You've probably seen them in any number of Vietnam movies (We Were Soldiers, Forrest Gump, Casualty of War to name a few). The tunnels were a famous part of the Vietnam War and worth seeing.
It is a major attraction for tourism and about 2 hours north of the city. I would say the top 4 tours that are promoted are the city tour, Mekong Delta, Cu Chi tunnels and trips to the beaches. Perhaps even a temple or two. I booked it through the hotel, since I could not decide between the many tour operator options available on the web. We meet Diet, our guide promptly at 8:00 in the lobby and we walked out the front door to a waiting black Mercedes. Very stylish with lots of room, it was different from the go cart we took down to the Mekong the day before that topped out at 30 mph. This had power and the driver was the private driver of the hotel GM. He looked the part with his formal attire and blue tooth secret service earpiece look. He was on the phone a lot and his ring tone was a rooster which I might have to download my treo when I get back. Every time the phone rang it brought a chuckle from the back seat.
Diet's English was very good; better than 10 or Mr Teng and she had a pretty good sense of humor. We asked lots of questions about the war and the people and it was nice getting her perspective as she detailed her view on the many differences between north and south. In all tours the drivers never talk. They just drive and all communication goes through the tour guide. You never really know how much English they know until they pipe in with a question.
The tunnel complex is a sprawling affair that already had a number of tour buses parked out front that had offloaded the usual diet of Aussies, Koreans and Chinese. Again, not as many Americans. I am sure the 20 hour plane ride is hard to compete with the 5-8 hours the other countries enjoy. You pay at one end and walk through a large underground walkway to the other end, passing by a number of armed guards along the way. They smiled and I smiled. Always be nice to dudes with guns. They have a great link for the tunnels if you want more detail on the history and the official line.
Walking down the paths with Diet, the first pop quiz you get to play is "find the tunnel entrance". Of course this was next to impossible even when you are given the clue that you are within 3 feet of it. The rectangular hole you drop into is very small, about the size of a Byerly's bag. If I hadn't seen what they looked like from pictures I would never known what to look for. One of the guards lifted up the cover and jumped in to his waist demonstrating to the group of 20 or so, how it was done. Anyone else want to try it he says? Recognizing the photo op for what it was I quickly volunteered. I went in feet first after peering down (to make sure it was not a 20 foot drop that required a ripcord) and worked my way down. Oops, not so fast. I made it to my hips and bam, was stopped at the waist like a 10 pound sausage in a 5 pound skin. With a diet of Tiger beer and pasta, this kids was going no further. Shoot the picture quick and pass the butter for my hips to slide out of here.
We were told that they had shortage of weapons and conventional combat supplies. To compensate for this, they devised cheaper alternatives with materials that were readily available. We were then introduced to the traps. There were deadfall style traps and about 10 others all designed to do one thing: kill enemy soldiers. This little shop of horrors we were introduced to, were all ways conceivable to step or fall into sharpened poison tipped jaws of death. Know what the poison was? Feces.
After seeing how that was accomplished, we hit the entrance of a tunnel. There are various levels of depth with these tunnels: 10 feet, 30 feet and deeper yet. They expanded a sample tourist tunnel to accommodate Western body types and you were able to follow a guide for about 30 feet at the 9 foot level. This was not a Hogan's Heroes complex with lots of space to move around. This was something so small it was hard to picture what the production model would look like day to day. The best way to move forward is to assume a Joe Mauer crouch and shuffle forward. I zipped through pretty well. Brian had a bum knee and was bit too tall and had about as much fun as he could stand at the 9 foot mark. We made it to check point Charlie where a hard left turn took you to the surface by way of stairs. Do you want to continue our guide asked me? Sure. The tunnel size shrunk to 2/3 of the original size to the real war dimensions, what a great way to get a feel for what it was like. My guide had pen light he was using and I shuffled behind him as we descended down to the second level. At first it was like being at Universal Studios and you were doing some Indiana Jones thing. Lots of fun and adventure. Then we went deeper. Then deeper yet. My knees were fine but it sure felt stuffy down here. Shuffling another 30 feet, stuffy gave way to hot. Then really hot. The air got thin and the temperature soured and it felt like I was a clay pot sitting in a kiln. This went on for a while until we made our way back up to an underground small room with a small desk. Great, I made it and headed for the stairs. I felt hot and looking down at my shirt I looked like I had been lactating. Covered in sweat, I became more drenched by the minute. I looked like someone threw me into Ottertail Lake and wondered if they were going to let me climb back into the Mercedes like this.
It was a great tour and gave profound insights to the war on a tactical level on how the war was fought. More on that later.
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