I left my heart to the sappers round Khe Sanh
And my soul was sold with my cigarettes to the blackmarket man
I’ve had the Vietnam cold turkey
From the ocean to the Silver City
And it’s only other vets could understand
Along with hundreds of other Aussies I grew up listening to Cold Chisel and the song Khe Sanh has always been a favourite. Over the last few years we’ve visited several sites where Aussie troops have fought, including Hellfire Pass on the Thai-Burma Railway. So this trip is no different, we took a tour to see Khe Sanh Combat Base and the DMZ, including the Peace Bridge.
Our guide was Mr Vu from Annam Tours, this guy is a walking encyclopaedia! What he doesn’t know probably isn’t worth knowing. We spent an amazing day with him looking at not only Khe Sanh but the other fire bases along Route 9 from Dong Ha to the Laos Border. Along the way we stopped several times as he explained how the NVA and US forces had swapped territory during the war, until the US finally withdrew from Khe Sanh.
Heading back to DongHa we stopped at a local restaurant for some great food, less than $8AUD to feed four of us including drinks… After lunch we stopped at the Peace Bridge, the crossing point between North and South Vietnam. So sad to see how people were cut off from family by an arbitrary line dividing the country.
From here we visited the Vinh Moc Tunnels, a whole village forced to move underground to avoid the conflict.. The small section we walked was quite eerie, very dark and narrow, a few times I almost had to crawl…
All to soon our day was over and we headed back to Vedana to rest and think about our day..
A great experience all round, thanks to Mr Vu…