On my way to the Cambodian border, I visited the infamous Cu Chi tunnels which played an important part in the Vietnam war. About 50 miles north west of Ho Chi Minh city and about 20 miles from the Cambodia border, this site is like stepping back in time and you can’t actually believe what happened here and how these Vietnamese people lived, protected themselves and fought their enemy, the Americans. The tunnels they dug were pretty elaborate for the time and are about 240km in total length and consist of elaborate ventilation systems, rooms and booby traps.
We were first taken to watch a short black and white movie that was made in the time of the war. It was very anti-US propaganda but I guess that is what you would expect for the time. We then made our way through the forest to each of the sites which was pretty interesting and thought provoking, while the sound of AK-47’s were going off in the distance (you could fire these later on). The first was a bomb crater that was made by a US B52 Bomber during the war. Like most places in Vietnam that were the site of bombs, they have turned these into ponds with fish as their culture is to look forward rather than stay in the past. This particular crater was left in tact so we could see it, although it did have water in.
We then visited several of the tunnel entrances which would be covered up and discreet so the US forces didn’t notice them. As the Vietnamese people are generally short in stature, these tunnels were tiny and very claustrophobic to me and most Westerners! My sister Jenny had visited the Cu Chi Tunnels about 10 years before and had sent me her pics of her climbing in to one of these tiny holes with the lid on, so I promised to do the same thing which I did! It was so tight, tiny and dark, it’s hard to believe that around 15,000 people would be in this tunnel complexes during the war time. We got chance to climb down into one of the tunnels and enter out the other side about 30 metres away. Needless to say it was dark, dirty and very claustrophobic but gave me a real insight in to how they lived.
Their motto to avoid the enemy was:
Walk with no footprint
Cook with no smoke
Speak with no sound
Walk with no footprint - They would make their shoes out of rubber from the trees and make them back to front. We saw some of these and whilst uncomfortable to wear, they would give the impression to the enemy that these footprints would show the direction they were in, whereas in fact they were in completely the opposite direction. Pretty good idea!
Cook with no smoke - they had their kitchens built underground in the tunnel network and built a series of ventilation systems and pipes that would exit the smoke some several hundred metres away, often through small holes in a termites nest so as to avoid detection. We saw an example of this on the site. Again, pretty cool!
Speak with no sound - they had their own form of code and sign language so as to remain as quiet as possible.
Their diet was Cassava root which is like a vegetable , tastes like potato and doesn’t need any maintenance to grow it. I tried some, quite bland and had this with pineapple juice.
The last bit and probably the most gruesome is the number of booby-traps they made to either try and kill, deter or injury the American soldiers. Some of these were quite intricate and often included sharp spikes made out of bamboo. We were shown a few of these traps and how they worked, one of which included a grass covering that if someone stepped on it, the trapdoor would flip over and the enemy would fall into a pit of bamboo spikes and have a gruesome death! It was then designed on a clutch system to re-congfigur to go back to how it was for the next victim! There were even booby-traps in the tunnels in case the American soldiers found them but the Vietnamese would make markings in the tunnels on the wall as a sign to them that that was a trap and so to avoid it.
The whole place was a really interesting experience and we only saw the tip of the iceberg in terms of all the tunnels. The trip tomorrows to the Killing Fields in Cambodia which I expect will be even more harrowing.
