Vntourist – Travel Culture

Two years later, North Vietnamese forces overran the South. Despite the return of peace, for over two decades the country experienced little economic growth because of conservative leadership policies. Since 2001,

Vietnamese authorities have committed to economic liberalization and enacted structural reforms needed to modernize the economy and to produce more competitive, export-driven industries.

The country continues to experience protests from the Montagnard ethnic minority population of the Central Highlands over loss of land to Vietnamese settlers and religious persecution

Almost every city has a museum dedicated to the Vietnamese Revolution, and contain dioramas, exhibits, and photographs detailing how their inhabitants contributed to the war effort, and which important events took place in their city.

The largest of these museums are in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. The Ho Chi Minh Museum in Hanoi, is an important place to visit and understand more about Vietnam’s great leader, Ho Chi Minh.

THE NORTH

Most of the historical remnants of the wars relates to the French conflict, because the American ground war was centered in the south and the center (extensive bombing was experienced in the north).

Dien Bien Phu : The Dien Bien Phu valley is where the French were defeated in 1954, ending their colonial rule over Indochina. Best reached by plane, you can also hire a 4-wheel drive vehicle and tour the far northwest, to Son La and Lao Cai.

Son La : A site of a Former French Prison, many visitors come here to see the museum commemorating the fiercely anti colonial fighters who were based in the region.

Hanoi : Hoa Lo Prison: Razed to make way for a towering office block, the prison is remembered by a museum that focuses on the activities there before 1954, when it was used as a detention center for anti French colonialists.

Ho Chi Ming Museum: More than a museum dedicated to the man who reunified his country, the Ho Chi Minh museum chronicles the Vietnamese revolution of the 20th century, and in an interesting stop for those interested in this phase of Vietnamese history.

Christmas Bombing in 1972: In December 1972, US President Nixon ordered the bombing of Hai Phong and Hanoi, which targeted power stations and other installations; some residential quarters were hit too. In Hanoi alone, more than 1,300 people were killed. Today, the area south of the Hanoi train station is where much of the destruction took place, and Kham Thien was the epicenter.

THE CENTER

Central Vietnam was the scene of much fighting during the American war, and much of the vestiges here are related to that conflict, though a few places, like the Hai Van Pass, contain some remains of the French conflict.

DMZ and Dong Ha : The bridge at the DMZ over the Ben Hai river can be crossed on foot, and the Vinh Moc tunnels (like those built at Cu Chi) can be visited nearby. Tours can be arranged from Hue, or Dong Ha. The road north of Hue was dubbed, ‘La Rue Sans Jolie,’ or ‘The Road Without Joy’ by the French troops; who fought fierce battles with Vietnamese forces here.

Truong Son Trail / Ho Chi Minh Trail : As the major supply chain between troops in South Vietnam, the Truong Son Trail (or Ho Chi Minh Trail as it’s known in the west), named after the mountains of central Vietnam, was heavily bombed and strafed by American aircraft, trying to sever the artery that supplied men, weapons, and other supplies to the soldiers in the south. It is currently being developed into a tourist attraction by recreating the structures it contained and the methods used to carry weapons to the south, to aid in the war effort. A small section of the Ho Chi Minh trail can be seen after crossing the Dakrong bridge.

Khe Sanh / Con Thien Fire Base; Camp Carroll : Several former American army bases can be visited along Highway 9, between the Dong Ha and the Laotian border. Sites include Camp Carroll, Con Thien Firebase, The Rockpile, and Khe Sanh, where a fierce battle took place in 1968.

Hai Van Pass : Long used as a lookout for enemy troops, Hai Van Pass is littered with pillboxes and installations used to protect this vital link between north and south. Its about 350 meters high, and often is shrouded in mist. On a clear day, however, you can see northwards, to the Lang Co peninsula; and south, to the city of Da Nang.

Da Nang and China Beach : Often mistaken as the site where American Marines first came ashore in 1963, the event actually took place around the bay at Red Beach. China Beach was the site of a major Army base that came under attack by Vietnamese forces based around the Marble Mountains.

THE SOUTH

The South was the command center of the US forces stationed in Vietnam (Followed by Da Nang) though it still has a lot of history related to the French war. Not a whole lot of vestiges remain of the war, though there are some informative museums in Ho Chi Minh City and the Cu Chi tunnels shows the struggle the Vietnamese people endured during the war.

Cu Chi Tunnels : The Cu Chi tunnel system was built by Vietnamese forces who boldly tunneled beneath a major American Army Base. The tunnels can be visited today, often combined with a day tour.

Government : The present constitution, promulgated in 1992, asserts the political supremacy of the Communist Party of Vietnam. The 496-member National Assembly is responsible for legislation. The Assembly is elected every five years from candidates proposed by the CPV. Executive power is exercised by the Council of Ministers. The Assembly elects a president, who acts as head of state and also appoints a prime minister from among the members of the Assembly. The prime minister leads the Council of Ministers, the members of which hold executive power.

The politics of Vietnam: Takes place in a framework of a single-party socialist republic. The central role of the Communist Party of Vietnam is reaffirmed in the current constitution, adopted in April 1992. Though Vietnam remains a single-party state, adherence to ideological orthodoxy has become less important than economic development as a national priority.

Economy : The economy of Vietnam was devastated by 30 years of war up to 1975, after which policy errors and a USA-enforced trade boycott combined to stifle development. Since the end of the boycott in 1994, and the introduction of liberalizing and deregulating measures by the government, the Vietnamese economy has undergone significant growth of around 8 to 9% annually.

The Communist Party of Vietnam (Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam) is the currently ruling, as well as the only legal political party in Vietnam. It is a Marxist-Leninist Communist Party supported by (and a part of) the Vietnamese Fatherland Front. In most of the cases, the Vietnamese press and people refer to the Communist Party of Vietnam as “Đảng” (Party) or “Đảng ta” (our Party).

The Party was founded by Hồ Chí Minh and other exiles living in China as the Vietnamese Communist Party (Việt Nam cộng sản Đảng) at a conference in Hong Kong February 1930.[1] At the Hong Kong conference two competing communist factions, Indochinese Communist Party (Đông Dương cộng sản đảng) and the Communist Party of Annam (An Nam cộng sản Đảng), merged. Although the third Vietnamese communist group, the Indochinese Communist League (Đông Dương cộng sản liên đoàn), had not been invited to the Hong Kong conference its members were allowed to become members of the new united party.

The Hong Kong conference (held in Kowloon City) elected a nine-member Provisional Central Committee, consisting of 3 members from Tonkin, 2 from Annam, 2 from Cochinchina, and 2 from the overseas Chinese community.[2] The latter group had previously been organized within the South Seas Communist Party.

Soon thereafter, at its first plenum the party changed its name to the Indochinese Communist Party (Đảng cộng sản Đông Dương), on directions from Comintern.[2]

The First National Party Congress was held in secret in Macau in 1935. At the same time, a Comintern congress in Moscow adopted a policy towards a popular front against fascism and directed Communist movements around the world to collaborate with anti-fascist forces regardless of their orientation towards socialism. This required the ICP to regard all nationalist parties in Indochina as potential allies.

The party was formally dissolved in 1945 in order to hide its Communist affiliation and its activities were folded into the Marxism Research Association and the Viet Minh, which had been founded four years earlier as a common front for national liberation. The Party was refounded as the Vietnam Workers’ Party (Đảng lao động Việt Nam) at the Second National Party Congress in Tuyen Quang in 1951.

The Congress was held in territory in north Vietnam controlled by the Viet Minh during the First Indochina War. The Third National Congress, held in Hanoi in 1960 formalized the tasks of constructing socialism in what was by then North Vietnam, or the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) and committed the party to carrying out the revolution of liberation in the South. At the Fourth National Party Congress held in 1976 after the end of Vietnam War with the reunification of Vietnam, the Party’s name was changed to the Communist Party of Vietnam.

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