The 1954 battlefield sites, one by one

The French Union garrison held a camp on the valley floor, built around an airstrip, with strongpoints on the small hills around it. Each strongpoint had a woman's name. The Vietnamese names used on the ground today are different, which confuses many visitors, so here is the key for the main ones:

The camp's command post, the bunker of Colonel (later General) Christian de Castries, stood in the centre near the Nam Rom river. The Vietnamese command was in the forest at Muong Phang, in the hills to the east.

The museum opened on 5 May 2014, replacing an older one founded in 1984. The building is a low, rounded cone patterned like a camouflage net, a reference to the hats worn by Vietnamese soldiers. Inside are over 1,000 artefacts, documents and photographs arranged in sequence: the background to the campaign, the supply effort, the three phases of the battle and its aftermath. Exhibits include artillery pieces and personal objects, such as a bicycle of the kind used to carry supplies over mountain tracks.

The upper floor holds a 360-degree panorama painting, 132 m long and 20.5 m high, depicting the battle with around 4,500 figures. You remove your shoes to enter it. Labels are in Vietnamese, English and French, though the English is uneven. Allow 45 minutes for a quick look and up to two hours if you read everything. The museum faces A1 Hill on Vo Nguyen Giap Street, and it is a good first stop because it gives you the overall picture.

The bronze monument on Hill D1 was completed in April 2004 for the 50th anniversary of the battle. It shows three Vietnamese soldiers standing on the roof of the de Castries bunker, one carrying a rifle, one a flag and one holding a child with a bunch of flowers. The statue is 12.6 m high on a 3.6 m pedestal. A long stepped path leads up from the road, counted at 320 steps in one official account, and a 58 m stone relief was added in a second stage completed in 2009.

The climb is steep in the heat; go early or late in the day. The reward is the clearest view over the valley and the town, which helps you see how the camp sat in the basin with hills on every side.

The A1 National Martyrs' Cemetery, built in 1958, holds the graves of Vietnamese soldiers killed in the campaign, in rows of identical headstones; many are unnamed. The Him Lam and Doc Lap cemeteries are smaller. The Martyrs' Temple on Hill F is a memorial temple where Vietnamese visitors offer incense.

The French dead have no cemetery in the valley. A memorial to them was erected in 1994 on the initiative of Rolf Rodel, a former Foreign Legion non-commissioned officer, and officially unveiled in 1999. France has no legal rights over it; it is maintained under an agreement with the provincial authorities and funded by the French Ministry of the Armed Forces. It stands separately from the Vietnamese cemeteries. In November 2018 the French prime minister laid a wreath there.

At all of these places, dress modestly, keep your voice down and ask before photographing people paying their respects.

• Visitors who want a balanced historical exhibition. The sites present the Vietnamese view of a national victory; the French experience is barely represented apart from the memorial.
• Anyone with limited mobility, at A1 and the Victory Monument, which involve steep paths and steps.
• Visitors in the middle of the day in April and May, when the heat on the exposed hills is heavy.
• Travellers who arrive at 10:45 or 17:00. The lunch closure and evening closing are strictly kept.