Cu Chi Tunnels

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The Chu Chi tunnels are supposedly 33km north of Ho Chi Minh City and were a definate on our list of places to visit. After haggling for a reasonable price with a couple of moto drivers, we hopped on the back and set off for the tunnels. Nothing had quite prepared us for the dense traffic of Ho Chi Minh and the journey was pretty terrifying! It turned out that our drivers had misled us in their confidence of knowing where the place was and we had to stop several times for directions. After having to swap Bex’s bike at the biginning, Dom’s broke down completely half way through the journey. His driver had to pay 70 000 dong to replace a part, which he later tried to charge Dom for, saying: “you were on the bike when it happened”!! The tunnels were actually more like 60km away and what with all the stopping, our journey took about two hours!

Despite the ordeal and argumaents, the tunnels were definitely worth the pain. They were like an underground rabbit warren amongst jungle designed to foil American soldiers with all their weaponary. They were amasing, they had bedrooms and a kitchen, a dining room, a meeting room, a medical centre and many more. The tunnels themselves had been made bigger for tourists and were still tiny. The entrances were miniscule, it was no wonder they were so well disguised. They had traps that revealed huge spikes and tiny holes in which they shot from. It is not surprising the Americans could not defeat the Vietnamese, when clearly, they knew and understood their land so well!

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Comments

[Susan]

Glad your still having a great time. We're now with Michael and Faye in Cairns, they say hello. We were snorkelling on the reef yesterday, 'awesome'! Take care, susan and peter

[Anne]

It sounds liek this was a really interesting trip. It must be amazing to visit a place wiht so much recent political history. xx