HCMC, Cu Chi Tunnels

Among the must-see things here in the Saigon area is going out to Cu Chi (pronounced koo chee) to see the famous tunnels from the Vietnam War.

Here is a simple model that shows the various levels of tunnels and how they were connected. They even had secret entrance/exits into the river.In all the Cu Chi tunnels are 75 miles of tunnels hand-dug by Viet Cong resistance that connected with other tunnels to form a country-wide network. They have enlarged some sections of the tunnels so that "large Western tourists" can go through them. Here is an enlarged section:But make no mistake about it, even these larger tunnels were small and perfectly dark. I am amazed that my camera actually was able to take this picture and that the flash worked so well. Like I said, it was completely black. I went down into the tunnels with Tally and Adayla, but Adayla got scared so I took her back up to Morgan and Ryann.

Fearless Tally, however, just ran in the tunnel, literally not knowing what was ahead. My legs started to burn a bit after this 100-meter section of squat-walking. Tally was able to run, I couldn't keep up. I was concerned for a moment that she might keep going past the first exit, but fortunately 100 meters is too long for her to run at this point.

Some of the underground meeting rooms have been exposed to make it easy for tourists to see. This is a kitchen that was used, but remember, this was also completely underground.

How were they able to cook underground and not get noticed? They had pipes from the fireplace that extended out up to a quarter-mile away to direct the smoke out. This is the chimney from the previous fireplace hopefully you can see the smoke coming out in the picture...

American bombs were recovered by the Viet Cong and the metal was re-used to build various weapons.On the occasion of a bomb not exploding, they opened the bombs to get the explosives and used them against the Americans in future attacks. Great idea, but I wouldn't want to be in the same room with a bomb being sawed in half!

We entered the enlarged tunnel section via Western-friendly stairs. However the way the Viet Cong entered is demonstrated below while our blatantly anti-American tour guide explains how it was done...

Tally is standing on a tunnel entrance to give you an idea how small and well-concealed these entrances were.

Here's a rock in the forest. Back then there was no path next to it, just a rock in the forest. Look at the bottom of the rock... there is a hole in the lower right corner of it. This is one of the many air holes necessary to bring fresh air down into the tunnels.

Another way to protect the tunnels was booby traps to scare people away from even looking for them. Here are a couple: step on the wrong side and you land on a bunch of spikes...Step on this platform and it drops while your weight is used to move the spikes into your leg...
Our very anti-American tour guide showing us a U.S. tank that was captured in 1970.

The girls hanging out for a minute. You can see how thick the forest/jungle here is and how difficult that made it to search for enemy encampments...

Hanging out with the Viet Cong. Notice his sandals. Those are called Ho Chi Minh sandals and were the standard footwear of the VC. They are made from old tires to conserve resources. They are only made in one size to conserve time in production. The fit on your feet is adjusted by using the four straps on the sandal. Ho Chi Minh was said to have personally come up with the design.

Another "VC" worker...My Dad served two tours (each over a year) in Vietnam during the war, including a year actually here in Cu Chi. I asked him if he ever thought during his time in Vietnam that one of his kids would take his grandkids on vacation in Vietnam and see where he had served during war. Dad said that Vietnam was a beautiful country, even back then, with beautiful landscapes and that he hoped every day that they were fighting for a peaceful Vietnam.