A battlefield museum

      The ghosts of war live on as a tourist attraction in the central province of Quang Binh, where some of the heaviest fighting of the Vietnam War took place more than 30 years ago.
Amid the rice paddies less than 10 km from the heart of the provincial town of Dong Hoi lies an old battlefield that a Hanoian man has turned into a tourist site.
The 10-hectare Vuc Quanh Tourist Park is a lively museum about the Vietnam War.
The park is located at a former camp of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam’s Army Division 334, where many war-time relics still remain, such as a ferry, a pontoon bridge, shelters, trenches, a school, a health station and a nursery. All have been vividly restored by Nguyen Xuan Lien, the project director.
The grounds include deep bomb craters, a pontoon bridge made of gas barrels, thatch-roof houses typical to Quang Binh during the war years and even a path that once connected to the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
In addition, Vuc Quanh boasts a medical clinic with an underground operating room, a classroom, a nursery school, and shelters dug near local people’s homes. There’s also a restored half-burnt house, a house that was disassembled to serve as a bridge for vehicles and a warehouse formerly used for rice and salt. The system of roads and trenches around the village has also been restored.
Walking around the site, visitors can see many objects of life during wartime such as oil lamps made of bomb shells. A camouflage bicycle, clusters of gas barrels and pieces of iron, used as makeshift magnetic bomb detectors on the river, can be found around the site. Co tau bay (Benth), a key vegetable for liberation soldiers during the war, is also available in the area.
The museum is free to visit.