Cu Chi Tunnels

To finish off our Vietnam war history lesson, we took a tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels, about an hour north of Saigon. This massive tunnel system, over 200 km in total and stretching to the Cambodian border, was used by the Viet Cong guerrillas for 20 years. The area was self sufficient with hospitals, kitchens, and munitions factories. The land was filled with bomb craters, still visible more than 30 years later. We were only able to go in a small stretch of the tunnels, only 60 meters, but it was enough to sympathize with the people who lived in them. The tunnels were only three feet high by two feet wide, barely enough room for us to crawl through (but they were much smaller people). They also had displays of traps, once used for hunting game, which were turned on the enemy. Most of the traps were comprised of sharpened bamboo sticks and later artillery fragments turned into spears, all camouflaged by the natural surroundings. And visitors could not only view the machine guns and rifles, but they could fire them for $15 (out of our price range). The gun shots also added to the experience.