Xa-lộ 6 lanes trên HCM' Trail
- Người viết đặt tên: Xa-lộ Harriman
- Lê-Đức-Thọ: Đường 559
- Phương tây: Đường Mòn Hồ Chí Minh
- Cách mạng Việt Minh: Đường Trường Sơn
- Dưới con mắt phi công tình báo sẽ là: Xa-lộ Liên Bang Đông Dương
Indochina International Highway Six-lane highway on the deadly Ho Chi Minh Trail
Vietnam's founding father Ho Chi Minh, or "Uncle Ho" as his admirers call him, never lived to see the victory of communist North Vietnam over the South, or the renaming of Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City. Now the legendary wartime trail that bore his name - the secret, ever shifting network of jungle paths and tunnels that helped defeat the South - is to become the Ho Chi Minh Highway, a six-lane, 1000-mile road linking north to south.
Vietnam's founding father Ho Chi Minh, or "Uncle Ho" as his admirers call him, never lived to see the victory of communist North Vietnam over the South, or the renaming of Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City. Now the legendary wartime trail that bore his name - the secret, ever shifting network of jungle paths and tunnels that helped defeat the South - is to become the Ho Chi Minh Highway, a six-lane, 1000-mile road linking north to south as Indochina International Highway.
Once, the Ho Chi Minh Trail was the most dangerous place in Vietnam for communist fighters, bombed constantly by US forces desperate to sever the North's vital supply route, which ferried men and arms to the south under thick forest cover. The Americans dubbed the trail's landmarks with names such as "Meatgrinder Hill" and "Blood Spring". But in the mainland Laos:
Những trái Bom "NHÂN-ĐẠO" (click vào bài: "Những trái Bom nhân đạo?" trang-1, forum threads, bởi vinhtruong để biết) - Tính bổ đồng cứ cách 8 phút một trái bom BLU-117 thả xuống kéo dài đến 9 năm mới dứt, tiêu thụ tất cả là 580.000 trái cho một đoạn hành lang xa lộ Harriman (đường HCM), bạn nên xem hình để hiểu tại sao người viết cho rằng "NHỮNG TRÁI BOM NHÂn ĐẠO" At Laos, Bomb Crater Swimming Pools
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
#lidos
(At Laos, Photo by Duane Ruth-Heffelbower. Source.)
During the Vietnam War, the United States flew more than 580,000 bombing missions over Laos. That's equal to one bombing mission every 8 minutes around the clock for 9 full years. In fact, the country's Xiengkhouang Province, where the famous Plain of Jars is located, is considered the most heavily bombed place on earth. This intensive bombing campaign left the landscape pockmarked with craters.
(At Laos, Photo by Duane Ruth-Heffelbower. Source.) One of these craters formed mere feet away from the house of Prince Souphanouvong, later President of Laos. A trained civil engineer, he turned the hole into a kidney-shaped swimming pool, flourished with a fine biomorphic indentation.
A symbol of decadence cultivated out of hellfire and Cold War geopolitics.
(Photo by “RGun”. Source.) While the pool may no longer be filled with water, many of these craters are permanently inundated, forming an aberrant hydrology of micro-lakes. In fact, some of them have been converted into aquafarms. Here's a photo of one of those fish ponds. In the south of neighboring, similarly pockmarked Vietnam, according to Places, “bomb craters are favored sites for houses, with a replenishable source of protein at the doorstep.”
Perhaps one day a cluster of these craters will be turned into an inverse archipelago fed by hot springs, connected together by channels, next to a luxury eco hotel, both designed perhaps by a Laotian Paisajes Emergentes, that is, a cadre of bright, enthusiastic, young tykes helping to lift their country from decades of economic strife and social conflict through design.
(Photo by Duane Ruth-Heffelbower. Source.) In any case, the Klimt-like pattern of these circular craters embedded into a tapestry of rice fields may be mesmerizing to look at, nevertheless, these aerial photos belie the fact that millions of unexploded bombs remain on the ground, all posing a deadly threat to civilians. There are still millions of silent craters waiting for that human touch.
Each time part of the route was bombed, another road would be hacked through the jungle. Over 16 years a million soldiers were funneled along what became the Americans' nemesis. Some worked on it for up to 10 years without going home, facing disease, exhaustion, deadly snakes and constant air attacks.
By the end of the war the trail had become a network of five roughly parallel roads and 20-odd crossroads. The government's current scheme is to connect all the bits by the year 2003, forming a two-lane highway. By 2010 there should be a highway from north to south up to eight lanes wide in some places. The cost, according to the government, will be $400m (£280m).
Critics point out that there is already a highway linking north to south along the coast that is underused, probably because few most Vietnamese have only recently exchanged their bicycles for motorbikes. But Duong Tuan Minh, vice general director of the Ho Chi Minh Highway project management unit, says there is room for another one. "Just like a ladder needs two legs, we need another leg, with small roads in between, so that poor people can travel and develop economically. Also, the present highway floods a lot during the monsoon and parts of it are often closed."
He claims the road will not be difficult to build, although it will pass through dramatic ravines and mountain ranges, the highest point reaching 800m above sea level. At risk: 10 national parks, wildlife and the traditional life of hill tribe minorities.
The project will at least have the benefit of clearing of thousands of unexploded ordnance left over after the war. The project's opening ceremony last April had to be postponed when 600 unexploded bombs were found on the site.
At least 5,000 people will work on phase one, paid less than £1 a day. A plan to mobilise unpaid labour was shelved after bad publicity, although Mr Duong says he knows nothing of the idea. More than 300,000 volunteers worked on the original trail but enthusiasm for public-spirited works had waned since those days. But if the stubborn determination and ingenuity that helped the communists overcome impossible military odds 25 years ago is still alive and well in the Vietnamese corridors of powers, the road may be finished, one day
QUEENBEE-ONE
- Người viết đặt tên: Xa-lộ Harriman
- Lê-Đức-Thọ: Đường 559
- Phương tây: Đường Mòn Hồ Chí Minh
- Cách mạng Việt Minh: Đường Trường Sơn
- Dưới con mắt phi công tình báo sẽ là: Xa-lộ Liên Bang Đông Dương
Indochina International Highway Six-lane highway on the deadly Ho Chi Minh Trail
Vietnam's founding father Ho Chi Minh, or "Uncle Ho" as his admirers call him, never lived to see the victory of communist North Vietnam over the South, or the renaming of Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City. Now the legendary wartime trail that bore his name - the secret, ever shifting network of jungle paths and tunnels that helped defeat the South - is to become the Ho Chi Minh Highway, a six-lane, 1000-mile road linking north to south.
Vietnam's founding father Ho Chi Minh, or "Uncle Ho" as his admirers call him, never lived to see the victory of communist North Vietnam over the South, or the renaming of Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City. Now the legendary wartime trail that bore his name - the secret, ever shifting network of jungle paths and tunnels that helped defeat the South - is to become the Ho Chi Minh Highway, a six-lane, 1000-mile road linking north to south as Indochina International Highway.
Once, the Ho Chi Minh Trail was the most dangerous place in Vietnam for communist fighters, bombed constantly by US forces desperate to sever the North's vital supply route, which ferried men and arms to the south under thick forest cover. The Americans dubbed the trail's landmarks with names such as "Meatgrinder Hill" and "Blood Spring". But in the mainland Laos:
Những trái Bom "NHÂN-ĐẠO" (click vào bài: "Những trái Bom nhân đạo?" trang-1, forum threads, bởi vinhtruong để biết) - Tính bổ đồng cứ cách 8 phút một trái bom BLU-117 thả xuống kéo dài đến 9 năm mới dứt, tiêu thụ tất cả là 580.000 trái cho một đoạn hành lang xa lộ Harriman (đường HCM), bạn nên xem hình để hiểu tại sao người viết cho rằng "NHỮNG TRÁI BOM NHÂn ĐẠO" At Laos, Bomb Crater Swimming Pools
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
#lidos
(At Laos, Photo by Duane Ruth-Heffelbower. Source.)
During the Vietnam War, the United States flew more than 580,000 bombing missions over Laos. That's equal to one bombing mission every 8 minutes around the clock for 9 full years. In fact, the country's Xiengkhouang Province, where the famous Plain of Jars is located, is considered the most heavily bombed place on earth. This intensive bombing campaign left the landscape pockmarked with craters.
(At Laos, Photo by Duane Ruth-Heffelbower. Source.) One of these craters formed mere feet away from the house of Prince Souphanouvong, later President of Laos. A trained civil engineer, he turned the hole into a kidney-shaped swimming pool, flourished with a fine biomorphic indentation.
A symbol of decadence cultivated out of hellfire and Cold War geopolitics.
(Photo by “RGun”. Source.) While the pool may no longer be filled with water, many of these craters are permanently inundated, forming an aberrant hydrology of micro-lakes. In fact, some of them have been converted into aquafarms. Here's a photo of one of those fish ponds. In the south of neighboring, similarly pockmarked Vietnam, according to Places, “bomb craters are favored sites for houses, with a replenishable source of protein at the doorstep.”
Perhaps one day a cluster of these craters will be turned into an inverse archipelago fed by hot springs, connected together by channels, next to a luxury eco hotel, both designed perhaps by a Laotian Paisajes Emergentes, that is, a cadre of bright, enthusiastic, young tykes helping to lift their country from decades of economic strife and social conflict through design.
(Photo by Duane Ruth-Heffelbower. Source.) In any case, the Klimt-like pattern of these circular craters embedded into a tapestry of rice fields may be mesmerizing to look at, nevertheless, these aerial photos belie the fact that millions of unexploded bombs remain on the ground, all posing a deadly threat to civilians. There are still millions of silent craters waiting for that human touch.
Each time part of the route was bombed, another road would be hacked through the jungle. Over 16 years a million soldiers were funneled along what became the Americans' nemesis. Some worked on it for up to 10 years without going home, facing disease, exhaustion, deadly snakes and constant air attacks.
By the end of the war the trail had become a network of five roughly parallel roads and 20-odd crossroads. The government's current scheme is to connect all the bits by the year 2003, forming a two-lane highway. By 2010 there should be a highway from north to south up to eight lanes wide in some places. The cost, according to the government, will be $400m (£280m).
Critics point out that there is already a highway linking north to south along the coast that is underused, probably because few most Vietnamese have only recently exchanged their bicycles for motorbikes. But Duong Tuan Minh, vice general director of the Ho Chi Minh Highway project management unit, says there is room for another one. "Just like a ladder needs two legs, we need another leg, with small roads in between, so that poor people can travel and develop economically. Also, the present highway floods a lot during the monsoon and parts of it are often closed."
He claims the road will not be difficult to build, although it will pass through dramatic ravines and mountain ranges, the highest point reaching 800m above sea level. At risk: 10 national parks, wildlife and the traditional life of hill tribe minorities.
The project will at least have the benefit of clearing of thousands of unexploded ordnance left over after the war. The project's opening ceremony last April had to be postponed when 600 unexploded bombs were found on the site.
At least 5,000 people will work on phase one, paid less than £1 a day. A plan to mobilise unpaid labour was shelved after bad publicity, although Mr Duong says he knows nothing of the idea. More than 300,000 volunteers worked on the original trail but enthusiasm for public-spirited works had waned since those days. But if the stubborn determination and ingenuity that helped the communists overcome impossible military odds 25 years ago is still alive and well in the Vietnamese corridors of powers, the road may be finished, one day
QUEENBEE-ONE
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