Enjoying some recovery and recuperation in Hanoi. Two more days here visiting museums and then, points south.
A visit to the Gulf of Tonkin town of Vinh. When President Johnson declared the USS Maddox was attacked by two North Vietnamese patrol boats on August 4th, 1964 (it never happened), US planes ravaged Vinh and surrounding targets.
On to Dong Ha, the former demilitarized zone. The DMZ was created in 1954 at the Geneva peace talks after the Viet Minh destroyed the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu. They agreed to divide the country between the communist North and the French-controlled South until elections could be held, within two years. As Ho Chi Minh would have been the overwhelming winner of the elections, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles decided, oh, about that whole democracy and election thing…. not going to happen. Thus began the transfer of the war of independence from the colonial French to the USofA.
Then, Hue, Da Nang and Hoi An with a visit to My Lai, with a possible stop for a swim at Nha Trang Beach.
Final stop, before moving on to Cambodia and Laos, Ho Chi Minh City.
