5th March
Having just done 4 days in various forests we were looking forward to something a little different and a little more chilled out for the next day as we got in a car (pretty early though I must say) and headed to the tunnels of the demilitarized zone. It was a 90 minute drive or so and I spent that entire time fast asleep. I found the head rest and wedged my head between that and the window. I was comfortable while I slept but that didn’t do wonders for my neck.
As we arrived at the DMZ, I was told to get out of the car and pay for our tickets, so I rolled out of the vehicle, handed over some cash and then tried to figure out where we actually were and how I got there. I was SO confused. That previous day had taken it out of me so much I just wanted to roll up and climb back in my bed.
I had seen Vietnam war tunnels before in the South of Vietnam, at the Cu Chi tunnel system a few years ago, and those are incredibly tight, meant for warfare. These DMZ tunnels however were meant for living in, sheltering from the relentless American shelling of the area. As such they were much larger and deeper. They didn’t need to house the entire town but still had to house everyone who wasn’t able to evacuate and stay behind supporting their troops.
These tunnels played an incredibly important role in a very damaging war, and visiting them was a very sobering experience. Today was definitely a different type of day. Joking from all 3 of us dropped down to a minimum and between being tired from the previous day and trying to wrap our heads around the reasons behind that war, and how the spirit of the people of Vietnam compares to that of the Ukrainians at the moment, today certainly had a very different vibe for this trip.
We headed down to the rest of the DMZ here, where the two halves of Vietnam were divided along the 17th Parallel where we visited a museum, which was handy as we never did make it to the war remnants museum in Ho Chi Minh City later on in the trip as I fell ill for a good few hours on that day.
It was amazing to see why kids, even just 15 years ago or so, were still getting their hands blown up or even killed by playing catch with unexploded mines and bombs. We saw some of these and for a child it’s easy to see why. The tour guide we had at the tunnel system told us that a number of her friends had lost limbs or died when they were younger, and she was at least 10 years younger than we are. It’s easy to forget how relatively recent this war was and therefore why the effects of it are still being felt by the people and wildlife of the country.
And I’ll be honest, I hate the concept of war anyway, but even after spending time at the DMZ, the tunnels, speaking to people who were children during the war and those who grew up with the effects of the war…
… I still don’t fully understand what the war was over and most importantly what it had to do with America.
But we’re not here to speak politics! So it was time to move on for a lunch break which was typically huge for our lunches here in Vietnam but also really delicious. Having baby aubergines pickled was an experience, especially with the shrimp paste. That paste was incredibly strong! So I tried to wash away the taste of shrimp with a little chilli.
Bad idea! That thing was incredibly hot!
With my mouth slightly numb, but our bellies delightfully full we continued our trip and I managed to get yet more sleep, and that was a good thing! When I was told that we were visiting a World Land Trust reforestation site, I imagined an orchard type setup, nice and easy, but that wasn’t the case! We had to do yet more walking, up and down hills, through shrubbery and over rocky roads. It wasn’t the literal walk in the park we were expecting.
But that contrast was actually perfect for us and we learned a lot.
We have been supporting WLT work in Vietnam for a number of years now and for us reforestation seems like a simple enough process. You have some damaged land which you work to improve and then stick some trees on it… the more the better!
But we were told that whilst many people think that and a lot of reforestation areas are done like that, anyone can plant a tree, but not everyone has the patience and dedication to grow a tree, let alone a forest.
When we turned up the saplings were swamped by undergrowth and they were busy trimming this back by hand with strimmers. Such important work because in this climate everything grows exceptionally quick, including the undergrowth which grows much faster than some of the trees. It really is a lot more complex than throw down a bunch of seeds and see what grows. Especially because the surrounding acacia plantations were trying to encroach back in to this reclaimed land. It is acacia that is causing a lot of the deforestation issues in the country. I like to say that just because it’s green doesn’t mean it’s good because acacia plantations look lush (just ask Scott, who couldn’t have been answered with the words, that’s acacia if he’d tried when asking about different trees) but they support no life. This was clear in our first jungle trip where we first walked through an acacia plantation. It looks like lush forest but thinking back on it, there’s no sign of life, not even the chirping of birds.
Why is that?
How can a beautiful green forest be so bad for wildlife?
Firstly they’re a short term crop tree so they’re never intended to last and are chopped down within years but most importantly they’re not an indigenous tree to that area. There aren’t many parts of the tree that are easily digestible raw or in other ways inviting to wildlife, especially at relatively small sizes, so they’re just not plants that support wildlife – at least not Vietnamese wildlife.
After seeing at least 12 different types of trees being planted, some to provide food for the wildlife of the area, others to provide shelter for different species and some which are designed to help locals collect non timber forest products to make a living (such as trees which have essential oils in the leaves), we made it to another ranger station.
This was a national park which has been in place many years longer than the first one we saw, so the ranger station was a large building of brick and mortar, and behind it was a outlook which watched over the river which has depths of up to 5m. This was an important area because there are 3 protected forests next to one another along this river and it was previously often used as a way to send timber out of the forest. Now a days in this forest at least they feel that they currently have most illegal activities under control as the risks now well outweigh the rewards for locals. So they’re able to concentrate most of their efforts on growing the national park in a meaningful way rather than having to fight the locals over the way it is being used. Oh and of course they need to spend some time tending to their green tea plot. How nice, they can sit down for a break and drink tea they produced right next to their lunch table!
It was now time to say goodbye to Tuan Anh, our colleague from Viet Nature who had spent so much time with us over the past week or so and from whom we’d learnt a lot about not just the project we were to support but also about Vietnam and its people. It was an absolute pleasure to have met her in person finally and we look forward to working with her and the organisation for many years to come.
As we dropped her off at the airport we made our way in to Hue, the old capital of Vietnam, where we would spend just a single night at the beautiful Saigon Morin hotel where we looked forward to a delicious KFC… Sadly, I would be thoroughly disappointed by a very underwhelming zinger burger. And to think we walked about an hour each way to find this disappointing meal which was housed in the world most noisy mall! I’ve never known anything like it! Incredibly loud live music, an arcade where people were literally smashing the buttons on the machines and just generally screaming and shouting for no reason.
Also they still have their motto, “It’s finger licking good” written all over the walls, but for a country where everyone uses chop sticks and we saw people chewing on chicken feet and gnawing on pigs faces using their fingers and chop sticks… In this finger licking KFC, literally everyone was using a knife and fork… I don’t think eating in Vietnam had confused us more than it did in this most familiar of settings!
This really is where our time in Vietnam started to truly draw to a close.
We did fly from here the next day to Ho Chi Minh City, which is a very hectic and lively place which we enjoyed on a motorbike tour and had a very interesting meeting with one of the directors at the Saigon Zoo (where we got our first glimpse at that illusive crested argus… the bird that spawned this entire trip), but other than that lost most of our time because I was pretty ill. We finished a McDonalds and by the time I walked back to the hotel I had to run to my room where I thought that I might end up having to be rescued from the toilet, either straining myself until I couldn’t breathe any more or sliding off the toilet seat from the amount I was sweating and cracking my head.
Eventually I managed to crawl off the toilet and in to bed where I passed out for a good 5 hours.
I awoke to several messages from Scott, with both of them having been concerned enough to stay close by (in the bar) but only concerned enough to have discussed not how useful but how funny it would have been to get management to go check on me.
Let me tell you they would have had a shock had they opened that room!
I’ll leave it at that and finish by saying we all made it back home in one piece and perhaps most surprisingly still all as friends, having shared an incredible adventure. We conquered many physical activities that Scott might have you believe were easy but for me were genuine hurdles I overcame and am proud of… We also saw a very interesting and most importantly inviting culture. Absolutely no where (other than when crossing a road which is something else in Vietnam) did we ever feel unsafe… If you ever have the chance to visit Vietnam I would highly recommend it, and soon on our website you will find all the details you would need to see what we saw and do some of the activities we were able to take part in.
In some areas we stood out like 3 sore thumbs on the same hand, but even in those all the kids wanted to come and say hello, the adults were friendly and inviting and I for one can’t wait to visit this gorgeous country again! Who wants to see a part two once that reforestation area has grown on a little bit? Maybe as a motorbike tour from North to South… Now that would be entertainment.
Speaking of which, look out for a video of the whole trip coming in the next few weeks!
