Rough Guide to Vietnam - Jan Dodd [117]
You’ll know you’re upon BA CHUC when you pass beneath graceful glades of bamboo flanking the road. Bear right, and you’ll quickly spot the memorial to the thousands massacred in twelve days in April 1978. An unattractive concrete canopy fails to lessen the impact of the eight-sided memorial: behind its glass enclosure, the bleached skulls of the dead of Vietnam’s own “killing fields” are piled in ghoulish heaps, grouped according to age to highlight the youth and innocence of many of the dead.
Beside the memorial is a small room, where a horrific set of black-and-white photos taken just after the massacre shows buckled, abused corpses scattered around the countryside. Some of the images on display are extremely disturbing and you should not enter if you are a sensitive type. There are also a few food stalls set up to cater to visitors to the site.
Another possible side-trip from Tri Ton is to visit the former Viet Cong base at TUP DUC (daily 6am–5pm; 7000đ), a 10km drive from Tri Ton – take the right turn at the end of town. During the American war, Tup Duc gained the rather ignominious moniker “Two Million Dollar Hill”, a reference to the amount the US military is said to have spent trying to dislodge the enemy from its slopes.
Now the Vietnamese government has ploughed in money of its own in an attempt to turn it into a tourist resort, by installing pedal boats on a lake, an ostrich-breeding farm, a flower garden, a shooting range, a restaurant and refreshment kiosks at the foot of the boulder-strewn hill. There is also a small museum here, an electronic mock-up of the battle (daily 7–11am & 1–5pm) and dummies in a cave on the hill, re-creating a Viet Cong briefing scene. Kids will probably latch onto you and lead you up a stairway past the massive boulders that provided such effective cover to the Viet Cong. Squeezing through the narrow passageways formed by the jumble of boulders, it is easy to see how it made such a perfect hide-out.
It is possible to head on from here to the coast, by taking a turn to the left just before re-entering Tri Ton. The road follows a canal for about 30km with views of rice paddies and eucalyptus plantations. After crossing a big new bridge at Vam Ray, the route joins Highway 80, the main coast road, from where it is about 47km northwest to Ha Tien, or the same distance southeast to Rach Gia.
The Mekong Delta |
Ha Tien and around
Of all the Delta towns, HA TIEN, at the extreme northwest on the border with Cambodia, is changing the fastest: where once it received only a trickle of visitors, it now buzzes with Western travellers. In addition to the ongoing construction boom, two major factors have caused this: first, is the opening of the border to foreigners at Xa Xia, just north of Ha Tien, meaning that it’s now possible to head directly to Cambodia’s coastal towns of Kep and Sihanoukville without passing through Phnom Penh; and the second factor is the beginning of hydrofoil services to Phu Quoc, offering a shorter and cheaper route to the island than from Rach Gia. Thus this town, which until recently had an end-of-the-line feel, is coming to terms with its newfound popularity.
The Mekong Delta | Ha Tien and around |
Arrival and information
Buses terminate at the new bus station on Highway 80 a couple of kilometres north of town and just a few kilometres from the Cambodian border post at Xa Xia: to get into town from here take a xe om (about 10,000đ). Hydrofoils to and from Ham Ninh on Phu Quoc’s east coast (1hr 30min)