How do you stop an American bomb?

Go underground.

We were picked up early for our day trip to the Cu Chi tunnels and braved the morning traffic on the way out of town. Our guide provided an interesting perspective of the war, as he was a veteran of the South Vietnamese army and fought alongside the Americans. He mentioned that for many south Vietnamese the war wasn't over until 1979 when the 're education' stopped (has it ever really stopped?) and things began to approach something called normal.

Cu Chi Tunnel is the strong base of the Military Zone Party Committee, Saigon-Gia Dinh Command Post, Cu Chi District Party Committee and all the people of Cu Chi District, as well as a place of most variable tactical deployment, with no less contributions to the resistance against the enemy, and national unification.

From the Cu Chi Tunnel Brochure


Our first stop at Cu Chi was to watch an old propaganda documentary which showed the VietCong (VC) fighters in action. It spoke of the ways they would fight the enemy and the dignity with which they defended their land. It was all in Vietnamese, but the point that was being made was very clear.

For the next hour or so we wandered through the site looking. at a variety of tunnels, booby traps...

This one you step on a horizontal door and it swings right open and you are impaled by the stakes below.



torture devices, bombed out tanks...



and craters from B-52 bombs.

Some of the holes that the VC slid through were so small anyone over about a 32" waist would probably not make it. For western tourists they have enlarged the regular portion, so these small tunnels we just looked at and didn't crawl through.

We made our way on to the shooting range for a brief snack and the chance to shoot all sorts of guns from an ak-47 to some huge guns I had never heard of. We passed on the shooting as it was expensive and didn't interest us that much. I (evan) went down to take a video of some people shooting and after one shot had to scurry back because I couldn't hear myself think.

The final stop at Cu Chi was the tunnel itself. The tunnel complex is over 200km in total, 3 levels and 10 meters deep in some places. The fighters cooked with smokeless stoves, set up false routes in case they were followed and would swim in and out of the tunnels through a passage that led to the river.

We were led down into the tunnel and warned in advance that it was tight and that there would be three opportunities to exit if we felt overwhelmed. Michelle and I hung towards the back so by the time we were ready to enter at least 4 or 5 of the group of 30 or so had bailed. There were a few that were big boned, one girl who was really tall, and one that just freaked out.

It was our turn to go, so we made our way through the opening and were immediately making like midgets through a tight opening. Marshall and Cathy, you would have had no chance. It was occasionally pitch black dark, but more often very dimly lit, and always narrow. A few times through the journey we were on all fours crawling and running into each other. I was taking video and had the nightvision on, so it was a bit of an advantage.

I look like such an idiot here...



Maybe it's just the flash going off when it's so dark that gives us these goofy smiles?! They are entirely inappropriate for the subject matter, but there's nothing we can do about it now.



Eventually we made it back to the surface and we definitely glad to be breathing the clean air.

With our crawl behind us it was time to head back to Saigon. We chose to take a boat down the Saigon River for a 2 hour journey home. We listened to more war tales and got some good history lessons along the way before arriving safe and sound in Saigon.

Here is an old U.S. military post...