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.

EXPLOSION NEAR DEMILITARIZED ZONE

Unexploded bombs, aka unexploded ordinance (UXO) on display in Khe Sanh near Highway 9

There’s been an explosion.

I’m on Highway 9 close to the former DeMilitarized Zone, and due to the blast, traffic has completely stopped in both directions. Everyone’s looking off to the south side of the road, where there’s a big cloud of smoke and dust.

Oh no.

Has there been another casualty from an old unexploded artillery shell? Or did a truck roll over an old anti-tank mine? Sadly, more than a hundred of these incidents from old war explosives happen in Vietnam every year.

Fortunately, that’s not the case. There was an explosion all right,

Dangerous unexploded munitions are still found in these foreboding hills around Highway 9

but it was from a rock and gravel company situated right by the highway. They were blasting to loosen rock for construction. A large dust cloud hangs in the air at the base of a steep, bare cliff. Traffic was stopped in case the resulting landslide was larger than they expected, and threatened the highway traffic.

The rock slide dust gradually dissipates, and traffic starts up again. I remember back when I used to work in Afghanistan, where old unexploded war munitions were often used to fashion explosive charges for quarrying. I wonder if that was what happened here. In any case, it’s good to know that this was an explosion aimed at progress, not for destruction. Still, any explosion is unnerving,

Dakrong Bridge, seen from a distance

especially near the old DMZ.

Heading back to Dong Ha along Highway 9, we pass other construction businesses, such as gravel, lumber and brick making. There’s even heavy construction equipment and earthmovers. I see most are Japanese made, but there are Caterpillar earthmovers too. It’s good to see the American market is finding business here.

Heading east towards the coast, we come to the most visible sign of modern progress around, the Dakrong Bridge. This was once the site of a primitive supply bridge over the Quang Tri River. Starting in 1973 the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) used it to take military supplies and troops into the highlands. Once a mud track, this route south has been built into the Ho Chi Minh Highway; a fitting name since it was on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

The Dakrong Bridge that replaced it was built with aid from Cuba after the war. Showing the quality of communist workmanship, it later collapsed. But it was rebuilt and still stands today. The current version is a cable stay bridge, with radiating cable supports reaching down from tall concrete pillars. In this poor post-war province, it’s the most modern piece of infrastructure on all of Highway 9.

Since the way the Vietnamese economy is booming these days, I wonder if the Vietnamese government is now giving aid back to the Cubans!

DONG HA AND CAMP CARROLL'S BETRAYAL

Ngoc, my fixer, travel agent & waitress

Dong Ha today, in central Vietnam. This was a strategic crossroads town during the war.

After you’ve been in Asia for a while, you get to learn that through western eyes, most of the people that you meet here are actually older than they appear. Ngoc, my local fixer in Dong Ha, is a good example. This young lady looks fresh out of high school, appearing to be all of 18 years old.

“I am 25,” she tells me. Maybe it’s her petite size that throws me off; she’s barely five feet tall. I’m glad to hear she’s older than she looks, since I need to consult someone with experience. Ngoc is my travel agent for the old De-Militarized Zone (DMZ), the infamous Highway9, and everything else I’m doing in this part of Vietnam.

“I work here two year,” she tells me, in between taking and making phone calls in Dong Ha. Ngoc is a busy woman. In addition to arranging my route and driver, she also takes my lunch order. In this junction town, she works in a combination restaurant and travel office, making her both waitress and travel agent. Speaking passable English, Ngoc has found me good deals, arranging reliable guides during my stay. She’s one of those rare people you find while traveling. A little ball of energy, she has the ability to multi-task. Bright, friendly and energetic, she has enough smarts to get ahead in any corporation, but she’s stuck here in Dong Ha. Still, for this town, she has a well paying job.

I come into the restaurant/office at early and late hours, and she’s almost always there. “I work 12 hour every day,” she tells me. As if that isn’t enough, she only gets one or two days off a month. I’m reminded that despite communism’s promise of helping the workers, in today’s Vietnam there is little done to give laborers sufficient days off, or overtime pay.

“My grandfather VC. He die from Americans,” Ngoc told me. She never knew her grandfather; he was killed before she was born. She says she doesn't have any problem with Americans today; Ngoc has arranged many trips around the DMZ for returning American war veterans. Soon after, Ngoc hands me a plate of chicken fried rice at my table. I wolf it down, just as my driver arrives.

“You go with him,” she tells me, pointing out the door. I look at my vehicle for the day, and groan. There are few taxis in Dong Ha, so I’m stuck hanging onto the back seat of a motorbike, and today it looks like rain. My new guide is Nguyen. His English isn't fluent, but he’s able to get his point across. Nguyen is a former ARVN soldier; he was drafted near the war's end.
 
“I work(ed) in office," he tells me, "I work maps." Rather than a frontline soldier, his job was at a base in Quang Tri. Nguyen was luckier than most. Working inside a base, he was relatively safe from the fighting. “(When) I have 18 year, war finish,” he says. His unit surrendered to the NVA when Quang Tri fell. Like the soldier Duc I knew in Saigon, Nguyen was sent to a ‘reeducation’ camp. But since he had only been a soldier and low ranking private for six months, he was released in less than a year.

Bizarre sight: Vietnamese home built right next to old US built hangar on former Dong Ha Air Base

Nguyen hands me a helmet, and off we drive into Dong Ha’s streets. Located near the coast, Dong Ha is just 12 miles south of the old De-Militarized Zone that formerly divided North and South Vietnam. Trucks barrel through town on Highway 1, the main roadway along the coast. This throughway intersects with the westward reaching Highway 9, and from here the Laotian border is only 33 miles away as the crow flies. During the war, that proximity to the borders of North Vietnam and Laos made Dong Ha a very strategic place.

Nguyen winds the scooter through Dong Ha streets, before stopping in a residential neighborhood. I hop off, and I’m puzzled by what I see. I’m right next to one of those old half-cylinder shaped, US built concrete military hangars. These are the exact same kind still in use at Ton Son Nhat airport, but this one is different. It isn’t intact. A large hole has been blown into the side of it, almost big enough to walk through. The concrete on these protective hangars is very thick and strong, this hole must have been created by a massive explosion. 

Vietnamese memorial by ex-Dong Ha Air Base hangar

This was the site of Dong Ha Airfield, once a forward US Marine base. Since Dong Ha was so close to the DMZ, it was well within range of North Vietnamese artillery and it was attacked many times. During one heavy shelling in 1968, the base’s ammunition dump was hit, and the flames and explosions here continued for hours. Most of the aircraft parked here, and much of the base, were destroyed.

I walk around to have a look inside the old hangar. Not surprisingly, there are no traces of aircraft left. Inside I see a couple of workmen doing carpentry in the hangar’s dim light. They don’t even look up, they’re so engrossed in their work. Piles of building materials and other junk are stacked up inside.  Since the damage to the hangar wall wasn’t repaired, that hole in the wall probably occured during the 1972 spring offensive, after the US Marines had already turned the base over to the ARVN. During fighting that year, much of Dong Ha town was destroyed by the advancing North Vietnamese Army (NVA). 

Dong Ha Air Base  was not surrendered back to nature like other bases. Strangely, it was turned into a residential neighborhood. It’s a bizarre sight to see this old military airport hangar closely surrounded by small family homes. One house was built so closely, that it nearly touches the hangar itself. Dong Ha Airfield exists no more, but the town has been rebuilt into a transportation hub. All this areas imports and exports going to and from Laos pass through here, as well as all of Vietnam’s north – south road traffic. There’s a memorial next to the damaged hangar, and at its base, I find a small ceramic bowl, filled with the remains of incense sticks from Buddhists praying here. This used to be an American base. I wonder, who were they praying for?

Decaying memorial on former Camp Carroll

There’s much more to see outside Dong Ha, so we climb onto Nguyen’s scooter, and head out of town. I lean forward as Nguyen tells me about the rural roadways back then. “In the wartime, it was bare. No trees, no houses,” he tells me. The NVA laid mines along the roads, hoping to disable American tanks or trucks. These were sometimes detonated by civilian vehicles. “We had buses, but we afraid of the mine,” Nguyen continues. “Sometimes bus hit the mine, and people die.”

We buzz along Highway 9, and I look at the skies, which have been gloomy all day. They finally open up. Nguyen pulls over, and pops open the seat compartment. I’m relieved to see that he has raingear for both of us. We don ponchos before we get too drenched; soon we’re back on the road. 

He turns south off highway, and his scooter struggles to carry us both up a long hill. Then he pulls to a stop next to some kind of strange, artsy concrete sculpture that appears to be  under construction. I think this is a strange place for a sculpture, out in the middle of nowhere. Then I look at it closer. What this really is, is a war memorial that is falling apart. In recent years, local people came and carted away parts of this memorial to sell for scrap. Most of the surrounding fence is gone, and they’ve cut away all the metal pieces that they that could get. I had already seen this done to old buildings and bunkers on old bases, but this is the first time I’d seen a memorial made by the post-war communists defaced for scrap.

One of the informational plaques has been torn away, but the other is still there, and Nguyen translates it for me as follows, “This Hill 241, had very strong American artillery army base along Highway 9.”

Aerial view of Camp Carroll during the war. (Photo: USACMH)

Hill 241 was the NVA’s name for this post; American troops remember it as Camp Carroll, a heavy artillery base inhabited by US Marine and Army troops. Like many American bases in Vietnam, it was named after an American soldier killed near the base. In this case, it’s named after Marine Corps Captain James Joseph Carroll. During NVA attack, he was mistakenly killed when fired on by an American tank. This type of combat casualty was known as ‘friendly fire’, a really self-contradictory military euphemism. 

Walking around the former base, I see sections of sandbags lying in the dirt, like those I found in the highlands. We encounter one concrete foundation, which is the former foundation for the base mess hall. This strategic base once had 16 heavy cannons, including the feared 175mm artillery guns. These massive cannons could fire 174 pound projectiles as far as 20 miles away. As American troop numbers were reduced towards the war’s end, Camp Carroll was turned over to South Vietnam’s military (ARVN) in 1970. Later, the ARVN colonel in command surrendered the entire base to the NVA, without firing a shot. That same colonel now owns a hotel in Hue today... At the top of the memorial here, the stone lists the year of his surrender, 1972.

Camp Carroll today. It's been reduced to farmland.

On one of the dismantled concrete friezes lying flat on the ground, I can make out the frightened face of an ARVN soldier, with his hands in the air as he surrenders. More than 400 ARVN soldiers were taken prisoner here. After Camp Carroll was taken, Dong Ha, the town I was in earlier, fell soon afterwards.

Nguyen tells me that in the post-war years, the only visitors that bother to come all the way up here were American war veterans that served in Camp Carroll. That explains the dilapidated state of the memorial. The government had no interest in preserving the old base, it is more useful now as a farm. Rubber trees, pepper plants, and cassava grow on a hill that used to be covered with bunkers, tents and artillery. On this gloomy day there aren’t even any farmers present, only a water buffalo chewing on grass.

I ponder the difference that I saw between Dong Ha, and here. Dong Ha is at a major crossroads, so it has been rebuilt. But since Vietnam is now reunited, Camp Carroll’s location is no longer strategic. With the heavy guns long ago captured and carted away, this former military base is now nothing more than a quiet, unimportant hilltop in central Vietnam.