Chu Chi Tunnels

Day 49

    We got up early today at 7:30 am and went to a tour company to go and visit the Chu Chi Tunnels from the Vietnam War. It was a 90 min bus ride to get there and I put my ipod in and dosed off along the way. It was a very interesting experience learning about the Viet Cong and hearing about how the tunnels were constructed with many levels they had dug by hand as deep as 10 meters to avoid bombing and attacks by the Americans and French. They even had underground kitchens and special vents that reached the surface for air and the smoke from cooking. We walked around and checked out some tunnel entrances as well as some huge craters created by the bombs dropped during the war.

    Near the beginning of the war area to the tunnels there was a extremely small hole in the ground which was camouflaged with leaves that lead into the tunnel systems. I am pretty skinny and was one of the only people who could barely fit inside scraping my sides as I slid in. When I lowered the cover it was almost pitch dark with a hole about a foot and half high going into the blackness. This really gave me a sense of what it was like inside and I cant even begin to imagine what the Viet Cong went through fighting and living in these conditions, really blew my mind. They built these entrances this small so that the American soldiers being big people would not be able to fit inside. The Americans defence against this was sending attack dogs into the holes. The tunnels were lined with brutal booby traps that could be activated after the Vietnamese soldier had passed over it killing or badly injuring the dogs or anyone else unlucky enough to enter their lair.

    Our guides English was not great and it was a task just to try to understand what he was saying but I think we got a good history lesson. Went to a shooting range and got to shoot a automatic M60 rifle which can shoot up to 600 rounds a minute. It was extremely loud and powerful, almost ear drum shattering but exciting for the both of us. This is glorification of the violence of war and is arguably wrong because it is letting us take a part in shooting off ammo which killed thousands but at the same time a one of a kind experience.

    After that we were shown how they make rice paper and rice wine. Next we went to a section of tunnels that were big enough us westerners to crawl through and we actually went about 300 feet on our hands and knees underground. At one point the tunnel was so tight I had to just barely sqeeze though on my back in order to make it out the other side.

    As we finished the tour and were walking back to the bus there was a restaurant that had a bottle of whiskey with a Cobra in it and I did a shot which was really strong feeling the burn for 15 to 20 mins afterward.

     After the 90 min ride back to Saigon we got some food and sat down in the tour company and booked a Mai Khong delta cruz and a trip to Phu Quoc Island before our Vietnam Visa expired. It was a long day and we were totally exhausted and returned to our hotel. The dude  who we had shared our room with turned out to be a extremely loud snorer and sleep talker, speaking in some alien launguage which had us cracking up as well as not sleeping due to the noise.  We packed our things for the next day and watched tv trying to fall asleep.