Halong Bay tour: Inside hospital cave

About this recording

Creator

Kristin Post

Date created

January 22, 2001

Duration

1:01

Location

Cat Ba island, Vietnam

File

MP3

License

This recording copyright ©2001. Terms of use

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• Search LEARN NC for Asia, bombs, casualties, Cat Ba, caves, Halong Bay, hospitals, military, Southeast Asia, tourism, tours, Vietnam, and Vietnam War.

In the classroom

Cat Ba island is the largest island in Halong Bay, in northern Vietnam. With its famous beautiful limestone outcroppings and sapphire blue waters, Halong Bay is a popular destination for tourists.

It is also a point of pride for the Vietnamese. They tell a myth about the origins of the limestone islands. In ancient times, when the Vietnamese were fighting against enemies from the North, the gods sent a family of dragons to their aid. The dragons descended to earth in the location of Halong Bay. Upon hitting the sea, they spit out jewels and jade that became the islands that have provided refuge for the Vietnamese to seek safety from dangerous storms, and from foreign invaders, like the Chinese, the French, and the Americans.

The limestone caves in Halong Bay provided refuge for the north Vietnamese during the Vietnam War. A tour will take you to several of these caves, including one that had been converted into a hospital, and another that held prisoners of war. Neither cave appears as it did at that time, there are no artifacts or war relics to see.

In this excerpt, the tour guide is in the hospital cave, discussing the number of bombs that were dropped in north Vietnam during the roughly 13 years of American involvement in the war. Civilan and military casualty numbers vary. The tour guide mentions 4 million Vietnamese casualties, which is a very high number, compared to other sources.

From journal:

Got on bus for day’s trek. Stopped off at a cave- contained a hospital and several hundred soldiers- Americans never found or conquered. Old wartime general was there- reenacted the battle, sang songs. It was a treat.

Transcript

Tour guide

So as you know, during the war, (?) calculating, researcher around…uh…total the bomb from American (?) around two times with Hiroshima, two times Hiroshima. So, you know Hiroshima?

Tourists

Yeah.

Tour guide

So very big amount of bomb in the north Vietnam. (Former army captain laughs, says something). But luckily, in this area, no Agent Orange here, no…Agent Orange here. So luckily. But in other places, the northwest, (?) the northern provinces, were bombed by Agent Orange. Yeah.

(Former army captain begins speaking in Vietnamese. Maybe other conversation. I open my bag, you can hear zipper and scuffling.)

Tourist

I think also, the Americans used more explosives during the Vietnam War than was used during the Second World War, by both sides, so they used many many bombs.

Tour guide

Yeah, many bombs. But only calculating from the north Vietnam, yeah, because in south Vietnam, more. But, uh, almost 4 million, 4 million people who died.