Blogs from Cu Chi, Ho Chi Minh City, Southeast, Vietnam, Asia - page 13

Went out to the Cu Chi Tunnel complex today. This is about a 2 hour bus ride from Ho Chi Minh City. The complex is a re-construction of the tunnels used in the war with a fair bit of glossing up for the tourists. We watched a film on how the Cu Chi farmers were transformed into guerillas by day and rice farmers by night. We then went out and viewed some tunnels. They are very small and even the one built wider for tourists was a bit tight. Good fun and worth doing. We saw typical field kitchens with special chimneys to hide the smoke, man traps and bomb making. Back to town and some more shopping. I found a great market selling 'authentic reproduction' army gear and so pick up some things for my ... read more

The day before we flew to Phu Quoc we had fun taking a trip to see the Cu Chi tunnels, our tour guide was the same guy we had on our Mekong river tour to Cambodia. These tunnels near Saigon where started during the resistance to the French and expanded to hundreds of kilometers during the American War. We saw lots of interesting things and got to crawl through some of the tunnels.... read more

I was looking forward to today as we were heading for the notorious Chu Chi Tunnels. On our way to the tunnels we first stopped at a temple that practiced the religion Cao Dai. Here we learned a bit about Cao Dai, which is an amalgamation of nationalism, mysticism and oriental beliefs; namely Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism. I guess if you can't actually make up your mind which religion you would like to follow then this one is a happy medium, perhaps conjured up by an indecisive Libran. We were welcomed inside as the ceremony was getting underway. Visitors stood on the balconies that surrounded the walls and quietly watched the proceedings, which amounted to lots of chanting. I was slightly confused by a statue of Mary Magdalene that I had spied at the alter, which ... read more