Onwards to the Wilds

Well, it is time to leave Hue and how do we travel this time??? Via motorcycle again!!! And once again I am relegated to a backpack, strapped up in plastic and cinched down tight. Sigh... a little bear's life is so hard sometimes!

Our first stop (or so I see from the pictures) was Quang Tri, a town that saw heavy fighting during the war. All that was left standing after 81 days of fighting was the Catholic Church. It has been left as a memorial.

And then a fishing village! Those boats look beary cool and different from all the ones that we have seen so far.

Whoa... that is a cute crab! Do you see that his front claws are different sizes??? That's because crabs can regenerate their legs and claws if they get injured. They just grow a new one... beary cool!

Onwards to the Vinh Moc Tunnels were a whole village hid during bomb alerts. The Americans apparently never new about this tunnel system which was 30 metres deep in places. The people would move down here during air raids and live down here. Seventeen babies were born down here during that time!

Then we stopped at the old river border between North and South. This memorial is on the south side and has a mother and children looking to the north. Many families were torn apart by the war and the men went to fight for the north, but never came home. Beary sad.

Finally we headed west along the DMZ. This mountain looks pretty unassuming but during the war was known as the Rock Pile and had an American base on top.

We finally ended up at Khe Sanh where the old Ta Con American Airbase is located. That is a C-130 transport plane.

And an old American tank.

A little museum is near the airfield but the actual airfield is now being used to grow peanuts! Did you know that they grow on the roots of the peanut plant? Technically they are not nuts then but legumes... I think...

We stayed overnight in Khe Sanh and headed out the next morning on the West Ho Chi Minh Trail, direction north. It rained the whole day... the whole day!!! The humans were all suited up in blue rain gear and I was tucked in a plastic bag in Mama's backpack... which was a good thing!! The big plastic bag that held Mama's backpack leaked and so all of her books and even the laptop got a bit wet. But not me... I was snug and dry (whew!!!). Luckily the laptop dried out or else that would have been the end of my blogging!!!

We splashed along the road and eventually ended up at Phong Nha Farmstay, smack dab in the heart of the best cave territory in Vietnam (if not the world). More on that later!