not, I’ve only got six more nights in Vietnam so with tonight in Hue, a couple days in Hoi An, and a few more days elsewhere (likely Nha Trang) my time is starting to run out. But I’ll soothe my tourist fatigue with a few drinks and a couple hours on the beach.