One of the days in Saigon we took a trip to the Cu Chi tunnel complex which is roughly 25km from the city. Although I'd read about these tunnels and seen documentaries on them, I hadn't realised that they were so close to such an important Southern City (i.e. their capital!) No wonder the Americans expended so much effort (unsuccessfully) to try to find and eliminate them with carpet bombing and offensives involving 30,000 troops and specialist Australian engineers dubbed "Tunnel Rats". In addition to the tunnel systems dug to hide the VC soldiers there were a myriad of nasty traps designed, mostly, to maim rather than kill, thereby inflicting a huge burden on the attacking force. Pictured above is one such trap, just a simple swing trap with sharpened bamboo spike at the bottom, falling into one of these doesn't bear thinking about and BTW the spikes were smeared with excrement just to ensure wounds became infected.
We entered the tunnels themselves, a brief 10 minute scramble through a very tiny section, it was difficult to take pictures, in fact it was difficult to breath properly but I managed to snap a couple (see example below)
It doesn't look like much but now imagine, trying to run while doubled over in the pitch black, 45 degrees Centigrade and humid as hell with thin air and B52 bombers raging above, not my idea of fun, it's hard not to have a deep respect for the people that endured these conditions.
One of the tourist things you can do at the tunnel complex is to fire (on a firing range) either an AK47 or an M16 rifle/machine gun, for the princely sum of £10 you get one clip of ammo and away you go. I couldn't resist. Now I've shot many times before but only shot guns, I'd had no experience of automatic weapons, it was interesting to say the least (and very loud!) I have no pictures of the experience as it was a boiling hot day and the rest of my team made a b-line for the ice cream shop rather than hang around waiting for me, can't blame them I suppose, anyway it'll be a lasting memory for me!
More Saigon sights in part III
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