NYT + other online articles: Co Chi Tunnels

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excerpts from the online article, Visit the Vietcong's World: Americans Welcome, By Seth Mydans,July 7, 1999:


Following the man in green fatigues, the tourists arrive at an open-sided hut, where the women in black show them to their seats. There, on a big-screen television set, the Vietnam War plays on: B-52's drop strings of bombs, villagers run for cover, communist guerrillas fight back.

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For those who still don't get the message, a narrator says:

"Cu Chi, the land of many gardens, peaceful all year round under shady trees ... Then mercilessly American bombers have ruthlessly decided to kill this gentle piece of countryside ... Like a crazy bunch of devils they fired into women and children ... The Americans wanted to turn Chu Chi into a dead land, but Cu Chi will never die."

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another online article:
http://archive.rsi.com.sg/en/programmes/Visiting_Vietnam/2002/11/12_06.htm

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The Cu Chi tunnels, a 75-mile-long underground maze where thousands of fighters and villagers could hide, are at the top of the list of tourist spots for Ho Chi Minh City, 45 miles to the southeast...The tunnels themselves are undeniably impressive. Throughout the war, the South Vietnamese Communists, or Vietcong, continually expanded the three-level network, which included mess halls, meeting rooms, an operating theater and even a tiny cinema.

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When the war was over, the people of Cu Chi went to work on the tunnels once again, widening parts of them and adding steps and lighting so that foreign tourists could wriggle in for a look.

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But he added: "It's very clean down there. The guide said they have someone dusting every day. They actually let you eat the food that the people that fought were eating."

He said he enjoyed his visit to Cu Chi. But he said the Vietnamese still have some work to do in developing their tourist sites. "Let's put it this way," Goichman said. "It wasn't as good as Disneyland."

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other links:
http://archive.rsi.com.sg/en/programmes/Visiting_Vietnam/2002/11/12_06.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/720577.stm

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