Vietnam: Along the new Ho Chi Minh highway

According to the official propaganda, the Ho Chi Minh Highway will soon be the new Vietnamese economical lifeline. To build this road of more than 1600km in length, 30 years after the fall of Saigon, the unification of former north and south Vietnam, more than 300,000 people have been to build this grandest of mega-projects.

More than 70 million days of work have already been spent. Nearly 20,000 landmines and shells, souvenirs of the former Vietnam War, have been removed from the mud. And at least 300 bridges have been built.

30 years ago the network of tracks flowing down both sides of the Vietnamese border, on which this impressive road has been built, were used to achieve victory against South Vietnam and the US armed forces.

Today, the new roads ambition is one of progress: unifying definitively the country by developing the agricultural industry of one of the least densely populated areas of Vietnam – with sometimes less than 30 people per square kilometer (contrary to 3000 per square kilometer on the coast).

Shot on assignment for GEO France