Lao Aviation announced during mid-November 2000 that it plans to fly to Dien Bien Phu from Vientiane and/or Luang Prabang. Please contact the editor for flight details.

The following is the fascinating account of a US military officer's visit to Dien Bien Phu (DBP) during the summer of 1998.

Yes, I just got back from DBP. I flew in from Hanoi as I had an opportunity to add this travel onto my vacation. We travelled to Shanghai, Hanoi, Saigon, and Phnom Penh. It is an hour hop via fokker turbo prop and a stol landing at DBP. August should be a good month and not too wet. Still in wet season and wx [weather] is always a problem due to mtns [mountains] and the way the clouds hang low in that valley most of the day and all nite. Very spooky place.

I cannot comment on the land route, as I have not explored that since we last communicated. I just caution that you confirm there is an immigration post on VN [Vietnam] border [with Laos] for access into north VN [Vietnam]. If not and you cross, you will not enjoy the results. Just confirm you can enter VN at that site. The DBP area is [a] very small valley patrolled heavily by NVA [North Vietnam Army] armed to the teeth for some reason but probably just their usual border activities. They of course grow hash, etc., etc., in the hills around DBP, so there is a lot of strange stuff locally going on. Lots of folks in the town are stoned the entire day.

Before I continue, the wx is really something to worry about. Our wet season is here. If it is worse in DBP now, ground travel would be a problem and air just as bad. Check it out as this is really a remote place to go to and you do not need to be stranded there. Chow is just awful. Unless you like eating dog all the time. Take some Tabasco sauce to kill the taste of the stuff you do get, as everything was really grim. They even fuck up the bread. My [Vietnamese] wife said she never saw VN food so miserable. However, it is a superb place to diet, as you really do not get hungry to eat cause the food is so shitty--you choose to do without. Yes, can get cokes and beer there, which help out. Use dong, not dollars.

Now the battlefield. Some encroachment by the town into the sides of Dominique and Elaine hillocks but not on the positions themselves. It was wet when I was there and cool so the comfort level was okay but climbing to these strong points was a sob due to the wet slopes. Usually, on the positions themselves, a light knee-high scrub is over the positions. Trench lines intact and very visible, and fields of fire, sleep positions, etc., clearly visible. The valley is small so you can walk to a lot but the outlying positions are a few klicks out, so hire a motorcycle to take you. These drivers know nothing of map reading so just point and say how many klicks. They are illiterate and very dumb and rude as hell. Bargain hard cause they know they get no repeat customers in that remote site so they care less about if you are pleased with their services or not. 10-20 [us] bucks a day is top end and you got to handle them like the dumbest private you ever had. They want to take lunch, pak time, etc., etc. The most I ever paid was 10 bucks for the day and my VN wife bargained that but what a bloody battle that was. Thankfully, you do not need a motorcycle much. But 10-20 bucks will cover an entire day. A cycle ride for initial recon of the entire valley floor I did do and it helped me organize how much time I needed to cover the sites and that with map recon from hotel roof made the task of covering the battle sites very easy to organize time wise.

The only position I did not walk was Isabel. Clearly marked 6 km south of the town by a concrete VN statue but the position is all gone due to rice paddy construction. I did not get off the road to search any further as this is prime paddy land and the place is all cultivated.

The Viets have an okay museum open there 10-12, 2-4.

Here is my recommendation and I plan to go back but am pissed I cannot do it with you all. Go get [Bernard] Fall's book on the battle [hell in a very small place], Xerox the diagrams and maps--I also have them here if you want them. Do the same for Roy's book--I did not and wish I had but the book is due in here next week. Get maps, US army issue of DBP. If you have problems, let me know. I have a set and may be able to get another.

Read both books or one of them and get some notes together on how the battle went on each position, i.e., the sequence of the fight. Then with notes, maps, and Xerox of the positions, go to the site and you will experience a battlefield walk that beats the shit out of Gettysburg [US Civil War battlefield]. This was a battle that used the same weapons we both had during our tours in the service [in Vietnam]. You can see and feel how the French defended and the firepower was employed and the god-awful meat grinder fights over this terrain. The terrain is just overwhelming. All the principles of war, all the infantry school classes on tactics screamed at me. It was powerful stuff to relive this with the notes, seeing the terrain, walking the battle.

I recommend going to all strong points. The airfield is the airport now. Same loc [location] as before. Castries HQs [headquarters] is south of airfield. Just follow diagrams in fall's book and you can walk the central position in morning easily. The positions to the west are all paddy, and I did not walk much there, as it was all gone. I did walk the cemetery, now a cornfield, and all the central position. The bailey bridge of the battle era is still up and being used. The significant terrain is Gabriel, Beatrice, Dominique, Elaine hillocks and they consumed all my time. I did spend some time on Anne Marie but the fight-to-the-death drama of the battle was in Dominique and Elaines and it was an Iwo Jima [reference to a WWII battle in the pacific] point blank nightmare terrain to fight. I intensely covered every location here. This by map and diagram study as the locals have no knowledge or interest and are no help. They are polite about letting you roam around these places but clearly do not give a shit about history. Fall says that these fights and strong points are not accurately recorded on maps and records of the French. Well, old Bernard wrote a great book but he never walked the ground. Take his diagrams retrieved by his research of battle records and you go to the area and you can easily find Elaine 10, any soldier can match the terrain to the battle plan, and it all just comes alive for you. You can find every site they fought on, no matter how small and vague on the diagrams of Fall's book. 

In center of town on hillock is the key terrain of the Elaine hill series, E3. That is cleaned up into tour location nicely and okay. When Viets do sell a tour they take the visitors there as it is cleaned up, then to the museum, then to Castries HQs, then to Viet Minh graveyard at base of E3. I ran into a Viet tour in progress with Japanese. Tour guide was a nice VN girl but she was not familiar with the battle at all and she told me the above itinerary that the govt provides as a "tour." she told me no one walks the battle sites like I was doing as a tour. So I would not recommend getting linked up with such tours as it is bullshit. You can do it all yourself with a little prep [preparation] and the items I described. 

There are a few mini hotels in center of the town (crossroads is more like it) and I did not make a reservation cause there is not a vacancy problem. I stayed at the Vietnam airlines place. Aircon [US] 20 bucks a day, low but clean grade motel six (a stretch here) but safe and hot water. Electric power usually. Bring a book for the evenings as the lone VN TV station is the pits. No bars, no nightlife. Place shuts down at nightfall. Other [hotel] places avail [available] as well. The VN airlines place has a cafe of sorts, others do not. Food sucks. Depending on how long you stay, I would stay 2-3 days and bring some canned food and raman noodles and hot sauce. This period should take you over all the French position, but my next visit I plan to try to find the Viet Minh arty [artillery] positions in the hills and this is uncharted areas so I plan to take a week for my next trip. 

Clothes, I took a day rucksack and bought bottled water there to haul around. I did my tour in running shoes and levis and t-shirt. I took a jungle fatigue jacket to wear in the heavy scrub when I was climbing slopes. This all worked fine. A long-sleeved shirt would work as well. It would have been better to wear jungle boots or ankle-high shoes. I just was travelling and had no room to lug too much gear around the other vacation sites, so I cut a little off my list of field gear. A baseball cap or boonie hat is a must. Yeah, it's easier with boots of some kind. But you can do it with Nikes. 

Well, that is what comes to mind two weeks out of DBP. Ask me for anything else that you might think about. I loved the visit and am going back. Without wife this time as she found out how boring the place is if you are not a history buff. She sat at hotel bored to death. I tried to tell her to stay in Hanoi but her curiosity got the best of her and she had nothing to do. Shopping? Forget it. Unless you want some fruit or vegetables. This is rural, remote and nowhereville. 

Oh yea, the VN airline hotel is the tallest building and has a roof you can climb onto. I spent hours up there with maps going over the basics of the terrain and it helped organize my operations for the next day or recap the present day's events. I used a wrist compass, the dive kind on the wristwatch and it was all I needed. Just be sure to take a compass so you can navigate. Once you get into some of these hill-invested positions you need to stop and chart out where north is, south, etc., etc. Compass and map are a must to take. 

If you go on a weekday the museum curator is a Viet Minh I am told and you might possibly get him to walk some places he fought at or get his help on some local Viet Minh to do that, of course it will cost you. Be prepared for dong or dollars for that one.

Dong worked for all other costs, little as they were in the valley. 

The French dropped there in the dry season in November. Overrun in early may as the monsoon set in. Check your weather very closely. It is a two- to three-day trip from Hanoi via road one way I am told and of course one hour via air [form Hanoi] when air can get into DBP. Have some time on backend just in case you get weathered in and cannot get out via air or road conditions get challenging. 

Okay, I think that is about it. Maybe take some insect repellent as well.