Vietnam War Route to Become a Highway
HANOI — The Ho Chi Minh Trail, the snaking jungle thoroughfare that funneled Communist troops and supplies during the Vietnam War, is to become a two-lane national highway.
The Vietnamese government announced at a news conference Friday its plans for a roughly 1,000-mile road from the northern province of Ha Tay to the southern hub of Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, along the old route of supply lines for the Viet Cong, the former South Vietnam’s Communist guerrillas.
Vietnam hopes that the new road will ease congestion along Highway 1, its only north-south route spanning the length of the country and a road that is routinely flooded in the monsoon season.
The planned two-lane road, to be finished in 2003 at a cost of $375 million, would cut through 10 provinces and dense jungle in less flood-prone territory.
The Ho Chi Minh Trail started out in 1959 as little more than a muddy path for shuttling supplies on foot and by bicycle. By 1975, the year the war ended, it had become a comprehensive transportation network.
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