CPI Group Trip: The First Days are the Hottest Days

The group on our trip through the jungle on day 3.

Hello from Dong Ha Town, Quang Tri Province, Vietnam! This region is one of the most heavily bombed areas in the history of the world. More bombs were dropped here than in World Wars I and II combined, which is why the Clear Path International office is here. We have served over 2500 peacetime landmine and bomb accident survivors in this and surrounding provinces since our founding in 2000.

Our group (Cabot Orton, Sarah Judd, Bob Allen, Martha and me) is having an incredible adventure here in Vietnam. The first days were a real adjustment from Vermont as Saigon was REALLY hot for us pale, New England travelers. While in Saigon we traveled the city on motos (scooters), the prefered source of travel for CPI while in country... cheap, fast, and most importantly, fun.

A visit to the War Remnants Museum gave our trip context. The display of war victims is truly heart wrenching... there is one, small section of the museum which addresses ongoing UXO (unexploded ordnance) accidents... at least we could feel we were making a difference at least in this area.

After the museum, with heavy hearts, we visited Reunification Palace... you may have seen images of tanks crashing the gates here to end the war in 1975. The place has been preserved pretty much in the same state it was then... much of the place resembles a James Bond set... complete with a gambling room, small movie theater, a party area on the roof and a helicopter pad in the back...

We then flew to Hue, the former imperial capital of Vietnam... the weather was much cooler with sporadic, heavy rains. Here, again, we rented motos for a trip deep into the jungle and then a hike over some rough trails to a beautiful waterfall where I could not resist the urge to get under the massive amounts of water coming down from the mountains. The moto trip was about an hour and a half longer than we anticipated, so to save ourselves from having to travel at night through the jungle rain on our scooters, we rented a van and our moto drivers made the trip back on their own. I am sure they were just as thrilled as we were... they got to get rid of their much heavier American passengers and zip home.

Today the group, as I mentioned above, arrived here in Dong Ha. We have already met with the Foreign Relations Dept here and had a wonderful dnner of local food and insane amounts of beer (for some of us... ). I will write more in the coming days.


Please do see more photos of our trip here.