HIKING THE HO CHI MINH TRAIL

Laotian homes on stilts in the border town of Densavan

As I approach the Laotian border village of Densavan on foot, I'm getting my first views of this mysterious country. Ahead are the rolling mountains of Southeast Laos, and I quickly notice the difference between here and Lao Bao, the border town on the Vietnamese side. Vietnam is far more developed and affluent, since the Vietnamese economy has been booming for years. But crossing a bridge into Densavan, I find the opposite. Local children play and splash about, in muddy water below the bridge. Some village houses here are basically shacks, with rooftops of corrugated metal. Other homes are even less durable, with thatched rooftops.

Laos is one of the world’s poorest countries. Today the total population is only 6 million. Although  double what it was back during the Vietnam War, it still has the lowest population density in all of Southeast Asia. The low numbers mean Laos continues to have mountain ranges and jungles that remain largely uninhabited, giving it some of Asia’s most beautiful scenery. Lack of development means that Laos retains a simple Asian

Laotian children play in a muddy river

charm that its neighbors have long since lost. It remains quiet, conservative, and laid back.

The highway running through town is Densavan’s main street, and the only paved road. A long pile of brown dirt lines one side of the roadway, where a dozen Laotian Army soldiers in camouflage fatigues are digging a ditch. They lack heavy equipment, using only shovels and hand tools. Apparently in Laos they don’t mind using their military for public works.

I reach the business strip of Densavan, which compared to the poor outskirts, is relatively developed. The village’s center has a newer feel to it, since every building I see was built after the Vietnam War ended. A sign posted on a nearby business reads, “Hero Trading Import-Export Ltd”. As befits a border town, the local economy is driven by trading.

I find a small café, have a seat, and down a bottle of green tea. After locking up my baggage, I entrust the café proprietor to keep an eye on it for me. Then I head out of the village on foot. Trekking out of Densavan, the dirt road I’m on becomes a narrow path, and continues out into the jungle. I’m mindful that elephants and tigers still roam southern Laos, but they mainly inhabit remote areas, few live close to villages. Still, I won’t wander too far from town. I don’t want to become tiger bait. 

Reaching the tree line, I come across a group of army tents, and bright blue tarps built into makeshift shelters. This isn’t exactly a campground, I’ve found a migrant camp for seasonal laborers. A few of their wheelbarrows were left behind, along with a few of their wives and children. I get curious looks as I walk through, and I continue past them into the jungle. 

Walking down a narrow path, I find an old bomb crater. Grass and weeds grow in it, along with a tree. When this crater was first created, it was far deeper than it is now, but erosion has filled in the depression to some degree. But a deep, perfectly round hole remains. It’s definitely a bomb crater from the war years.

Continuing down the path I find another bomb crater, followed by many more. There must have been a heavy bombing attack that hit this area back during the war. I take care not to leave the path, in case there are any old unexploded bombs still around. Strangely, one of the bomb craters I come across is being put to use. It appears that the camp migrants have turned it into a garbage dump!

The path eventually dead ends into the brown waters of the Se Pon River, where a couple canoes are pulled up on the riverbank. This river flows westward towards the mountains. Just down river is the land I’ve just left: Vietnam. Now I know why the bomb craters are here. The roads and trails that I’ve walked on today, were once part of The Ho Chi Minh Trail.

A tree grows in the center of a bomb crater from the war years

An ever changing network of roads, paths, and even rivers, the Ho Chi Minh Trail was the lifeline and supply route for the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong in South Vietnam. Back then southeastern Laos was even less populated now, and the border was mostly unguarded. This allowed the communists to bring troops and supplies from North Vietnam across the border into Laos, and then south through these jungles. They were then able to infiltrate South Vietnam at many different crossing points, bypassing US bases. This was far less dangerous for the NVA, than if they tried to slip directly across the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone. Still, it wasn’t easy. Besides enduring constant bombings, much of the Ho Chi Minh Trail was on steep dirt jungle paths through mountainous terrain, where trucks couldn’t be used. The Vietnamese soldiers had a simple solution to this logistical problem: bicycles.

Back in Vietnam, I recall seing a xe dap tho, or pack bike, in a museum. This was a standard bicycle, packed up with ammunition, or weapons, or rice. It had a bamboo pole lashed to the handlebars, making it easier for a foot soldier to push and steer with all the extra weight. Then loaded with 300 pounds of supplies, they sent it down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. These bikes were pushed along narrow mountain trails covered by jungle canopy, remaining totally unseen from the air. It was slower than trucks, and took a lot more sweat, but it kept the pipeline open. No matter how much the US military bombed the Ho Chi Minh trail, they couldn’t hit all the convoys and routes, and war material continued heading south.

During the war years it took as long as two months for an NVA soldier to ride and walk from Hanoi, all the way down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, through Laos and Cambodia, before he finally crossed back into Vietnam near the Saigon region. When I hopped on a jet from Hanoi to Saigon, the same trip only took me two hours!

Laotian soldiers dig a ditch in Densavan

The presence of all those NVA soldiers on Laotian soil back then was never supposed to happen. In 1963, an agreement signed in Geneva by Vietnam and the USA attempted to guarantee Laotian neutrality, prohibiting foreign troops on Laos. The North Vietnamese quickly disregarded this agreement, sending the NVA into Laos to build the Ho Chi Minh Trail. They also sent troops to fight alongside the Pathet Lao, a smaller communist force aiming to overthrow the Laotian government.

The US military was not so brazenly disregarding the Geneva Agreement, so the American ground troops fighting in Laos were never large in number. In these parts they were usually special forces soldiers, small groups of tough commando types that did secret raids to attack or disrupt the Ho Chi Minh Trail. There were Green Beret teams, who fought alongside their Montagnards allies. There were also LRRP units, like my buddy Kenny, the former Marine. Although Kenny’s missions were secret at the time, he did most of his fighting in this remote region of southeast Laos. They called in air strikes on NVA convoys and spied on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. When detected, they fought their way out.

Since Kenny had returned to live in Southeast Asia years ago, I once asked him if he had ever returned to Laos. He hadn’t, and wouldn’t give me a straight answer as to why. I suppose he still has too many bad memories from the war in Laos, for him to ever come back.

Despite constant military operations here in Laos by both Vietnamese and Americans, due to the Geneva agreement, neither side admitted their involvement of ground troops publicly. Since the US government was already facing anti-war protests for their involvement in Vietnam, they sought to downplay, and even hide, their role in Laos. So fighting in Laos became known as a ‘secret war’.

The Se Pon River, once used to infiltrate weapons and troops into South Vietnam

Besides using jungle trails, the North Vietnamese also used rivers for smuggling weapons, including the Se Pon River before me. Just downriver from where I’m standing, the Se Pon becomes the border with Vietnam. Back then they took canoes like those on the river bank, filled them full of weapons, and floated them across the river to their waiting comrades under cover of night.

Hoping to keep NVA troops and supplies from entering Vietnam, the main use of US military might in Laos would be for the air war. 'Victory through air power', meant massive aerial bombing on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. That was how all these deep bomb craters ended up here, scattered all around me. Since the USA had the world’s best jets and bombers, it sounded like a great idea. But this strategy only delayed the communists, and did not bring about victory.

After the war, the US military made public their data kept on how much explosive tonnage they had dropped on Laos from aircraft. This little country had been bombed by American aircraft flown from South Vietnam, from Thailand, and from Navy aircraft flown in from the South China Sea. Laos was even hit by B-52 bombers that had flown here all the way from Guam. With the war lasting longer than anyone anticipated, the amount of bombs dropped onto Laos was devastating. The tonnage of bombs the US dropped on Laos, was greater than the total tonnage dropped on all of Europe during World War II!

The total amount of bombs dropped from 1965 – 1973 was astounding: 1.36 million metric tons of explosives dropped on Laos. That made for a half metric ton of explosives, for every single person living in Laos at the time. Laos holds the unfortunate record, of being the most heavily bombed country in world history.

Since I have much more to see of Laos, I turn from the craters and the river and head back towards town. Crossing back through the encampment, a group of village children stare at me as I walk by. “Sabadee!” (Hello!) they call out to me.

“Sabadee!” I say back to them, and they smile. Once I’m back on the dirt road, they follow behind me, but from a distance. When I turn towards them, they all run away laughing. I continue walking, and soon they are following behind me again. They must be wondering why this giant white foreigner came walking through their remote little village. I give them a final wave, and head back to Densavan.

CROSSING FROM VIETNAM INTO LAOS

A massive arch marks Vietnam's side of the border

It’s a simple white line. A simple, yet very important marker. Only inches across on this short two lane bridge, the white line is painted perpendicular to the road’s center line. I step across the line.

I’ve just left Vietnam, and crossed into Laos.

Having finished my time in northern Vietnam, I've doubled back to Dong Ha near the old DMZ. Hopping into a van this morning, I headed west on Highway 9 to Lao Bao, reaching the frontier with Laos. It’s fitting I'm entering Laos via road, since Laos is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia.

Pausing right on the white border marker, I look down over the side of the bridge. On the map I’m carrying, this bridge is shown to cross over a river, but what is actually below me is a miniscule creek. It’s so narrow, that without a bridge I could cross it with one step. That’s not surprising; the Laos - Vietnam border has never been very difficult to cross, going in either direction. This gave the US military fits during the war, as they were unable to stop communist troops and weapons from infiltrating across this very border.

This smaller (and cheaper) arch marks the Laotian side

I continue walking the road between border posts, pulling my wheeled suitcase behind as I head towards immigration. A welcoming arch looms over the road that reads, “Lao people Democratic Republic”. I notice that the arch that I already passed through over on the Vietnamese side, is far larger and grander looking than this smaller one. Perhaps that’s a subtle attempt at intimidation by the Vietnamese.

Passing through the arch, I notice an odd choice of artwork painted on the wall of the interior: a dinosaur! It looks like a brontosaurus, standing in front of a big Buddhist monument. Buddhism is an ancient religion to be sure, but it certainly didn’t reach back to the age of the dinosaurs.

Waiting to clear customs along this border highway crossing, are long lines of trucks. Unlike the straight trucks I saw in northern Vietnam near the Chinese border, these are Russian made Kamaz trucks. To the other side of the road, is an even longer line of American flat bed tractor trailers, also waiting to clear customs. I’m surprised to see US made trucks here in this remote place, though they aren’t American owned, the trucking company is Vietnamese.

With all these heavy vehicles parked and idle, the only freight I actually see moving between these two nations is a two wheeled cart bearing produce. The cart is powered not by horse, but by a Vietnamese woman in sandals, who pulls it slowly behind her across the frontier. I’m amazed at her strength, she has to be pulling five times her own weight. After watching her, I’m not going to complain about pulling my insignificant suitcase.

Under the Laotian arch, a painting of... a brontosaurus??

A local woman pulls a heavy cart across the border

This border crossing was once on an ancient trade route connecting Laos and Vietnam. During the war there was little ‘official’ trade at this crossing due to heavy bombing, but in the past decade it has been regaining its prominence. The new bridge, the arches, and the border buildings have all been constructed in the past few years, as trade and tourism have gradually been revived.

After getting my passport stamped, I look for my way into the nearest town, but there are no buses or taxis waiting. A motorcycle driver approaches offering to take me into town, but only for an extortionate fee! I don’t feel like being ripped off today, and I don’t want to try balancing my suitcase on the back of a small motorbike either. Since it isn’t far and it’s still morning, I continue on down the road pulling my suitcase on wheels. Done with my border crossing, I head for the Laotian border town of Densavan, where I will take a hike on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

THE VIETNAM - CHINA BORDER

Rugged mountains line the border of Vietnam and China

I’m where few tourists venture: in the far north of Vietnam, way beyond Hanoi. Trudging up a hill I pass a line of trucks, idle as they await loads of commercial cargo. Hammocks hang from the undercarriage beneath a parked truck. With hours to kill, two drivers are sleeping in the shade, their sandals on the curb beside them. Continuing, I walk towards the pass ahead. The air is thin up here; this region is full of rugged mountains. On both sides of this roadway, green mountain ridges reach for the skies.

Walking past a guard post I reach a roadside building, where a stray dog shuffles around meekly. Just ahead, a red and white gate post has been lowered down across the road, blocking passage from both directions. A sign next to me says, “Passport Control Exit”. 

I can go no farther. Beyond that barrier, is the People’s Republic of China. 

2 drivers sleep in hammocks beneath their truck at border

This quiet crossing is ‘Friendship Pass’, near Dong Dang, a border town in the extreme north of Vietnam. Back in 1979 this pass was anything but friendly, when the Red Army of China poured south across this border crossing, in a punitive invasion of their former communist ally. Vietnam and their mammoth northern neighbor had renewed their centuries old rivalry. Unknown to the western public, firefights along this mountainous border had already begun to erupt as early as 1974, before Vietnam’s war in the south had even ended. From then on, confrontations across this border increased.

Tensions also grew between the two over Vietnam’s opression of their ethnic Chinese minority. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Chinese fled Vietnam as refugees. Many that had been forced from their villages in the north, passed through this border as they fled to China. 


The final act that infuriated the Chinese government, was Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia, caused by the Khmer Rouge’s massacre of Vietnamese civilians in the south. As murderous as the Khmer Rouge were, they were still China's allies. As Deng Xiaoping himself said, China wouldn't allow Vietnam, “to go swashbuckling in Laos, Cambodia, or even in the Chinese border areas.” Deng warned that

Vietnamese soldier in Lang Son '79 (Photo:Vtn archive)

China was going, “to teach Vietnam a lesson.”

That lesson was to be taught by the Chinese Army, which sent 200,000 troops into Vietnam. They pushed southward all across the rugged border. This pass was the most strategic invasion point, since Hanoi is less than 100 miles away down the highway.

When this border war began, some westerners could hardly contain their glee. Two major communist armies were at war, and they weren’t fighting the west, they were fighting each other! The Vietnamese Army had taken weapons given to them by China, and turned them back on the Chinese. Although both countries were communist, the rocky relationship between China and Vietnam has its roots from back before communism existed. In centuries past, China occupied and dominated Vietnam for nearly 1,000 years, until the Vietnamese finally forced them out to regain their independence in the 10th century. The two countries have never liked each other since. 

While Mao Tse Tung was alive, China was glad to supply Vietnam with weapons and aid during the war years, in order to take on the Americans. But it was

Chinese POW's captured in Vietnam '79 (Photo:Vtn archive)

really a relationship of convenience. After the US withdrew and Vietnam became friendly with the USSR, Sino-Viet relations quickly soured. Before long the old adversaries were fighting again. Initially having the edge in their invasion, the Chinese advanced south and laid siege to Lang Son, the provincial capital I passed through on my way here. After taking that city on the 17th day of the campaign, the Chinese surprisingly announced their mission 'completed', and that they were returning to China. As they retreated, they destroyed almost everything of use on Vietnamese territory. All bridges were blown, and village after village went up in flames. In nearby Dong Dang, just about every building in town was destroyed. 

Although material losses in Vietnam were high, the Chinese Army still got the worst of the fighting. China had underestimated the Vietnamese military; already experienced and battle hardened from fighting the US for years. The invading Chinese soldiers on the other hand, had little combat experience. Their last major invasion had been in 1950's Korea.

When the last Chinese tank retreated north across the border, the month long war was over. Both sides claimed victory. As both countries guarded their casualty numbers, a reliable count of those killed was never made public. Estimates ranged from 30,000 dead, to as high as 90,000. Most analysts believe that the casualties of the Chinese Army were far higher than the Vietnamese.

Whatever ‘lesson’ the Chinese wanted to teach the Vietnamese, it remained unlearned. Vietnam didn’t withdraw from Cambodia, and remained there for another decade. Vietnam’s oppression of their ethnic Chinese minority also continued, and 300,000 of them still live as refugees in China today. They are unlikely to return.

Lang Son 1979, destroyed in Chinese invasion(Photo:Vtn archive)

Lang Son today

As for this contested border, the fighting didn’t stop after Red Army troops crossed into China. Occasional firefights and artillery duels between the two angry neighbors continued across this border well into the 1980’s. Finally, as Vietnam withdrew its troops from Cambodia in the waning days of the cold war, the frontier finally quieted. 

Dong Dang border crossing; past red & white gate is China

Peace has been good to both countries, but China continues to be Vietnam's greatest fear. On my way here from Hanoi, our bus passed a couple Vietnamese army bases. I spotted two sets of anti-aircraft guns visible, and both were pointed north, towards China.

The simmering antagonism towards the Chinese continues. I once had a taxi driver in Hanoi, who told me that he liked Americans, but hated the Chinese. He said it would be good for the Vietnamese and the US to join up, and together win a war against China. Now there’s a scary thought.

Fortunately, these two old communist countries found capitalism more profitable than conflict, and relations are far improved. Friendship Pass is now the busiest border crossing between the two former foes, and trade between the two is booming, increasing year after year. There are even trains crossing Friendship Pass. Twice a week, a train boards in Hanoi and after clearing customs at this border, it continues all the way to Beijing. 

Trucks line up at border; Vietnam - China trade is booming

A major thorn in their bilateral relations has also been removed; defining where the border actually is. After 10 years of work, and with help from the Global Positioning System, demarcation of the border was finally completed in 2009.  The Sino -Viet border is finally defined and accepted by both sides.

This border has long been quiet, but Beijing and Hanoi still find land to argue over. Political rhetoric continues over possession of the Spratly and Paracel Islands, where Vietnam and China last fought each other out at sea in 1988. If there is ever another war in Vietnam, it will probably be with their powerful northern neighbor in a fight over undersea resources. 

Today relations continue on a positive trend, and business ties between Vietnam and China have never been stronger. Perhaps the profits of peace will keep this border from ever heating up again. The Vietnamese have endured so many wars, over so many years. Hopefully they have embarked on something that they haven’t had in centuries: a long era of peace.