Spring 1941
Thirty years, then one step across marker 108
On 28 January 1941 — the second day of Tết — Nguyễn Ái Quốc crossed border marker 108 into Pác Bó after thirty years searching the world for his country’s path. Villagers remember him pausing long at the marker, lifting a handful of homeland soil.
From 8 February he lived in Cốc Bó cave — “the source” in Nùng — naming the stream Lenin and the peak Karl Marx, translating Party history at a stone table, living on corn porridge and bamboo shoots.
