If
you asked me where you should visit to understand more about Viet Nam, my answer
would be Quang Tri Province.

Duck and cover: Foreign tourists explore part of the Vinh Moc Tunnel system where the local residents lived and supported soldiers on the southern front. (Photos: VNS)

With its battlefields,
monuments and museums, it is one place I will never be able to forget.

Vinh Linh District’s
Hien Luong Bridge linking North and South Viet Nam is situated on the 17th
parallel and was the temporary military border after the Geneva Peace Agreement
on Indochina in 1954, following the French defeat in Dien Bien Phu battle.

The wooden footway
supported by huge iron girders was built in 1928 for pedestrians. Improvements
were added in 1931 and again in 1943 by the French to allow vehicles to cross
the Ben Hai River. Seven years later, they further upgraded the bridge to serve
their military purposes but it was badly damaged two years later during the war.

In later conflicts, it
was bombed on numerous occasions, but it was rebuilt and restored, and stands as
monument to the bloody struggles it witnessed.

The 178m long bridge
that can be seen now is made from reinforced concrete with seven spans and steel
girders.

Nguyen Van Tuy, an
80-year-old from Bac Ninh Province, asked his children to take him to Quang Tri
to see with his own eyes the sites that have become well known across the world
and to visit his younger brother who died there in 1972 and is now buried in the
National Truong Son Martyrs’ Cemetery.

“I am here today,
maybe my last journey, to view the victorious history of our people. The Hien
Luong Bridge and its surroundings have become holy to us. It now stands for our
thirst for peace and the reunification of Viet Nam,” Tuy said.

After the national
victory in 1975, the military border was eliminated. In 1996, the Ministry of
Transport decided to build a new bridge which is located just a few metres away
from the old one to the west.

The old bridge that
carried thousands of Vietnamese soldiers across to the South has become
recognised as a national symbol and now attracts thousands of visitors per year.

From Hien Luong
Bridge, you can take a 20km drive to the Old Citadel in Quang Tri Town.

The second must-see
venue in the province was used as a military fort under the Nguyen dynasty.
During the French and American occupation, it was used as a prison to hold
Vietnamese patriots.

The citadel was built
in 1802 in Trieu Phong District then moved to today’s location seven years
later.

The first citadel was
made of soil and rebuilt using bricks with towers at each corner that were used
as sentry boxes.

With a perimeter of
2,080m, walls of 4m high, and a deep moat surrounding the complex, the citadel
was an ideal base for the army.

During its 146 years
(1809-1945) under feudalism, the citadel was the centre of politics, economics
and military operations for the province and a tactical stronghold for Hue city to
the north.

The town was liberated
on May 1, 1972 but the Sai Gon and American troops were hell-bent on recapturing
the citadel, and it suffered the devastating effects of the ensuing battle.

During the 81-day
siege, they dropped all kinds of ordnance including high explosive, napalm,
7-tonne and cluster bombs onto the town, concentrated on the citadel.

In total, an estimated
328,000 tonnes of explosives were dropped on the area, the equivalent of seven
Hiroshima atomic bombs. During that time, the Vietnamese soldiers had to endure
more than 100 bombs and 200 shells per day.

Today, there is almost
nothing left of the old citadel.

Still standing: Old Quang Tri Citadel receives thousands of visitors every year as one of the fiercest battlefields in Viet Nam during the American war.

The gate has been
restored at the historic site and there is a small museum where visitors can
learn more about those horrific days through objects and pictures that are on
display. There is also a memorial temple dedicated to the heroes who made the
ultimate sacrifice for national reunification.

In the future,
restoration work will be carried out to comprehensively restore the citadel and
return it to its former importance and stature.

Further north from
Dong Ha, the provincial capital of Quang Tri, it takes just 20 minutes by car to
the Vinh Moc Tunnels.

The tunnels were part
of Vinh Linh District’s system of underground villages during the war.

To minimise
casualties, people from the district were forced to live underground to avoid
the bombing.

They dug trenches so
they could travel in relative safety and tunnelled even further underground to
develop living spaces.

There are 114 tunnels
with a total length of 40km and more than 2,000km of trenches and ditches in the
district. Vinh Moc is the most famous because of its position and function
during that time.

The tunnels used to be
thousands of metres long but now only 1,700m remain. This underground network
has 13 exits, seven opening to the sea and six to the hills while it is divided
into three layers, the deepest of which is 23m deep.

They are connectedly
by a 768m main axis that is 1.6 to 1.8m high and 1.2 to 1.5m wide, along both
sides of which are housing chambers where families ate, slept and co-existed.

There is also a large
underground meeting hall with a seating capacity of 50 to 80 people, which was
used for meetings, movies, artistic performances, surgery and even a maternity
ward, where 17 babies were delivered.

“It is an incredible
feat of labour. I find it hard to squeeze through these tunnels. I really admire
the people who not only lived but also fought in such uncomfortable conditions
for years,” said Tuy’s son Nguyen Tien Hoan.

“It’s hard to believe
that 17 babies were born here, a symbol of the immortality of the people of this
land,” said Hoan who emerged from the tunnels after spending just a few minutes
underground.

The National Truong
Son Martyrs’ Cemetery was the last venue that Tuy and his family visited to view
his brother’s grave.

The cemetery is
located on the top of a hill surrounded by eight smaller hills, like an
eight-petal flower, in Vinh Truong Commune, 25km northwest of Dong Ha.

The 106ha cemetery is
home to more than 10,200 fallen soldiers and is divided into five sections
according to where each soldier was from, with a memorial monument situated at
the top.

The Memorial of the
Nation to Soldiers’ Sacrifices has three sides representing the three
Indochinese countries, leaning on each for support during their fight against
their common enemy. Between sections four and five is a group of monuments
dedicated to the heroism of Battalion 559 and the Viet Nam-Laos solidarity. The
cemetery is the resting-place of many soldiers who fell on the Ho Chi Minh Trail
and on battlefields across the central part of the country.

It is the largest
memorial site in the country, reflecting the people’s deep sorrow, gratitude and
respect for those who sacrificed their lives for the liberation of the nation.

Every year, it
welcomes more than 20,000 visitors from around the country.

VietNamNet/Viet
Nam News