On the Sunday we decided to book a tour to the Cu Chi Tunnels. The network of tunnels were used by the Vietcong (communist army) during the war and it was a result of these tunnels that they were able to defeat the Americans. Our tour guide was a war vet and he was very militant in his approach to us. He didn't mind yelling at people in the group if they weren't obeying his instructions to a 'T'. We arrived at the tunnels and it was very busy; we didn't have to fear losing our guide though because he would just bark out instructions at us like 'Follow me', 'stop', 'look', 'move on' and when we got to features he wanted to show us he would shoo the other tour groups away and make sure we got a chance to look. It became very funny, especially when a French backpacker started imitating him.
On the bus to Cu Chi Tunnels
The tunnels were very interesting, they dug a huge network of tunnels and underground cabins so that they could live and fight undetected by they opposition. The American Army actually set up a base on top of a network of tunnels and it took a long time to work out why they kept getting shot at in their own camp. The entrances to the tunnels were tiny and well camouflaged. They even had fake or decoy tunnels to trick and trap the opposition. We got to go through a bit of the tunnles, they were very small (and had, in fact, been made bigger to accomodate all the tourists).
Brad demonstrating how small some of the tunnel entrances were
Another tunnel entrance
Brad and I in the tunnels
Another interesting (and scary) thing was the inventiveness of the traps that they used. They dug holes in the ground and had an array of spikes in the holes that would trap and often times kill the person who was unfortunate enough to fall into the trap. The spikes were arranged in such a way that once you fell down there was no way you could get out without causing severe damage to yourself.
They had a shooting range there and you could choose from a range of firearms. We were able to fire an AK47, I don't think anyone actually hit the target but the noise was unbelievable, I didn't realise that a war zone would be so immensely loud.
We also got to eat tapioca which was the staple diet of the Vietcong army and we drank some tea.
Eating tapioca
After the bus trip back to Ho Chi Minh City we went for lunch in the backpackers district and then went to relax by the pool.
We were very impressed with the backpackers district and decided we'd go back there for dinner and this time we were determined to have Vietnamese food. We found a restaurant called 'Pho 24' and we had a really good bowl of noodles. Walking home that evening we stumbled upon an open-air concert and watched that for a while. There was a stage and lots of chairs set out and once the chairs were full, people would just pull up on their motorbikes and sit and watch the concert. All in all it was an enjoyable day.
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