After the Japanese were defeated in 1945 the French tried to re-establish their colonial power in Indochina. In all their colonies there were rebellious movements against the French. They were finally defeated and ousted from Indochina in the battle of Dien Bien Phou in 1954. After this defeat a Geneva conference was held and Vietnam was divided (along the 17th parallel) in a communist northern state and a non-communist southern state. Along both sides of the Hai river on the 17th parallel a Demilitarized Zone was established. The north never agreed on the division of the country, the Americans (and some other countries) assisted the south and thus the next war started, the one we remember as the Vietnam war. Here it is called the American war. It ended by the defeat of the south and their American allies and the unification of the country under communist regime.

Travelling north from Dong Ha we passed the 17 th parallel and the DMZ. In Dong Ha we made an excursion to Khe San, one of the sites of a former American base and a battlefield, where many thousands died. A small museum remains, where we got a good explanation of what had happened there by a guide, who in the mean time expressed his happiness with the election of Obama. We also saw Rockpile and Doc Mieu, hills that had served as observation points and fire bases for the Americans and the southern troops. Many monuments remain, as do war cemetries.

Highway 1 passes over Doc Mieu, where there is a big re-unification monument. On the north side of the bridge across the Hai river there are monuments, a museum and the meeting room of the committee that had to survey the treaty after 1955 (not to much avail, I would say). In the museum, just like in the Hue museum, the southern government and troops are always referred to as "puppet" government and -soldiers. And there are only victories of the north mentioned. Even the 1968 TET-offensive in Hue is referred to as a victory, though the northern troops only held the citadel for 29 days at the cost of over 4000 of them killed, the city in ruins and in the mean time they had managed to kill over 3000 civilians, who were suspected of co-operation with the south. It’s clear that history depends a lot on who writes it.

Most of the cities and some villages (Vinh Moc) have been totally wiped off the map by American bombs, so – like so many other towns in this country – these places lack any historical places and have no atmosphere at all.

While travelling through these countries we like to get more informed. One of the means how we do this to read what we can find on the country and its history. We reread Graham Green’s novel "The quiet American" (1955), a novel that desribes how Americans involvement could have started, in those days already. We also read a novel "The sorrow of war", written by a veteran of the North Vietnamese Army, who has been in the war for 11 years. The book is a best seller in the country and it gives a good feeling as to what happened on their side and what a war does to people in general, regardsless on what side they’re on.