During the Vietnamese war, the Vietnamese used a series of underground tunnels to move around which was a lot safer than being above ground. The tunnels also allowed the Vietnamese to mount surprise attacks on the Americans and lay booby traps before disappearing back into the tunnels. The tunnels were first used in the 1940's during the war with France and were then repaired and extended during the Vietnamese and American conflict.
The tunnels are about two hours drive from Ho Chi Minh so we went with a small tour group. On the way to the tunnels , the bus stopped off at a factory where products were made by victims of Agent Orange, the toxins which were sprayed on the jungle causing many birth defects. This was not mentioned on the tours itinerary but seems to be a regular thing on tours over here, that they take you to places were they expect you to buy things. This factory did lacquer work and it was amazing to see the skill and work that goes into making a piece, using using egg shell and sea shells .
These ladies are carefully making a picture using tiny pieces of egg shell.
These ladies are sawing off tiny pieces of a sea shell then carving it.
What they produced was amazing and it was interesting to see but it is annoying when tour companies hijack you, and take you to places you hadn't planned to go. We didn't buy anything there but have since bought something at another shop.
Eventually we arrived at Cu Chi tunnels and it was really interesting , our tour guide was very good,
pointing out a lot and explaining things that we wouldn't have known or noticed if we had gone by ourselves.
This is another opening of a tunnel, which although easily seen now would have been disguised by undergrowth back then. At this one they stood and leant over the grassy bit you can see, shielding their bodies so they could watch or shoot Americans who went past. A bit like trench warfare where the soldier protects most of his body with the trench wall .
As we approached this tree it just looked any another tree with a termite nest at the bottom of it. Then the guide pointed out the hole, the termite nest is actually a disguised iair vent allowing fresh air to get into the tunnels. The Americans who knew about the tunnels but found them hard to find brought in German Shepherds to sniff them out. The dogs were very good at this so the Vietnamese had to figure out how to stop them. First of all they shot them but the noise gave away their position, so they then used pepper at the holes which just made the dogs sneeze! Then they started to put captured American soldiers uniforms just inside the hole, which confused the dogs, as this to them was a smell they were not trained to search for so just ignored it. Sadly a lot of dogs were killed by booby traps and their trainers started to refuse to send them into the jungle.
The hole in the vent disguised as a termite nest is easy for us to see now but there would have been more foliage then.
There was an exhibit of different booby traps, all quite simple, potentially lethal and effective. First of all bamboo spikes were used , which would have poison or contaminated substances put on them to cause infections if you survived the trap. Resourceful as they are the Vietnamese eventually discarded the bamboo spikes and started using metal from exploded American bombs to make spikes.
This is an original entrance to an hole, I have put my foot beside it so you can see the size.
To try and damage the tunnels and flush the Vietnamese out the Americans dropped a lot of bombs on the area. This is one of the many bomb craters, it is still very big all these years later. There are steps leading down into it.
We then got a chance to crawl through some of the tunnels. As we were in a group we all followed each other down, into the dark, the entrance had been widened but the tunnels hadn't, it was a tight squeeze and basically I had to crawl through on my hands and knees, David managed to do some of it in a squatting position. It was also very hot and claustrophobic, at regular intervals in the tunnels there are escape exits in case you get panicky. Unfortunately because we were just following the people in front , we came out of an emergency exit which we didn't want to do. David ran back and started from the beginning but I didn't bother, so David managed to complete the whole 120 km that are accessible to the public. He had very sore legs though for the next couple of days.
After the whole group were through the tunnels we went off to watch a Vietnamese propaganda film
that they actually used during the war. During this trip you can also shoot some of the guns that would have been used during the conflict but neither of us bothered with that although others did. You had to pay for each bullet you fired.
There were other displays, such as an ammunitions workshop and camp scene, and also other tunnel openings on the route, it was a very good day, we both really enjoyed it, and thankfully there were no surprise factory stops on the way back.
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