Woke up at four in the morning today raring to go! Did some yoga and waited for Tara to open we beautiful eyes which she did shortly after. Bought a ticket to visit the Cu Chi Tunnels from a tour company next to our hostel run by a man named Sang who can be likened to the Vietnamese Godfather. We later learned had a father who flew a plane in the war.
The tour bus (more like van)picked us up at 7:30 am around the corner from our hostel and just before it was about to pull away, a ripe looking guy hopped in and sat beside me in the back of the bus. He smelled a bit like booze and slept most of the way. When he woke up, he introduced himself to me as Ian Devine from Ireland. Some things never change. He was my pal for the day. We had some fun and he gave us some good travel advice as he had coe from the north.
Our tour guide was named Van and we was great- quite funny!! We saw rubber trees that were used to make shoes for the VC during the war and many other neat things on the way out to Cu Chi.
Cu Chi is a district of greater HCMC where intense fighting took place during the American war. This area was key in facilitating the Viet Cong (VC) control over a large rural area and at it's peak streatched from the South Vietnamese capital to the Cambodian border- over 250km!!
The tunnel system here was also explained. They showed a model and a map displaying the three levels - 3, 5 and 8 feet below the ground and the method for building them in the hard Delta clay. Only levels 1 and 2 are open to the public, but they are intact and representative of what the system was like during the war. Many other site have had the tunnels expaned for the benifit of fat tourists.
We started out with a informational video about the area and the American War (as they call it here). It wouldn't be a comfortable film for an American to watch- unless you don't mind being called vicous, devils! Then we walked through the woods and saw tons interesting stuff. We started off with vintage American tanks.
We saw various entrances to the tunnel systems- and a few very skinny tourists (including one good-natured English dude)tried them- I however was not interested in getting stuck in a hole in front of a dozen strangers. They were very, very small!
We moved on to Tiger Traps (or Boobey Traps) which were scary looking and there were many models. Some made with bamboo stakes in them and others made with iron stakes that were fashioned from captured American wepons. Many were very similar to animal traps and in fact, I believe that some of them were used to catch animals before the war. They descriped these as their tools to "hunt" the Americans. We explored various bunkers that were used as medical stations, kitchens, meeting areas, and storage. They showed us the ventilation systems to keep fresh air in the tunnels and let smoke from the cooking stations out. They were almost unrecognizeable- it's not wonder the system was so hard to crack!
Next we visited the shooting range where we shot ...wait for it...AK 47s!! They were insane and sooooo loud! It was pretty hectic! I kept a shell. I didn't hit any of my targets- I guess I'm not cut out for combat!
Finally, the moment of truth we were going into the tunnels- intact and as they were during the war! They explained to us the squat walk the the VC used, but explaied that many would likely crawl. We decended, single file, into the dark and crawled along the first level. It was extremely hot and dark and damp! I was crawling behind Ian (a rather precarious position given he'd been drinking the night before) with Tara behind me. Van explained that we could travel different distances- shortest being 10 meters, longest being 100 meters. I made it to the middle before I bailed out- not sure the actual distance I crawled, but believe me it seem millions of times longer. I do know that the tunnel dropped down to the second level before I made my escape. I was sweating my behind off when I surfaced! It really was hard work! It's really quite amazing that these people lived in these things for soo long. They were only about 1.2 meters tall at best!
Finally we sampled some tapioca root and tea which is what many of the people in the area ate to sustain themselves during the war. There were massive food shortages for the local people due to the burning and use of Agent Orange and other herbicides by the Americans. The tapioca was not that great but I'm sure it did the trick.
Finally, we looked at the obligatory gift shop offerings, bought some drinks (don't try Winter Melon juice!!) and took the bus back to Siagon where it dropped us at the War Remenants Museum.
The Museum (which has a number of names including the American War Crimes Museum) was something else! It was divided into a number of sections- one dedicated to journalists who covered the war, one dedicated to world wide protests, one dedicated to childrens painting depicting their the personal impacts the American War had on them as well as their hope for a peaceful future, an outdoor area filled with actual wepons and vehicles used by the Americans, an actual American Wartime prison, and finally one dedicated to American War Crimes, specifically the havoc wreaked by Agent Orange. Overall, it was a very interesting and sobering experience. In particlar, the pictures of the deformaties suffered by victims of Agent Orange were terrible!
Following the Museum, we visited the Reunification Palace, which had beautiful grounds, but overall was a pass. It is a large building in 70's motif with not too much to see.
To conculde the day, we dragged ourselves around in an epic and unsuccessful search for and HSBC, finally grabbed cyclo back to the backpacker district, grabbed a quick bite to eat and went to bead at 8:00pm!
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