Vietnam - Cu Chi Tunnels

Yesterday, we took a 1/2 day tour of the Cu Chi tunnels. It was unbelieveable and kind of creepy. Of course all I could think about were all the Vietnam movies I watched as a kid. I kept wondering if in another 35 years, when I'm 70 years old will I be touring Iraq. We walked through the jungle. We saw an interesting propaganda video with old footage from 1967. It showed tranquil and beautiful Cu Chi and then the evil Americans came and started shooting and dropping bombs on everyone. It also showed 2 Vietnamese war heros, one was a really young girl. They were called "American Killer Heros".

The tunnel systems, the booby traps and the use of the environment against their enemy was genius! The Vietnamese took the unused bombs and artillery that they could find and used them against the Americans as much as possible. We crawled about 50 meters in a slightly enlarged tunnel for the tourists. It was dark, small and very difficult. Julian crawled in another 70 meter tunnel that was slightly smaller, but I had had enough after the first tunnel.

Hidden tunnels

Enlarged tunnels for the tourists Traps

At the end of the tour, we could pay some money to shoot an AK47, M16 and some other guns of some sort. It was unbelieveably loud and all I wanted to do was throw up. I felt really jumpy and queasy around the gunfire and can't imagine what it would be like living with gunfire all day and night. Neither of us were up for shooting anything. It was disturbing.