Visiting the DMZ

Written by Bryn:

Visit to DMZ

We arose to the dulcet tones of a blaring alarm clock and descended, bleary eyed and in need of coffee, into the main room for breakfast only to look out the large windows and see grey skies spilling a light spray of misty droplets down on the streets of Hoi On. After a quick meal of various combinations of eggs and bread and several negotiations with the hosts about accommodating the rain into our plans, we all piled into a van that would take us to the demilitarized zone. Once about an hour of driving had passed, we pulled over and our vibrantly enthusiastic tour guide boarded the van and declared that he wanted us all to be happy that day. Armed with our guide, we then drove to one of the many military cemeteries in the area where bodies from the war that had been dug up from various locations were reburied. We trudged up a muddy hill, hair rapidly becoming slick with rain, to see the rusted remains of an American tank, half covered in the fresh green of new growth and dusted with a coating of little white flowers.

We then plodded through the reddish-brown mud into the cemetery, looking around in an awed silence, faces drawn at the sheer number of tiny graves laid out in neat rows that segmented the solemn space. The graves were much too small to hold a human body, even taking into account the slightly smaller stature of the Vietnamese, and we learned that this was due to only a few of the body parts of the soldiers being present. We silently walked down row after row of chipped tombstones declaring the bodies within to be heroes of war and martyrs, each grave also accompanied by small clusters of incense and little collections of colored pebbles. In the back corner of this plot of graves, was a section that seemed even more solemnly silent than the rest of the cemetery: a section filled with the poor nameless and faceless people who could not be identified, who, in a culture where paying respects to deceased relatives is vital, were visited only by strangers who prayed to them in the vain hope that perhaps they are connected. Some people who had lost loved ones in the war were so desperate to be able to pay their respects that they paid fortune tellers to figure out which unidentified body parts belonged to their missing relative. These graves were marked with updated black plaques, and were worshipped by strangers desperate to feel they had found family.

Feeling thoroughly soaked and with a greater dislike of war, we loaded up the van again and headed out once more to stop by the war museum. We crossed a thin bridge over the river that had once divided the North and South and arrived at a small yellowish building to be confronted with a very oversized, stone megaphone. This megaphone was used during the war to shout insults to the other side and its gray surface was coated with a dappling of bullet holes which we learned were caused by the other side not liking what they heard. We then slowly meandered around the one-roomed war museum whose walls were coated with pictures from the war and sculptures of very fierce looking Vietnamese soldiers clutching intimidating rifles. Once we had taken in all of the artifacts and replicas, we got back into the van and drove out to the location of some of the entrances to the large network of tunnels the Vietnamese lived in for as long as 6 years during the war.

The rain had died down some by the time we made it to the entrance to the tunnels so we went down into the dark opening into the ground semi-dry. The tunnels were low enough that even the shortest in our group had to stoop for most of the walk and came in three different levels: 12 feet down, 15 feet down, and 23 feet down. The highest level was used for storage since it wasn’t low enough to be safe for people during battle. The second level was where most of the people lived and included the maternity room, the infirmary, and the one washroom that the hundreds of people all shared. The third level was too wet and didn’t have access to enough air for that many people to sleep in, so it too was used for storage with the addition of having several wells where the tunnels’ occupants got their water for most of the year. We walked along all three of these levels, becoming a row of hunched forms sharing a total of three flashlights to traverse the dark, rocky walkways. Once we had toured the tunnels to our hearts’ content, we filed back out into the daylight and onto the vans once more to go to lunch. We pulled over at a little restaurant picked by our tour guide and then with full bellies we headed out to visit a religious site that turned out to be filled with a plethora of cheerfully chattering Asian school children. After poking around there for a bit, we went back to the hotel, arriving later than we had expected to. Brief visits to our rooms ensued before we all exited the hotel to walk next door to our first Indian food in over a week. Cheerful pop music that had been popular around six years ago reverberated around the room as we chowed down on some much missed curry and chatted amongst ourselves before tiredly lurching up to bed to collapse.