This is our final day before making the long trip home. We have a flight from Siagon to Hong Kong set for the evening and I worked out that we had enough time to squeeze in a tour out in the country before heading back.

We signed up to see th Cu Chi tunnel system that is a 2-hour drive north and west of Saigon.
Cu Chi is an immense network of connecting tunnels – part of a much larger network of tunnels that underlie much of the country. They were the location of several military campaigns during the Vietnam War, and were the Viet Cong’s base of operations for the Tết Offensive in 1968.

The tunnels were used by Viet Cong soldiers as hiding spots during combat, as well as serving as communication and supply routes, hospitals, food and weapon caches and living quarters for numerous North Vietnamese fighters. In the Cu Chi area alone, there were more than 250km of these underground passages and bunkers.

The tunnels contained various bamboo traps made by the Viet Cong to injure and potentially kill South Vietnam’s Tunnel Rats if they breached the tunnels. The tunnels also contained ventilation shafts to release smoke from fire and any poisonous gases pumped into the tunnels by the Americans.

On the way to the tunnels we stopped at a rest area next to a factory that hand makes lacquerware. As an extra dig to us Americans, the workers here are all handicapped from birth defects due to Agent Orange exposure.

Another incongruous stop along the way – to a shooting range where they let you fire left over Vietnam war hardware. You can pick your poison, so we both got a chance to shoot an AK-47.

Leftover US military hardware is everywhere here – lots of them in parks and similar open access areas.

C-130 transport.

Here they are showing some of the gathered shells and fragments that were dropped in Cu Chi over the years, trying to destroy the underground tunnel systems.

In one of the stranger events, all tourists watched a film (from 1967) produced by the North Vietnamese government that showed vignettes of some of their more notable “American Killer Heroes” who tallied up body counts of US soldiers through bombs, ambushes, traps and other guerilla tactics. Here, the war from 1955-1975 is called “The Resistance War against America to Save the Country”. They make no mention of the South Vietnam government nor military resistance, the civil war, the origins of the hostilities after the French left, the violation of the 1954 Geneva Conference and UN agreement… just that all Vietnamese freedom fighters and liberators needed to kill the American imperialist aggressors.

The tour guide apologized to us before and after the video – told us he had to show it since the government still runs the park.

Destroyed M48 Patton tank along the way.

Here is one of the trickier entrances into the tunnels. This was the typical size – you can imagine how small one needs to be to get in. With the lid on top and some leaves spread over, you would never see it even if you were inches away.

Here is an enlarged opening for fat Westeners. It was still really cramped to get into but I had to give it a try. Brenda wisely passed.

You didn’t need to crawl, but you surely had to stoop. I could just squeeze through width wise and banged my head too many times to mention. It was also about 140 degrees down there and my shirt was soaked after I got out.

They had several tunnels for us to try.. one about 5 meters in length, another 15 meters and the final one almost 100m long. Brenda did the first small one and passed on the rest due to the claustrophobic conditions.

Bamboo spear trap. The tips were coated black with some distilled tree sap that was poisonous.

We also saw many bomb craters from US attacks. This particular one did manage to hit the tunnels so that you can see the opening remnants that collapsed and were exposed.

A larger underground area that served as a field hospital.

It was fun to get out into the jungle here and get a feel for the area; my it was hot and sweaty.

After a lunch and the long bus ride back to the city, we packed up and headed for the airport to take a night flight from Saigon to Hong Kong.
We stayed in a hotel near HKG airport, got about 5 hours of sleep and are back at HKG awaiting our flight to Seoul ICN airport, then make a connection to take us all the way back to ATL.