Photos

In Dien Bien Phu, similarly to the National Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, USA, there are the commenorative graves and also (in a strange coincedence) a wall with the names of the dead on it. Surrounding the wall are some of the graves and it was an astonishingly quiet place in a country full of noise.

These graves and the accompanying memorial not only commemorate those lost in the American war, but also those lost in the war with the French. A short history:
1945 - 1954, Under ho chi Minh, the Viet people fight for and win independence from the French. (Otherwise known as the first Indonchina war)
1964 - 1976, The American war, when Uncle Ho fought with the American allied forces. (Otherwise known as the second Indonchina war)
Throughout the rest of the 70's the Vietnamese fought off incursions from the Chinese in the north and invaded Cambodia in the in the south to remove the Khmer, their one time allies.

Hopefully I've got that right as a lot of it was from memory.

All of this must in some way have given rise to the lack of trust of foreigners that we experienced in our time there.