Cu Chi Tunnels

The Cu Chi tunnels are a short drive from Ho Chi Minh city – a little less than 1 hr.  I knew nothing about them, “thankfully” my history buff husband was right on top of it.  So we spent the morning of day 2 exploring the tunnels.

For anyone planning a trip to the tunnels, be aware that you’ll pay for your ticket and then find your way through a long tunnel (not an official Viet Cong tunnel, just a tunnel for getting people from point A to point B – and where they will take your ticket).  At the other end of the tunnel, you’ll have to join a group if you’re not with an organized tour.  We looked confused so a nice woman pointed us in the right direction.  Just be aware that you can’t go looking around yourself, you have to be with a group (and it was free).

Ok, back to the tunnels.  During the war, the Viet Cong used these tunnels as part of the war effort.  They would often live in these tunnels during the day, and come out at night when it was “safe” and they booby trapped the tunnels to keep the US Forces out.

I can’t remember if this was a hiding spot or an entry to a tunnel.  Either way, it was VERY small.  I had to crouch to get the lid to shut.

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a trap.  Spikes at the bottom of a hole.

If you’re interested in shooting big guns – like machine guns and other large weapons – you can also do it here.  It was really loud, so we opted to avoid this portion of the tour.

Towards the end of the tour, we arrived at the tunnels.  These were actually “widened” for tourists.  So we were going in the “big” ones.  I keep using quotes because these tunnels were VERY small.  To walk through them, you had to squat, and sort of waddle with your feet.  We went through as a group, and I did ok…..until our guide stopped midway through to take a picture of the people in front.  At that point, every claustrophobic thought I’d ever had came racing back to my head.  Loss of air, tunnel collapsing, bugs, mice, etc.  And I was done.  My heart started going a bit faster and I was getting sweaty (to be fair, the sweat could have been a result of the weather and being in a tunnel with no air flow).  Luckily, there’s a “peace out” spot 20m in.  So if things start to freak you out, you can leave.  And I did.

We learned that the viet cong would sometimes spend days in these tunnels.  Maybe they just wanted it more.  These tunnels sucked for 30 seconds.  I think I’d go crazy at about 1 hr.

At the end of the tour they showed us how to make rice paper and served us some taro root with some salty peanut dipping powder.  Random, but tasty.

They are also very proud of their collection of US bombs.  Often dismantling the “duds” and using the explosives against troops.  Needless to say, we learned a lot.  History would have been WAY more interesting had we learned about all this – and maybe gone on a field trip here 🙂  And it would have been easier for a bunch of middle school or high school students to fit through those tunnels!

Hope you learned something.  Happy Tuesday!