Word: trailing
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...astounding feat of wartime engineering and defiance, the Ho Chi Minh Trail was actually a 16,000-kilometer network of roads, hacked by hand out of the jungles of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. It helped the communist North win the Vietnam War. U.S. forces never managed to destroy it, despite carpet bombing and the use of Agent Orange. Since the war ended, however, the trail has been largely reclaimed by jungle and myth; only a few, isolated fragments are accessible. Christopher Hunt's 1996 book Sparring with Charlie documented his trying, and mostly failing, to trace it. Indeed...
...Like so much else in Vietnam, the trail is changing. A few kilometers from Van and Luc's home, a construction crew is pouring fresh tar. They are building the new Ho Chi Minh Highway, a $353 million, 1,241-km project scheduled to open any day now. It traces one of the main north-south trunks of the original trail and will also open up dozens of arteries previously off-limits to tourists. We set out on rugged Minsk motorcycles, eager to explore...
...main problems is that we're not sure where we're going. The trail might as well be a legend, literally, as there are few reliable maps. For weeks, my kitchen floor was covered with army-issue charts as we tried to fix our route, with the help of historians and museums. In the end, we set out with only a vague idea of following the new highway and asking for directions along the way. The starting point was at Kilometer...
...willing to give us directions. But after a morning of asking around we find Trinh Thi Minh Thu. Now 63, she lives just a few clicks past Kilometer 0. Thu was 24 when she came to Tan Ky, one of thousands of "vanguard women" who built the original trail by hand. She shows me a photo of herself from that time: a young girl with a sideways smile, wearing a conical hat tied with a bow. For six years, she slept on the ground, cutting trees and leveling rocks with only an axe and a sledgehammer. "Sometimes I thought...
...draws us a map, and we set out past construction crews, who help point us in the right direction. Mr. Truong wants to stay on the main highway, but we veer onto a smaller branch of the old trail. This remnant is still in use, big enough for a car-or, in today's case, several motorbikes, an oxcart and a flock of ducks. There's no jungle here, just flat earth and rice fields. When we reach the landmark of Dong Loc Junction, we see why: in a small museum is a photo of the same road taken...