The last morning of our vacation, we grabbed a veggie omelet across the street from the touring office for a quick breakfast along with some coffee, and then enjoyed our Vietnamese fruit on the bus ride over to the Cu Chi Tunnels. The bus ride was about 2 hours. Again, the bus ride provided a great chance for us to view the country side, with many flooded fields and many workers in the fields.
We also rode by other cities and businesses. One picture below shows the unbelievably low prices you could find in HCMC. If you look at the photo with the “Saigon shoes”, the price for one pair of shoes is listed for 50,000 Dong. Since 18,000 Dong= $1, that one pair of shoes is less than $3! What a bargain! Also, the picture below it shows the typical backpackers that we saw in HCMC, picking out some fruit and having it made into a fruit juice or smoothie. Also, in that same picture you can see a woman carrying a fruit basket over her shoulder and trying to sell them to the tourists.
On our way over on the bus, our tour guide explained about the Vietnam War and the Cu Chi Tunnels. We also learned more details when we took the tour through the Cu Chi Tunnels site from the tour guide, from videos and from a diorama.
Here are some things I learned:
The Tunnels were 200 kilometers long, and were made by the Vietnamese with a hoe and a bamboo basket. Since the ground was made of clay, it took a very long time for them to finish this. The guide also told us that the tunnels represented hatred for the enemy during the Vietnam War, which consisted of the French, Chinese and US.
The Cu Chi Tunnels withstood 100 attacks, so won over 100 major battles. The tunnels were never taken over and when they won the war, the Vietnamese finally won their independence and Ho Chi Minh became their Communist leader. To this day, Ho Chi Minh is looked upon like a saint who has brought their country into stabilization and more wealth.
Other interesting things we saw and learned about on the tour was how small the Cu Chi Tunnels were. A few of us in the tour were able to get into the actual size tunnel. The tour guide first gave it a try to demonstrate how they climbed in, and put the piece of wood with leaves over their head on top of the hole to hide them. Keith tried but was only able to fit in halfway because his shoulders were too wide. You can see him in the picture trying to hide himself with the leaves over his head…I think he would have been caught, huh? The crazy thing was that the Cu Chi Tunnels was created as a way for the Vietnamese to live safely (they ate, slept and even got married in the tunnels), move around below the ground, and attack the enemies. They made it very, very small so that the Americans and other enemies couldn’t fit into the tunnels.
For the tourists, the Vietnamese had to widen the tunnels for us to be able to crawl inside. I crawled for the first 25 meters (it was so small and pitch black…made it felt like you couldn’t breath), and Keith went for the whole 100 meters. Go Keith! It was a great experience and really made you realize how clever of an idea the underground tunnels were.
There were also many other strategies that they used. For example, they made trench hole tunnels, which were a separate tunnel from the Cu Chi Tunnels, which was mainly used when fighting. The enemies knew about these tunnels, but the Cu Chi Tunnels were only used as an emergency tunnel in order to keep it secretive. Tree traps and other traps which contained spikes at the bottom were used. In addition, there were land mine traps. The Vietnamese tied leaves into a knot to put over the area so that their side knew where the land mines were buried. Some still exist today (but mostly in Cambodia), which can cause serious injury to the victim, such as arms or legs or both blown off all by the touch of a single land mine.
As we walked around the site, we were also shown the clothing, sandals, and weapons that the Vietnamese used in their military, as well as a few tanks they used. Also, we saw a termite mound. The termites would eat the bamboo trees and since the bamboo became hollow, the Vietnamese soldiers were able to use the air openings to breath. Our guide also mentioned that they would steal soap left over in the fields from the Americans when they washed themselves. They would then bury this soap around the mounds in order to hide their scent from the American soldiers’ dogs who would try to hunt down their scent.
The tour also stopped us off at a firing range. However, we had already went to the one in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We were glad we did too, because this one in Vietnam was a lot more expensive.
Well, this concludes our final tour, which was very educational and interesting to learn about. We then took the bus back, ate one last delicious meal in HCMC, then headed out for our long flights.
The trip was more than we could have asked for! We came home with tons of stories (Keith will be sending all of our close family and friends more detailed newsletters of our trip with humorous stories), souvenirs, e-mail addresses of people we met and hope to stay in touch with, amazing photographs, full stomachs from all the delicious Cambodian and Vietnamese food we were lucky enough to try, and tons of good laughs and experiences!
Thanks for reading about our trip, hope you learned a lot and please write comments or questions that you may have! Miss you all and thanks for supporting our travels! I know it’s tough to be away from loved ones!
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