Joel Swagman (Reviews / TESOL): My Lai, Quang Ngai, Vietnam

(Travelogue)

These are photos I took in April, 2017. At the time, I posted them on Facebook, and not on this blog. But I've decided to go rescue them from my Facebook archives, and post them on this blog as well.
This is something I explicitly said that I wouldn't do, but I'm breaking my own rules once again. The reason is that I think My Lai is historically significant enough that it might be worthwhile to share these pictures with a wider audience.
I'm going to make a few brief comments to put these pictures in some context, but I'm going off of memory here, so take what I say with a grain of salt (i.e. it's possible I could be remembering something wrong, or, more likely, not remembering something of potential interest.)

My Lai was in the middle of nowhere in 1968, and it continues to be out in the middle of nowhere today. Even though Vietnam is filled with backpackers and tourists nowadays, hardly anyone visits My Lai. I myself would never have visited it if it weren't for the fact that my wife's hometown was in Quang Ngai.
The place is also known as Son My in Vietnamese, and driving out to the area, many of the signs refer to "Son My".

Only the most thorough of tour buses bother to stop at My Lai, but there is a small parking lot for these few buses.

There's a small museum at the My Lai site. Mostly the museum consists of pictures. and some artifacts from the massacred villagers.
I didn't include it in my pictures, but the museum also includes a brief tribute to the American soldier Hugh Thompson Jr. (W) who tried to stop the massacre

Then, outside the museum, you can tour what is left of the village. The foundations of the houses that were destroyed are still left as a monument. (In my mind, I had always imagined the My Lai villagers living in grass huts, but there were apparently proper houses with foundations.)