My Lai Massacre

After spending one night in Nhatrang I was ahead of schedule and decided to stop at Quang Ngai. This is midway through Vietnam and not a normal stop on the bus, but you can request it, because it's very near to the hamlets of My Son which was the place of the My Lai massacre. This was where a company of US Marines killed 500 unarmed villagers without a single shot being fired back, it was blamed on fatigue and frustration with the war. There was a memorial garden, showing a reconstruction of some of the houses that were destroyed and some trees still growing that had bullet
holes in. A sobering museum displayed graphic photos of the attrocities that occurred.
Interestingly helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson realised what was happening and landed his craft in between the villagers and rampaging soldiers and ordered his gunner Lawrence Colburn to fire at the soldiers if they didn't stop shooting, they're credited with saving several women and children. A film showed these 2 re-visiting My Lai a few years ago and meeting the villagers they saved.

Anyways, Quang Ngai town was strangely interesting itself, I was literally the ONLY westerner in the entire place and this was a big town. Everybody said hello, laughed or looked at me, it was rather odd. Also the woman who ran my guesthouse knocked on my door at 10:30pm and asked if I wanted a "massage", maybe I'm too cynical and suspicious these days of what a "massage" really entails in Vietnam, but I politely declined.