An early start today with breakfast at half 5 to give us time to get ready and get to our meeting place at 6.50am. It was a long 3 ½ hr drive to the Cu Chi tunnels north of Ho Chi Min City, but it wasn’t boring as there was lots to see. Vietnam is very different from the other countries we’ve visited – definitely a non-developed country. We’ve found the people to be really friendly tho. The roads were incredible – full of pot holes, and often unpaved which made for an interesting drive. The amount of scooter on the road was incredible adn the way everyone drives is amazing. Somehow it mainly seems to work, although to western eyes it looks like mayhem. We saw scooters with all sort of things on the back including whole families, giant bushels of greenery and a full upright fridge – beating the freezer of yesterday!
The drive was definitely worth it as the Cu Chi Tunnels were fascinating. The visitor area is well laid out with huts showing maps, diagrams and videos about the Viet Cong guerrillas who lived and fought in them. They had one hidden entrance way that had been widened for westerners, but it was still fairly small – about the size of an A4 piece of paper. Andy was the first to volunteer to get in and I managed to fit in too. Not many of the others in the group tried it tho. It was incredible how camouflaged it was – when covered with leaves there really was no way of telling it was there.
Our guide then took us further around the trail showing us some of the other types of entrance (one designed as a trap for the American Soldiers) and also some of the traps they built. These really were gruesome - it’s amazing how many ways they designed to impale GI’s on metal or bamboo spikes. The spinning man traps had long bamboo stakes in because short spikes wouldn’t have been effective to get through the GI’s steel reinforced boots. Other traps were designed to impale GI’s in the foot, leg, armpit, privates or head – there were all sorts of designs. Many of them would maim and cause huge amounts of pain rather than killing them outright as the Viet Cong philosophy was that it was better to kill someone’s mind by causing them immense pain. The screams from the injured man would then kill the minds of the other GI’s in the area. If they just shot him dead then he was dead and couldn’t strike fear into the other soldiers.
The system of tunnels stretched for 250km and 75% of this still exists. The tunnels were on 3 levels and contained meeting rooms, hospitals, kitchens (with the smoke tunnelled to come out a long way from the kitchen) and armouries. The tunnels included traps for any Americans who managed to get in. It really was an amazing system and incredibly well thought out as the Americans had almost no chance of finding it. In one area the tunnels even ran under an American base!
We went down a short stretch that has been expanded to accommodate westerners. Even these tunnels were oppressively small and I came out at the first chance I had. Andy continued along till the end. The original tunnels are far far smaller than the ones we went in which is incredible to imagine.
All in all it was a very interesting if slightly gruesome trip. On the way back we stopped for lunch at a restaurant in the countryside. We were sat in little thatched shelters in a garden beside a river which was nice. The food was lovely – nice and fresh tho quite hot. The one thing we weren’t a fan of was the fresh pineapple with chilli salt to dip it in – the chilli was very hot! The trip back took over 3 hours with more interesting things to see. It’s been very hot today – 27deg and very humid which has been a big change from further north.
The dress code tonight was Asian or White so I decided to wear the outfit I bought in Nha Trang yesterday. It got loads of compliments which was very flattering.
Pictures to follow as the net is playing up today!
Pictures to follow as the net is playing up today!
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