We drove out of Dong Van heading north. We were going to see the rather large flag atop a 33 metre tall tower up near the Chinese border. The temperature was much nicer, though the weather was still good.
After a couple of stops to admire the scenery and try to get some good photos, we got to the tower. Having walked up the many stairs to its base, admired the reliefs around the bottom, then walked up the 135 stairs of the spiral staircase inside we made it to the top. The view was pretty good. We could easily see into China, just over 3 kilometres away, and the nearest Chinese town. The two countries have had their share of disagreements over territory so the tower appears to have been built to make sure the Chinese can see the flag and know whose land it is.
The flag itself is 54 m², to reflect the 54 ethnic groups that make up Vietnam. There is a military garrison in the town who look after the tower and flag, and they change the flag every Monday. A Buddhist temple was under construction close to the tower. We don’t know why, as there are no Buddhists among the local population, but there you go. After taking in the view we returned to Dong Van for lunch.
After lunch we headed south towards Meo Vac. On the way, in addition to stopping at various view points , we also did a 3 kilometre hike along a paved path while Hiep took the car to end of the trail. The path starts out at about 2 metres wide, but quickly reduces to about 1 metre. The precipitous drop on one side doesn’t slow the locals on their motorbikes and scooters down. A few tourists on motorbikes take on the path also, some of them more nervous looking than others.
The walk was nice. At one point we left the track and walked through the corn before rejoining the path further down the hill. Once back at the car, we had a break before continuing our journey.
We arrived in Meo Vac at about 1730. There wasn’t much going on, but we had dinner at the local Italian restaurant. The food wasn’t great, but we expected that and weren’t disappointed.
One thing we did notice in town was the loudspeaker with various voices taking it in turn to come out of it. We also noticed this in Dong Van, Tuna explained that this is how the government communicates with the locals, who don’t read newspapers or use the internet for news. It appears to be widely ignored, as are most government announcements around the world.
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If anyone has any questions about travelling in Taiwan or Vietnam (not that we have travelled much in Vietnam yet), feel free to contact us at thekiwiandthekraut@gmail.com
The Kiwi & The Kraut 