2014/15 Biking Southeast Asia Daily Snippet

8 January, Cua Tung
Thanh Phat Hotel 200,000VND

The Geneva Accord of 1954 confirmed Indochina’s (Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia) independence from French colonial rule and split Vietnam into north and south at the 17th parallel. The Accord mandated unification of Vietnam on the basis of internationally supervised free elections to be held in July 1956. Neither South Vietnam nor the US signed the Accord leading to the Vietnam war, called the American war in Vietnam. On our hired autocycle we visited two war sites today: the Vinh Moc tunnels and the Ben Hai river.

The demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the two Vietnams extended 5km either side of the Ben Hai which flows into the South China Sea at Cua Tung. Wikipedia: “At the time of the partition, the principal north-south road (Highway 1) crossed the Bến Hải River over Hien Luong Bridge (also known as the “Peace Bridge”), a beam bridge built from steel by the French in 1950. After the partition, the northern portion of the bridge was painted red and the southern portion yellow. The bridge was damaged by American bombardment during the Vietnam War in 1967. After the Paris Peace Accords, a modern bridge was built next to the old bridge.”

The villagers of Vinh Moc supplied food and armaments to the North Vietnamese garrison on the island of Con Co from which US planes on their way to bomb Hanoi were harassed. Vinh Moc was subjected to intense bombing, therefore, forcing the villagers to construct and move into underground tunnels. The tunnel complex, built on three levels to a depth of 23 metres, included storage and meeting rooms, tiny family “rooms”, wells, ventilation shafts, kitchens, and more. The tunnels explain much about why the Vietnamese in the end succeeded against their considerably more powerful opponents.