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Nakhon Phanom, a province in the north-eastern Thailand about 740 km from Bangkok, is right on the banks of the Mekong River between the provinces of Nong Khai to the north and Mukdakan to the south. Laos is just across the river. The Mekong starts in China and flows through Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Like many provinces in Thailand, the provincial capital shares the same name as the province. Nakhon Phanom city (City of Hills) is on the banks of the Mekong. A road runs along the banks with an esplanade.

To get there, we took a morning bus from Mor Chit, the northern bus terminal in Bangkok. Once on the highway, we leave the congestion of Bangkok behind and get into open country.

Our journey took us up the rocky hills towards the Korat plateau, the gateway to Isarn, northern eastern Thailand, through Maha Sarakam, Roi Et, Yasothon and Mukdahan provinces. I'm glad I took the suggestion to travel by day. It's a wonderful way to see a cross section of rural Thailand.

We passed miles and miles of rice fields for as far as the eye can see. This is part of the rice bowl of Thailand and of many countries where rice is the staple food. Isolated houses, grazing cows, haystacks and tractors were some of the idyllic scenes encountered along the way.

But it hasn't always been this peaceful. In the 20th century, Nakhon Phanom played host to two of the major adversaries in the Vietnam War. The legacy of that period remains to this day.

During the Second Vietnam War (1954 - 1975), the United States maintained several air bases in Thailand from which air strikes were launched against North Vietnam. These bases were Don Muang, Nakhon Phanom, Nakhon Ratchasima (Korat), Takhli, Udon Thani, Ubon Ratchathani and Utapao. However not all the air operations were directed at North Vietnam.

Back in 1963, Nakhon Phanom was a small border town with dirt roads and a small air strip near town. Seabees or the US Navy's Construction Battalions built a new airfield outside town with a PSP (perforated steel planking) runway and wooden shacks. The airfield then had an air force radar station and three rescue helicopters.

By the late 1960s, the airfield was expanded to one with a concrete runway which operated fixed wing propeller planes and helicopters flying a variety of missions; forward air controllers, close air support, insertion and extraction of personnel, search and rescue. That airfield is the provincial airport today.

However there were also some air units that flew planes with no US insignias or markings; their pilots didn't wear Air Force uniforms. These air units flew missions over neighbouring Laos in a war (1965 - 1975) in which American involvement was not officially acknowledged by the US government. Some of these units operated from Nakhon Phanom.

This is where our story begins.

A visitor to Nakhon Phanom city, a modern city today, can't help but notice the Vietnamese influence. There's clock tower built in 1960 dedicated to the Vietnamese return to their motherland, a monument for the Vietnamese migrants.

There're a number of Vietnamese restaurants in town. In the city outskirts there's a Thai-Vietnamese Friendship Village in Ban Na Chok with a Vietnamese cemetery. The local television here includes a Vietnamese channel.

Vietnamese migration to Thailand began as early as 18th - 19th C when Catholics fleeing religious persecution settled here. Later emigrants were those opposed to French colonial rule. The period from the end of WW II to the Second Indochina War saw further Vietnamese migration to Thailand.

Of those Vietnamese who sought political asylum in Thailand during their struggle for independence from the French, some settled in Nakhon Phanom owing to its proximity.

About 4 km from Nakhon Phanom city, is a wooden house where a Vietnamese in exile stayed in the 1920s as he continued with his quest for freedom for his country.

Ho Chi Minh's house near Ban Na Chok, the Thai - Vietnamese Friendship Village, is now preserved as a museum. The spartan interior in Ho Chi Minh's house consists of a hall and two smaller rooms to the rear.

An altar and Ho's working desk are carefully preserved at one end of the hall. So is the table in the centre where Ho had his meals or met with compatriots. On a wooden platform at the other end of the hall, a common piece of furniture in rural Thailand, I could just imagine Ho sitting and yarning with visitors or even taking a nap.

In one of the small rooms to the rear, Ho's hats and clothing are neatly placed in two small cupboards.

The old photos on the walls of the hall are a wealth of history. A particular photo caught my eye, Ho Chi Minh conferring with three men over a map of Dien Bien Phu which was occupied by the French on 20 November 1953.

Vietnamese victory in that battle on 7 May 1954 put an end to French colonisation of Vietnam since the Treaty of Saigon in 1862. But this only brought in a new adversary and the Second Vietnam War.

One of the men with Ho in the photo started life as a history teacher, General Vo Nguyen Giap Commander-in-Chief of the Vietminh forces and later Minister of Defence of North Vietnam.

Ho Chi Minh became President of North Vietnam from 1945 till 1969 when he died at 79. He never lived to see a reunified Vietnam, free from foreign domination. But six years later when North Vietnamese tanks entered Saigon, his life-long goal was achieved.

Ho Chi Minh's house in Nakhon Phanom bears silent witness to the early days of that long struggle.