Hien Luong, Vietnam

Hien Luong Bridge, Reunification Monument & Museum - darkometer rating : 3 - A bridge across the Ben Hai river that formed part of the border between North and South Vietnam from 1954 until reunification and was thus a crucial spot in the DMZ . Today it is maintained as a major national monument for the reunification of Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War , and there's also a museum, propaganda war remnants and two memorials. > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Photos What there is to see: the old narrow bridge itself, a simple steel construction built by the French, is now just for pedestrians (a parallel modern bridge takes all road traffic across the river these days) and you can walk its entire 180 yards (165m) or so length. More spectacular than the bridge itself is the huge Reunification Memorial on the southern side. It's actually quite an elegant structure as far as these memorials go. It consists of six feather-like steles and a more traditional statue of a woman and child in front of it. On the north side there's another monument, or rather a massive flagpole resting on a pedestal which is adorned with the most elaborate and biggest socialist realism mosaic I've seen anywhere in Vietnam (or beyond). It's so over the top it's fantastic. Depicted are scenes of war, life in the tunnels (e.g. at Vinh Moc ), planning and negotiation meetings, and so on and so forth, but most prominently: victory celebrations. Uncle Ho (i.e. Ho Chi Minh ) is also there, looking down on the celebrations with the usually benign facial expression (never mind that he actually died in 1969, many years before this victory).