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Quang Tri
Located on North - Central Vietnam Quang Tri is surrounded by Quang Binh Province on the north, Thua Thien-Hue Province on the south, Savanakhet (Laos)on the west, East Sea on the east with 75km seaside.
Topography consists of mountains, hills, plains, sand dune and seaside. The long coast and complex network of rives includes Ben Hai, Cam Lo, Quang Tri, Thach Han making a good condition for hydroelectricity and aquiculture.
The weather condition is very severe with hot and dry south- west winds. Annual average temperature is 24ºC.
Quang Tri preserves many remains from the anti- American resistance war such as the ancient citadel of Quang Tri, Khe Sanh Combat Base, Truong Son National Cemetery, Vinh Moc Tunnels, Hien Luong Bridge and Ben Hai River.
Coming to there, tourists are able to take interesting holiday in Dakrong Beauty Spot and Cua Tung Beach. The beach has sparkling clean water, silky sand and soft breeze, the whisper made by the rows of casuarinas trees. It is very pleasant to go on boat down stream on the Ben Hai River and admire the beautiful landscapes.
Dong Ha Town is 74km from Hue City, 80km from Lao Bao Border crossing, 94km from Dong Hoi (Quang Binh Province), 190km from Danang, 617km from Hanoi, and 1,112km from Ho Chi Minh City . National Highway No.1A runs through the province and National Highway No.9, the Trans-Asia Highway connects with the Lao Bao international border gate to Laos.
Quang Tri and the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ)
In 1954, Ho Chi Minh’s government in the north and the French colonial administration in the south agreed an armistice that involved a ‘temporary’ partition of Vietnam. The Ben Hai River, in the extreme north of Quang Tri province, became the arbitrary line dividing the two halves of the country. When the southern ‘government’, backed by the US, reneged on the national elections promised in the agreement, Quang Tri became the theatre where most of the important scenes of the Vietnam War were staged.
From then until the early seventies when the Vietnamese army overwhelmed the defences along the southern edge of the DMZ, Quang Tri was a battlefield, one of the most intensively bombed areas in military history. It left a barren desert created by hundreds of thousands of tons of high explosive, estimated to be the equivalent of seven Hiroshima atom bombs, as well as napalm, phosphorous and herbicide.
Today, nature has reclaimed much of the land, but craters are visible almost everywhere in the area.
It has been estimated that nearly a third of the ordnance failed to explode. Clearance is continuous, but there are still enough live landmines, bombs and shells to add to the tens of thousands of children and adults killed or maimed by unexploded ordnance since 1975. The numbers are dropping, but incidents of death or injury among local people are reported almost every week.
Accidents affect children walking to and from school or the market who mistake grenades for toys, farmers ploughing or planting crops, building workers digging wells or laying foundations, and poor peasants attempting to dismantle a bomb or shell to sell the scrap metal for a small amount of cash.
The main sites and paths are now free of danger, but venturing off the beaten track is unwise unless you’re accompanied by a professional guide.
If you travel with LIT, you’ll have an expert local guide who will not only have intimate knowledge of the area, but will also keep you away from unsafe locations.
Apart from war memorabilia, little remains of the pre-war towns and villages. Nevertheless, there are a couple places of interest beyond those directly linked to the war.
Quang Tri town, once an important citadel town and the provincial capital, is mostly an evocative ruin. There are a few remains of the citadel, built in 1824 by King Minh Mang, but not much else.
On the other hand, Dong Ha, the present provincial capital, has flourished. It has a large deepwater port, a direct route to Laos via the Lao Bao border gate 80kn to the west, and is likely to be an important hub on the planned trans-Asia highway. It has a decent hotel and is a good centre from which to explore the DMZ in depth.
Near the Laos border, Huong Hoa is a unremarkable small town in the foothills of the Annamite mountains. Formerly known as Khe Sanh, it’s known for the coffee produced from plantations developed by the French. The interest for our visitors is a German project linking Kraft Foods Germany and the Dutch ‘Douwe Egberts’ coffee company with a Vietnamese Arabica coffee producer to develop high quality coffee without exploiting the farmers or damaging the environment.
A sizable proportion of Huong Hoa’s population is poor Bru Van Kieu ethnic minority people – you’ll probably meet women smoking long-stemmed pipes.
Visiting the DMZ
For most people, the attraction of Quang Tri is the DMZ. However, there’s not much left of the battlefields camps and firebases, most are unmarked, and there are still problems with unexploded ordnance.
If you travel with Haivenu, you’ll always have an expert guide who knows the area like the back of his or her hand, and particularly anywhere that might pose a safety risk.
If you’re interested in particular sites and locations, we’ll tailor-make your tour to your requirements.
If you’re a returning veteran, or a friend or family member of someone who was in Vietnam during the war, we’ll try to track down the exact places, and if possible, local people who were present and remember what happened. We’re good at tracking down clues to identifying specific places.
If you’re looking for a general overview of the DMZ, we’d usually include the main sites, the bridges, the Vinh Moc and the Truong Son National Cemetery.
Possible sites could be La Vang Church, the Quang Tri Citadel, the Ai Tu Base and Airfield, Camp Carroll, The Rockpile, the Khe Sanh Marine Combat Base, Lang Vay Special Forces Camp, Con Thien Firebase, the McNamara Line, the Dak Rong Bridge, and the Doc Mieu Base.
The Ben Hai River and the Hien Luong bridge would also feature. The river runs about 100km from its source to the sea, but was catapulted onto the international stage when the 1954 Geneva Convention designated it as the demarcation line between the communist North Vietnam and the South (not the ‘17th Parallel’ often mentioned in guide books).
Hien Luong was a steel bridge built by French sappers in 1950: previously, the only means of crossing the river was by boat. When Vietnam was partitioned, the northern half was painted red, and the southern yellow. The bridge was bombed to destruction by the US in 1970 – a pyrrhic victory as nearly all the troops, supplies and weapons used the heavily disguised Ho Chi Minh Trail, not the exposed coastal route.
There’s no point in visiting the Ho Chi Minh Trail, as there’s nothing to see – the whole point was that it should be as invisible as possible. However, much of the route is being reincarnated as the Truong Son Road, a new highway in the west linking the two major cities designed to alleviate the pressure on Highway 1.
The Truong Son National Cemetery is another possible element. It’s built on several low lying hills in Truong Son village, a memorial to the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese soldiers who died keeping the Ho Chi Minh Trail open. The history of the trail beggars the imagination – the cemetery commemorates the thousands of men and women who kept the link open throughout the war – engineers, gunners, medical personnel, and a small army of young volunteers, some little more than children, who worked ceaselessly each night to fill in the craters caused by incessant bombing during the day.
The only place to the north of the Ben Hai River that we visit is Vinh Moc. In June 1965, after heavy bombardments, the people of Vinh Moc village began digging shelters beneath their houses to link them to the neighbours thus creating a web of tunnels. Everything was carefully planned to provide access to underground public facilities, such as meeting rooms, a school, and a clinic where seventeen babies were born.
Less sophisticated (but more authentic) than the more famous Cu Chi tunnels near Saigon, and built for different purposes, the Vinh Moc passages and chambers are a poignant example of the ingenuity of the ordinary Vietnamese people in coping with life in the epicentre of one of the world’s most brutal conflicts.
Quang Tri Citadel, Quang Tri
Quang Tri Citadel was built in 1824, during the 4th year of the reign of Minh Mang. The citadel is approximately 60 km north of Hue. The citadel had a style of Vo-bang architecture with its circuit of 2.160 metres – one door each side. There were four fortressed jutting out from each four corners to control the four citadel gates. Inside was the town palace surrounded by a system of thick walls with circuit of 400 metres. The town palace was a three-roomed house whose two wings were used as places for the King to worship, and to give promotions to his inferiors or to occasionally celebrate festivals. Outside the town palace, there were a flagpole and castles such as Tuan Vu, An Sat and Lanh Binh and a rice store, etc and under the French domination, soldier camp and tax agency were added. However there are no remains of the past there nowadays – due to the destruction of U.S bombs in the hot summer of 1972.
The incident of 81 days and nights (from June 28 to September 16, 1972) has made this citadel well-known all over the world. By using fire-power, the South Vietnam puppet troop was determined to re-occupy Quang Tri old citadel within a couple of days. Quang Tri town, therefore, had to suffer from the U.S bombardment and shelling of 140 B52 aircraft in turn, more than 200 tactical planes, 12 – 16 fighter planes and cruisers. Within 40 days and nights it had suffered 80,000 tons of bombs – as many as that in the World War II in African battlefield within a month. Sometimes the number of bombs dropped in Quang Tri a day was far more than that on the whole South battlefield in the years of 1968-1969.
Quang Tri Citadel was built in 1824, during the 4th year of the reign of Minh Mang. The citadel is approximately 60 km north of Hue.
The citadel had a style of Vo-bang architecture with its circuit of 2.160 metres – one door each side. There were four fortressed jutting out from each four corners to control the four citadel gates. Inside was the town palace surrounded by a system of thick walls with circuit of 400 metres. The town palace was a three-roomed house whose two wings were used as places for the King to worship, and to give promotions to his inferiors or to occasionally celebrate festivals. Outside the town palace, there were a flagpole and castles such as Tuan Vu, An Sat and Lanh Binh and a rice store, etc and under the French domination, soldier camp and tax agency were added. However there are no remains of the past there nowadays – due to the destruction of U.S bombs in the hot summer of 1972.
The incident of 81 days and nights (from June 28 to September 16, 1972) has made this citadel well-known all over the world. By using fire-power, the South Vietnam puppet troop was determined to re-occupy Quang Tri Old Citadel within a couple of days. Quang Tri Town, therefore, had to suffer from the U.S bombardment and shelling of 140 B52 aircraft in turn, more than 200 tactical planes, 12 – 16 fighter planes and cruisers. Within 40 days and nights it had suffered 80,000 tons of bombs – as many as that in the World War II in African battlefield within a month. Sometimes the number of bombs dropped in Quang Tri a day was far more than that on the whole South battlefield in the years of 1968-1969.
Especially, on July 25, there were 5,000 shells fired at an area of 3 square km2 of Quang Tri and its vicinity once suffered 20,000 shells of big size a day. The US aggressors used bombs and shells with their destructive capacity, to destroy Quang Tri, equivalent to 7 atomic bombs the they dropped onto Hiroshima and Nagasaki – Japan in 1945. It is, really, unbelievable that each inhabitant in this land had to suffer 7 tons of bombs averagely. Also, this has proved that ours is a heroic nation – for 81 days and nights, the whole Quang Tri Old Citadel had been shaking by U.S bombs and shells, and it was at the same time, the whole Vietnamese people turned towards their undaunted Quang Tri Old Citadel, following every step of our liberation armed forces. All were determined, side by side with Quang Tri to fight to their last breath. The Northern people had saved everything such as: ammunition, food and etc. to send to Quang Tri. Thousands and thousands of young men joined the army to go to the front. Many among those have been gone forever in this Quang Tri land
Vinh Moc Tunnels, Quang Tri
Situated 13km east of the national Highway 1A and just 6km away from the sea, Vinh Moc, a place well-known as an underground village designed to avoid bombardments during the American War, has become a favourite destination for foreign tourists, especially American war veterans.
The spectacular tunnel network stands as a testament to the endurance, wisdom and bravery of the local people in their fight for independence. The network's total length is nearly 2km, structured into three floors with the first 13m beneath the ground, the second 15m and the third, 23m. The village was built over two years and required approximately 6,000 m³ of earth to be dug out. It is linked to the sea by seven exits, which also function as ventilators, and to a nearby hill by another six.
The "underground village "was home to 94 families and included wells to supply water, a meeting room for 60 people, toilets, a maternity ward, an operating theatre, rice stores, switchboards and observation posts. The village featured unique Hoang Cam stoves, named after the general who invented the store to allow for underground cooking without emitting smoke, thus evading the discovery by bombers.
Before entering the tunnels, visitors are shown the displays of that brutal period in Vietnam's history. Two photos provide a sharp contrast: one shot in February of 1965 features a peaceful village mushroomed with houses, the other shows the debris of the same village in the wake of devastating bombings. The vitality of the local people is clearly evident in another picture showing 11 children, born inside the tunnels during war time, celebrating on the victory day. In another photo, visitors see a group of four optimistic girls in white shirts singing inside the tunnels. They meet the four again in another picture, wearing the popular green military outfit while on the ground firing at enemy bombers.
The war forced many people to either leave their villages or live beneath the ground. Vinh Moc residents opted for the second solution. As many as 17 children were born in these tunnels between 1967 and 1968.
Few would imagine that the rubber and pepper tree plantations today used to be a fierce battleground from 1966-1972 when Vinh Moc was not only the Northern Vietnam front but also a place to pass food and ammunitions to Con Co Island, 28km away.
The area underwent tens of thousands of tonnes of bombs by U.S warplanes. The invaders wanted to return the area to the "stone age "and launched a destructive war there. It was estimated that local residents endured the equivalent of 500 heavy rockets per day.
In 1976, the Ministry of Culture and Information recognised Vinh Moc as national heritage site and included it in a list of especially important historical sites. To ensure security for visitors, the tunnels were restored with reinforced concrete and internal lightening
Cua Tung Beach
Cua Tung Beach is located in Vinh Linh District, Quang Tri Province. Although Cua Tung Beach is not very wide or long, it has its own beauty. The beach has sparkling green water, silky sand, and it is touched by soft breezes throughout the year.
It is very pleasant to go on a boat down stream on the Ben Hai River and view the beautiful landscape. From Hien Luong Bridge, the tour boat will bring visitors along the river where rice and maize fields, green bamboo belts, rows of Casuarinas trees, and villages are visible far off into the distance.
In the evening, there are many albatross flying across the sky and diving down into the green water. As night falls, it is time for wind and sea music, the sound of the waves and the whisper made by the rows of casuarinas trees.
Cua Tung Beach is no doubt a great place for both a holiday and a rest.
Topography consists of mountains, hills, plains, sand dune and seaside. The long coast and complex network of rives includes Ben Hai, Cam Lo, Quang Tri, Thach Han making a good condition for hydroelectricity and aquiculture.
The weather condition is very severe with hot and dry south- west winds. Annual average temperature is 24ºC.
Quang Tri preserves many remains from the anti- American resistance war such as the ancient citadel of Quang Tri, Khe Sanh Combat Base, Truong Son National Cemetery, Vinh Moc Tunnels, Hien Luong Bridge and Ben Hai River.
Coming to there, tourists are able to take interesting holiday in Dakrong Beauty Spot and Cua Tung Beach. The beach has sparkling clean water, silky sand and soft breeze, the whisper made by the rows of casuarinas trees. It is very pleasant to go on boat down stream on the Ben Hai River and admire the beautiful landscapes.
Dong Ha Town is 74km from Hue City, 80km from Lao Bao Border crossing, 94km from Dong Hoi (Quang Binh Province), 190km from Danang, 617km from Hanoi, and 1,112km from Ho Chi Minh City . National Highway No.1A runs through the province and National Highway No.9, the Trans-Asia Highway connects with the Lao Bao international border gate to Laos.
Quang Tri and the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ)
In 1954, Ho Chi Minh’s government in the north and the French colonial administration in the south agreed an armistice that involved a ‘temporary’ partition of Vietnam. The Ben Hai River, in the extreme north of Quang Tri province, became the arbitrary line dividing the two halves of the country. When the southern ‘government’, backed by the US, reneged on the national elections promised in the agreement, Quang Tri became the theatre where most of the important scenes of the Vietnam War were staged.
From then until the early seventies when the Vietnamese army overwhelmed the defences along the southern edge of the DMZ, Quang Tri was a battlefield, one of the most intensively bombed areas in military history. It left a barren desert created by hundreds of thousands of tons of high explosive, estimated to be the equivalent of seven Hiroshima atom bombs, as well as napalm, phosphorous and herbicide.
Today, nature has reclaimed much of the land, but craters are visible almost everywhere in the area.
It has been estimated that nearly a third of the ordnance failed to explode. Clearance is continuous, but there are still enough live landmines, bombs and shells to add to the tens of thousands of children and adults killed or maimed by unexploded ordnance since 1975. The numbers are dropping, but incidents of death or injury among local people are reported almost every week.
Accidents affect children walking to and from school or the market who mistake grenades for toys, farmers ploughing or planting crops, building workers digging wells or laying foundations, and poor peasants attempting to dismantle a bomb or shell to sell the scrap metal for a small amount of cash.
The main sites and paths are now free of danger, but venturing off the beaten track is unwise unless you’re accompanied by a professional guide.
If you travel with LIT, you’ll have an expert local guide who will not only have intimate knowledge of the area, but will also keep you away from unsafe locations.
Apart from war memorabilia, little remains of the pre-war towns and villages. Nevertheless, there are a couple places of interest beyond those directly linked to the war.
Quang Tri town, once an important citadel town and the provincial capital, is mostly an evocative ruin. There are a few remains of the citadel, built in 1824 by King Minh Mang, but not much else.
On the other hand, Dong Ha, the present provincial capital, has flourished. It has a large deepwater port, a direct route to Laos via the Lao Bao border gate 80kn to the west, and is likely to be an important hub on the planned trans-Asia highway. It has a decent hotel and is a good centre from which to explore the DMZ in depth.
Near the Laos border, Huong Hoa is a unremarkable small town in the foothills of the Annamite mountains. Formerly known as Khe Sanh, it’s known for the coffee produced from plantations developed by the French. The interest for our visitors is a German project linking Kraft Foods Germany and the Dutch ‘Douwe Egberts’ coffee company with a Vietnamese Arabica coffee producer to develop high quality coffee without exploiting the farmers or damaging the environment.
A sizable proportion of Huong Hoa’s population is poor Bru Van Kieu ethnic minority people – you’ll probably meet women smoking long-stemmed pipes.
Visiting the DMZ
For most people, the attraction of Quang Tri is the DMZ. However, there’s not much left of the battlefields camps and firebases, most are unmarked, and there are still problems with unexploded ordnance.
If you travel with Haivenu, you’ll always have an expert guide who knows the area like the back of his or her hand, and particularly anywhere that might pose a safety risk.
If you’re interested in particular sites and locations, we’ll tailor-make your tour to your requirements.
If you’re a returning veteran, or a friend or family member of someone who was in Vietnam during the war, we’ll try to track down the exact places, and if possible, local people who were present and remember what happened. We’re good at tracking down clues to identifying specific places.
If you’re looking for a general overview of the DMZ, we’d usually include the main sites, the bridges, the Vinh Moc and the Truong Son National Cemetery.
Possible sites could be La Vang Church, the Quang Tri Citadel, the Ai Tu Base and Airfield, Camp Carroll, The Rockpile, the Khe Sanh Marine Combat Base, Lang Vay Special Forces Camp, Con Thien Firebase, the McNamara Line, the Dak Rong Bridge, and the Doc Mieu Base.
The Ben Hai River and the Hien Luong bridge would also feature. The river runs about 100km from its source to the sea, but was catapulted onto the international stage when the 1954 Geneva Convention designated it as the demarcation line between the communist North Vietnam and the South (not the ‘17th Parallel’ often mentioned in guide books).
Hien Luong was a steel bridge built by French sappers in 1950: previously, the only means of crossing the river was by boat. When Vietnam was partitioned, the northern half was painted red, and the southern yellow. The bridge was bombed to destruction by the US in 1970 – a pyrrhic victory as nearly all the troops, supplies and weapons used the heavily disguised Ho Chi Minh Trail, not the exposed coastal route.
There’s no point in visiting the Ho Chi Minh Trail, as there’s nothing to see – the whole point was that it should be as invisible as possible. However, much of the route is being reincarnated as the Truong Son Road, a new highway in the west linking the two major cities designed to alleviate the pressure on Highway 1.
The Truong Son National Cemetery is another possible element. It’s built on several low lying hills in Truong Son village, a memorial to the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese soldiers who died keeping the Ho Chi Minh Trail open. The history of the trail beggars the imagination – the cemetery commemorates the thousands of men and women who kept the link open throughout the war – engineers, gunners, medical personnel, and a small army of young volunteers, some little more than children, who worked ceaselessly each night to fill in the craters caused by incessant bombing during the day.
The only place to the north of the Ben Hai River that we visit is Vinh Moc. In June 1965, after heavy bombardments, the people of Vinh Moc village began digging shelters beneath their houses to link them to the neighbours thus creating a web of tunnels. Everything was carefully planned to provide access to underground public facilities, such as meeting rooms, a school, and a clinic where seventeen babies were born.
Less sophisticated (but more authentic) than the more famous Cu Chi tunnels near Saigon, and built for different purposes, the Vinh Moc passages and chambers are a poignant example of the ingenuity of the ordinary Vietnamese people in coping with life in the epicentre of one of the world’s most brutal conflicts.
Quang Tri Citadel, Quang Tri
Quang Tri Citadel was built in 1824, during the 4th year of the reign of Minh Mang. The citadel is approximately 60 km north of Hue. The citadel had a style of Vo-bang architecture with its circuit of 2.160 metres – one door each side. There were four fortressed jutting out from each four corners to control the four citadel gates. Inside was the town palace surrounded by a system of thick walls with circuit of 400 metres. The town palace was a three-roomed house whose two wings were used as places for the King to worship, and to give promotions to his inferiors or to occasionally celebrate festivals. Outside the town palace, there were a flagpole and castles such as Tuan Vu, An Sat and Lanh Binh and a rice store, etc and under the French domination, soldier camp and tax agency were added. However there are no remains of the past there nowadays – due to the destruction of U.S bombs in the hot summer of 1972.
The incident of 81 days and nights (from June 28 to September 16, 1972) has made this citadel well-known all over the world. By using fire-power, the South Vietnam puppet troop was determined to re-occupy Quang Tri old citadel within a couple of days. Quang Tri town, therefore, had to suffer from the U.S bombardment and shelling of 140 B52 aircraft in turn, more than 200 tactical planes, 12 – 16 fighter planes and cruisers. Within 40 days and nights it had suffered 80,000 tons of bombs – as many as that in the World War II in African battlefield within a month. Sometimes the number of bombs dropped in Quang Tri a day was far more than that on the whole South battlefield in the years of 1968-1969.
Quang Tri Citadel was built in 1824, during the 4th year of the reign of Minh Mang. The citadel is approximately 60 km north of Hue.
The citadel had a style of Vo-bang architecture with its circuit of 2.160 metres – one door each side. There were four fortressed jutting out from each four corners to control the four citadel gates. Inside was the town palace surrounded by a system of thick walls with circuit of 400 metres. The town palace was a three-roomed house whose two wings were used as places for the King to worship, and to give promotions to his inferiors or to occasionally celebrate festivals. Outside the town palace, there were a flagpole and castles such as Tuan Vu, An Sat and Lanh Binh and a rice store, etc and under the French domination, soldier camp and tax agency were added. However there are no remains of the past there nowadays – due to the destruction of U.S bombs in the hot summer of 1972.
The incident of 81 days and nights (from June 28 to September 16, 1972) has made this citadel well-known all over the world. By using fire-power, the South Vietnam puppet troop was determined to re-occupy Quang Tri Old Citadel within a couple of days. Quang Tri Town, therefore, had to suffer from the U.S bombardment and shelling of 140 B52 aircraft in turn, more than 200 tactical planes, 12 – 16 fighter planes and cruisers. Within 40 days and nights it had suffered 80,000 tons of bombs – as many as that in the World War II in African battlefield within a month. Sometimes the number of bombs dropped in Quang Tri a day was far more than that on the whole South battlefield in the years of 1968-1969.
Especially, on July 25, there were 5,000 shells fired at an area of 3 square km2 of Quang Tri and its vicinity once suffered 20,000 shells of big size a day. The US aggressors used bombs and shells with their destructive capacity, to destroy Quang Tri, equivalent to 7 atomic bombs the they dropped onto Hiroshima and Nagasaki – Japan in 1945. It is, really, unbelievable that each inhabitant in this land had to suffer 7 tons of bombs averagely. Also, this has proved that ours is a heroic nation – for 81 days and nights, the whole Quang Tri Old Citadel had been shaking by U.S bombs and shells, and it was at the same time, the whole Vietnamese people turned towards their undaunted Quang Tri Old Citadel, following every step of our liberation armed forces. All were determined, side by side with Quang Tri to fight to their last breath. The Northern people had saved everything such as: ammunition, food and etc. to send to Quang Tri. Thousands and thousands of young men joined the army to go to the front. Many among those have been gone forever in this Quang Tri land
Vinh Moc Tunnels, Quang Tri
Situated 13km east of the national Highway 1A and just 6km away from the sea, Vinh Moc, a place well-known as an underground village designed to avoid bombardments during the American War, has become a favourite destination for foreign tourists, especially American war veterans.
The spectacular tunnel network stands as a testament to the endurance, wisdom and bravery of the local people in their fight for independence. The network's total length is nearly 2km, structured into three floors with the first 13m beneath the ground, the second 15m and the third, 23m. The village was built over two years and required approximately 6,000 m³ of earth to be dug out. It is linked to the sea by seven exits, which also function as ventilators, and to a nearby hill by another six.
The "underground village "was home to 94 families and included wells to supply water, a meeting room for 60 people, toilets, a maternity ward, an operating theatre, rice stores, switchboards and observation posts. The village featured unique Hoang Cam stoves, named after the general who invented the store to allow for underground cooking without emitting smoke, thus evading the discovery by bombers.
Before entering the tunnels, visitors are shown the displays of that brutal period in Vietnam's history. Two photos provide a sharp contrast: one shot in February of 1965 features a peaceful village mushroomed with houses, the other shows the debris of the same village in the wake of devastating bombings. The vitality of the local people is clearly evident in another picture showing 11 children, born inside the tunnels during war time, celebrating on the victory day. In another photo, visitors see a group of four optimistic girls in white shirts singing inside the tunnels. They meet the four again in another picture, wearing the popular green military outfit while on the ground firing at enemy bombers.
The war forced many people to either leave their villages or live beneath the ground. Vinh Moc residents opted for the second solution. As many as 17 children were born in these tunnels between 1967 and 1968.
Few would imagine that the rubber and pepper tree plantations today used to be a fierce battleground from 1966-1972 when Vinh Moc was not only the Northern Vietnam front but also a place to pass food and ammunitions to Con Co Island, 28km away.
The area underwent tens of thousands of tonnes of bombs by U.S warplanes. The invaders wanted to return the area to the "stone age "and launched a destructive war there. It was estimated that local residents endured the equivalent of 500 heavy rockets per day.
In 1976, the Ministry of Culture and Information recognised Vinh Moc as national heritage site and included it in a list of especially important historical sites. To ensure security for visitors, the tunnels were restored with reinforced concrete and internal lightening
Cua Tung Beach
Cua Tung Beach is located in Vinh Linh District, Quang Tri Province. Although Cua Tung Beach is not very wide or long, it has its own beauty. The beach has sparkling green water, silky sand, and it is touched by soft breezes throughout the year.
It is very pleasant to go on a boat down stream on the Ben Hai River and view the beautiful landscape. From Hien Luong Bridge, the tour boat will bring visitors along the river where rice and maize fields, green bamboo belts, rows of Casuarinas trees, and villages are visible far off into the distance.
In the evening, there are many albatross flying across the sky and diving down into the green water. As night falls, it is time for wind and sea music, the sound of the waves and the whisper made by the rows of casuarinas trees.
Cua Tung Beach is no doubt a great place for both a holiday and a rest.