A deep tunnel, an old capital, and an early train

The second leg of our week-long trip to Central Vietnam was taking a private car from Ha Tinh to the old capital city of Hue, with a side trip to the Vinh Moc tunnels.  Here are a couple of pictures of the sand dunes and the lunch we stopped at during the first part of the drive.

Then we drove to Vinh Moc, a village on the shore of the South China Sea.  During the Vietnam War, Vinh Moc was repeatedly bombed due to its strategic location, a key supply route, and the fact that it was close to a large battery of anti-aircraft weapons (and a good record of shooting down American planes).  Rather than have everyone move away, the village decided to keep fighting and dug an amazing series of tunnels, where they lived for most of six years (1966 - 1972).  As many as six hundred people lived in the tunnels, and 36 children were born there.  

Pictures of the bombed-out village:

What a family room looked like in the tunnels:

There were about a dozen entrances and exits to the tunnels.  Some of them came right out to the South China Sea:

Pictures of the "tour guides" that followed our family and led us along.  We didn't mind.

Upon our arrival in Hue that evening, we asked for a dinner reservation from the front desk.  "Go to the Hanh Cafe" we were told, since it had authentic Vietnamese cuisine.  Apparently every hotel in the city makes this recommendation to Westerners, because the restaurant was filled with non-Vietnamese learning about different Vietnamese dishes.  We ordered a little bit of everything and the food was good, but it was a little strange being in such a touristy area after the orphanage in Ha Tinh.

The next morning we had an amusing conversation at breakfast.  The pleasant hotel staff asked us when we were leaving, and when we said we were taking a train that afternoon to Da Nang, the woman said, "Uh, I don't think so.  Those trains only go in the morning."  We were quite adamant, saying that we had tickets for 3:30 pm that day.  Of course, our tickets were for 3:30 in the morning, and we had already missed our train.  Oops.  The staff at the hotel very graciously made a few phone calls and got us on a sleeper bus for 1 pm that afternoon.  Crisis averted.  I'm glad they asked.

While walking around Hue after the rain stopped, Noah shopped for a Rolex while Carter and Finn got some North Face backpacks.

We did not have much time in Hue, and it was cut even shorter by our travel mistake, but we did manage to hike over to the old Citadel where the capital used to be: