Cu Chi Tunnels

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The Cu Chi district of Saigon was infiltrated with a massive tunnel system that extended over many hundreds of square kilometers during the American war. It was the Vietnamese response to US air power.

The Americans used repeated B52 bombing campaigns and turned the entire area, just 30 KM from their main Saigon air base, into a waste land, but to no avail. The three levels of tunnels ended up at the Saigon river, which served as the last refuge for guerrillas when ever the Americans put tear gas into the tunnels. The tunnels were brilliantly engineered and disguised. Bamboo poles located every 10 meters served as air shafts and were disguised as termite hills on the surface. Cooking smoke was directed 100 meters away from the cooking bunkers to disguise the source. Over 10,000 guerrillas would be in the system for months - some for years.

The surface area was littered with booby traps - everything from pivoting man traps that impaled anybody who stepped on top, to an assortment of traps, such as a folding chair trap, door and window traps, fishing traps and rolling traps. They were made from bamboo and American bomb parts.

The Vietnamese had underground bomb making bunkers. They began by dismantling unexploded US bombs to get at the explosives. They'd use the bomb casings for metals to form skewers, etc. and the explosives from one B52 bomb would make up over a 100 V.C. mines. Everything from anti-personnel mines to anti-tank mines.

The actual tunnel entrances were purposefully kept small to dissuade "big butt" Americans from poking around. Yes, the Americans did have specialized "tunnel rats" who went in with sawed off shotguns ... but, they had to contend with unknown twists and turns and booby traps inside the tunnels.

I just went through a 20m section of tunnel, and found it suffocating and exhausting ... at the third and deepest level at around 12 meters deep, I had to crawl on my hands and knees because of my height. The Vietnamese guide just crouched and went through effortlessly. I was exhausted and it took over a minute to regain my breadth before I mustered the strength to go up the widened ladder to the exit. And to think the guerrillas did this most of the time, on a diet consisting primarily of manioc/tapioca. Easy to grow and easy to store.

There's a shooting gallery where you can pay for 10 bullets at a time to fire everything from an M16 to an M60 machine gun. The rain and the constant crackle of real gunfire made for a very realistic feeling experience.

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