Cu Chi Tunnels

The last day that I was in Ho Chi Minh City, I took a half-day tour to the Cu Chi Tunnels. These are a series of tunnels that were used during the war as a place to live for some North Vietnamese troops. In the town of Cu Chi, the tunnels were built underground and consisted of 3 levels. They made the tunnels extremely small because they knew that most American's could not fit inside these tunnels but the smaller framed Vietnamese could. They lived in these tunnels for years throughout the war - they were able to cook, make weapons/traps to kill the Americans, and disguise breathing holes in what looked like aunt mounds. It was extremely interesting to learn how the North Vietnamese fought from living underground; if you have an appreciation for military strategy, then you would have been impressed with their methods as much as I was. Lots of people wonder why we could not shut down these tunnels - we were sitting duck most of the time and dropping a B-52 bomb on top of the tunnels didn't even scratch the surface of the first level within the tunnels. We did try to gas the tunnels but it didn't work so much being that they had 3 levels and could just escape down below, but the American's didn't know this. We were able to crawl through these tunnels to see what it was actually like ... very dark, very tiny ... I couldn't imagine living in these tunnels for years.

I also got to shoot 5 rounds of an AK-47! That was fantastic!!! I loved it - although, the sound was the loudest I have EVER heard any gun make. I am not quite sure why the guy even put the ear phones over my ears - they were still ringing like mad for a while after. I cannot imagine the hearing problems the soilders came back with ... to be around that type of noise on a constant basis.

This was the best adventure while I was in Vietnam - it truly was an eye-opening experience!