Dadlands: Dong Ha

After the lovely visit to Quang Tri we pretty much blew through Dong Ha. We stopped to look at a war monument north of town. A lot of these monuments look like they've been shipped in by the boatload from the old USSR. They don't do much for me, personally.

To take the edge off the coffee, we stopped for a bowl of beef noodles at the stall next door to the memorial. They were extremely tasty and, instead of the usual plate of bean sprouts, scallions and basil, they came with a mound of local watercress. It was mustardy and peppery and delicious in the soup, and we polished off the whole plate.

Dad related the following tale about Dong Ha:

We have our own special brand of fireworks here. The last holiday we had (I forget which one) the guys at Dong Ha fired off a bunch of flares in celebration. One of the flares dropped in the bomb dump and blew the whole thing up, making for quite a display. Blowing up ammo dumps seems to be a favorite sport. They blew up one at Hue and another in A Shau valley. -- July 4, 1968, CCK Air Base, Taiwan