Ho Chi Min Trail

So, I figured Carla write a bit about our cross country adventure, and figured that I would lend some background info on the HCM Trail, and its significance here in Vietnam.

The trail was conceptualized by General Giap to build a safe route for northern troops to provide aide to Communist troops fighting in the south.

It initially took 6 months to walk the jungle path down the west side of the country, from North to South, carrying rations for the North Vietnamese army. By 1975 the trail was 15,000 km long and was wide enough for trucks and tanks as opposed to the foot path. By the end of its construction it was well protected and had food stores, ammunition dumps and hospitals along the way. Along with an oil pipeline whose whereabouts remain a secret from the people now inhabiting the land around the trail.

All this work required thousands of men, along with a crew of 50,000 youth volunteers used to repair bridges and fill bomb craters by night. People on the route had to contend with almost constant napalm and conventional bombing. Everyday in 1965, the year of the Tet Offensive, US Air Force troops flew an estimated three hundred bombing raids over the trail, and in 8 years dropped over 2 million tones of bombs in an effort to cut the flow of supplies. The trail ran through Cambodia and Laos in parts of the south, and along riverbeds, mountainous terrain, and areas plagued by the daily threats of leeches, snakes, malaria and dysentery. The trail was never completely severed and supplies continued to travel throughout the war.

The trail, now rebuilt as a paved two lane highway, and alternative to highway 1 running from Hanoi to Ho Chi Min City, has its significance preserved through numerous statues and dedications along the way. And is now remembered as a symbol of their victory and their sacrifice. Although critics argue that the completion of the trail due in 2010 will threaten numerous wildlife reserves.

As we traveled down this highway for two days by moto, it may be so that wildlife is being threatened as the jungle bore no evidence of wildlife, hardly a bird in sight. Although the numbers of wild buffalos and cows being herded up the highway to graze were abundant. So many nomadic and minority people live off the highway, and travel by foot to gather food from sunrise to sunset along the fields that border the road. The government also placed laws against using the trees to build their houses as they have traditionally done, as clear cutting of the jungle is becoming a huge problem. Also, as the families are too poor to buy cow dung to re-fertilize their Fields two years in a row, there is constant burning of patches of the forest, to create new farming land and fertile earth. It is so sad to see such a gorgeous jungle being slowly burned away.

The poverty of this area is immense, although does not pertain to everyone in the area. There are some successful farmers and families getting enough to eat. Then again, some of the people we passed by had their clothing literally disintegrating off their backs. And all the while the smiles on everyone's faces as we drove by and waved were priceless. The land is incredibly mountainous, and it is so impressive the angles upon which the people can farm. It was amazing to drive through and see the bear mountain tops from bombing, houses closed due to Agent Orange spraying and infertile land, and many children have downs syndrome and birth defects from the spaying as well. Even bullet holes in house walls, and bomb craters patched up along an American air strip.

We walked on patches of the old trail, and could see it emblazened through the jungle. It is a gorgeous drive, and we are lucky to have experienced the area, mostly untouched by tourists.