Cu Chi Tunnels, November 2006

 

The only place that was difficult to see in Vietnam was the Cu Chi Underground Tunnels. From the old propaganda video that greets you with phrases like, "American Devils," to images of school girls shooting at US soldiers followed by phrases like "everyone's a soldier everyone's a hero," you begin to feel just the tiniest bit unwelcome in a country that is largely kind and generous. Some of the things I saw here were hard to look at, but only because I can imagine what that must have been like for those involved in the conflict. The Vietnamese generally do not harbor any bad feelings toward us and it is important to remember that these come from a historical context.



The Cu Chi Underground Tunnels are a network of over 200km of tunnels used by the Viet Cong guerrilla fighters to navigate around and surprise US troops during the war. This map shows the network of tunnels. The black lines are the tunnels. The redish pink shows the Viet Cong forces. The blue areas are US bases. The yellow shows the local people and the pink areas are guerrilla forces. Many of the tunnels were built before the war, and many US bases lay right on top of pre-existing tunnels. So, the US forces were constantly surrounded.
This is a model of what the tunnels look like underground. The tunnels were often deep reaching four levels down. They said that bombs could reach far enough down to destroy the first two levels but not the 3rd and 4th. The first and second levels often contained bamboo traps.
This marker shows a place where a B52 bomb left a large crater. It's hard to tell from this picture but the center of that hole was probably 5-6 feet below the land around it.
Here was one of the many entrances to the tunnels. Long, our tour guide, told us that some extend all the way to Cambodia.

Here is a tour guide demonstrationg how one could fit in there and close it up.
Here he is inside the tunnel. The mouth of the tunnel was very narrow, only about a foot wide (30 cm).
They asked if any of us would like to try.
Everyone in my group wanted me to go, but I wasn't sure if my hips and shoulders would make it, and I really didn't want to make a fool of myself in front of a gawking group of strangers, so I let this lady from a different tour group go in my stead. ^^

She made it, though it did not look easy or comfortable.
When you put leaves over it it becomes almost invisible.
Here was just one of many traps they would show us that day. This trap would be built into the jungle floor and covered with leaves.
When someone steps on it they fall on a bunch of barbed spikes and are impaled.

Here was another small entrance to a tunnel. Small holes for tunnels were all over the place in this area.
There were many young trees here because all the old growth trees were destroyed with bombs or napalm. It was nice to see the jungle recovering.
Here is an entrance to a tunnel with stairs.
A round hole. This may have been an entrance to another tunnel, or they might have said it was for ventilation or something -- I honestly can't remember now.

They had a few displays of guerrilla mannequins to show what they would have worn, how they worked, and how they played. This is a lady sitting in a hammock during what our tour guide called "happy hour" when the guerrillas would come out at night, play music and drink in celebration.
Here were some guys taking a break. They had music playing there too in order to put it in context, so it was a little eerie.
There were some small holes beneath this oddly shaped tree. I think they said they were to help the air circulation in the tunnels.
Here is a tank that was destroyed by a landmine in 1970.

Another view of the same tank. The white writing just documents how old it was and how it was destroyed.
Here is a trench dug during the war.
The self made weapons gallery showcased the many traps that were set for US troops. This part was a little hard to look at.
This is the sticking trap.

The clipping armpit trap looked really painful.
Many traps like the rolling trap reminded me of medieval torture devices.
A window trap.
The folding chair trap looked really terrible as a guide demonstrated how it works.

The see-saw trap looked hard to get out of once you fell in.
They also had all kinds of painful looking, home made, portable traps that could fold up and fit in a small back pack.
Our tour guide, Long shows us how one of the traps could be folded.
Here was a bunker where they had some mannequins demonstrating how they could recycle weapons and bombs they found.

A couple more on the other side work on other weapons.
The leaves that cover this bunker are a special kind of leaf found in the jungle that apparnetly does not burn. Many of the ones closer to the bottom showed places where people tried to burn them. Which seemed like a bad idea to me, because what if they were wrong? I wouldn't want to be the stupid tourist that burns down their jungle again <_<;
There was a little stand where they were making rice wine and rice paper, which is a very thin kind of rice based wrapping they use in their food. Here were some rice cakes left out to dry in the sun.
Here was the place they were making the rice paper.

A pair of sandals made from recycled tires. This what the Viet Cong would have worn. It made more sense to wear sandals in a wet tropical place.
Here was an entrance to a tunnel that they let the tourists crawl through. They said it was actually widened and enlarged for western tourists! It was very dark and small inside. I had to walk on my hands and knees at times because I could not stay crouched down comfortably for long! They had small electric candles set in the walls giving the tunnel an orange glow. But even with those it was very dark and there were times when you couldn't see anything.
Here I am coming out of the tunnel through an exit down the way. I only went to the first exit, I could have crawled along longer, but that was enough for me (the people in front of me were going really slow and I was getting hot down there).
Here was a really neat tree with curled branches. They had a firing range here, so you could hear all these automatic weapons going off. It really made you feel like you were in the middle of something still. <_<;

Here was what a kitchen area would have looked like.
A tour guide explains how the chimneys worked. The chimneys were often small holes in the ground. The leaves over top of them made it so that the smoke mainly stayed on the jungle floor.
The smoke didn't rise, so it made it hard for anyone to find them from a distance or from the air.
This was a health bunker.

They had some small beds inside, it didn't look like a place I'd want to end up in.
Barbara and our tour guide Long pose with some guerrilla mannequins.
A small display of US bomb shells that were dug up around the area.