a life in words: down the cu chi tunnels

16th February 2012

Saigon,Vietnam

On the 15th February, I left the hillside station of Da Lat and made tracks for the sprawling metropolis of Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City as it's now known these days - although in my humble opinion the former name was far more evocative and expressive than the latter. Due to the altitude of Da Lat, the past few days had been a brief respite from the humidity and heat of the coast but as we gradually snaked back down the mountainside towards Saigon it felt in many ways like stepping back into the frying pan as the reintroduction to the congested and oppressive humidity was overwhelming. Travelling independently once again, I got chatting to some English girls by the names of Jess and Caroline on the bus and so when we reached the city center we all joined forces in the hunt for a cheap and hospitable guest house; hitting the jackpot when we came across the MyMy Arthouse which was tucked down a maze of back alleyways at the heart of backpacker-ville in an area of Saigon known as De Tham. 'The Diamond of the Far-east' is a city bursting with new-age vigor whose streets sing songs of energy and excitement meaning that there is always something to do here. From learning about the country's complex history is one of the many national museums, sampling local fresh beer at a street-side bia hoi and getting lost in the myriad of alleyways and sprawling boulevards that connect the city's 19 districts together there is much to keep you entertained in this fine city.

After getting our bearings with a brief stroll around the immediate neighborhood we stopped by a travel agency and booked a ticket to go and see the famous Cu Chi tunnels the following day. To give a brief - read very brief - bit of historical context in an attempt to aid understanding, the Cu Chi tunnels were a network of underground passages that the Viet Cong used in their resistance against the American troops during the Vietnam, or as they call it here, American War. In 1960 the National Liberation Front (whose guerrilla forces were known as the Viet Cong) with it's Communist ideology was set up in Southern Vietnam to oppose the regime of the prime minister turned self-appointed president of Saigon Ngo Dinh Diem who had slaughtered 50,000 people in an attempt to silence opposition to his rule. Diem was staunchly anti-communist and this gained him a great deal of support from the United States who entered Vietnam to stop the perceived future threat of Communist expansion that they saw in Ho Chi Minh's Hanoi and the emergence of this National Liberation Front that operated throughout the South. The 'Vietnam War' therefore was fought between the Communist North and the anti-Communist South who were supported by the Americans. Fighting partially stopped after the Americans sent in B52 bombers to cut the North's supply lines to the south which eventually resulted in peace discussions. With the fall of Saigon in 1975 to the Communist North the fighting stopped and these days it is possible to visit the famous Cu Chi tunnels which played an intrinsic part in a war whose outcome is so confusing it makes my brain hurt as you can probably tell from this disjointed explanation of events. In regards to the tunnels, under constant threat from American air attacks, the Viet Cong built 250km of tunnels which lie beneath the town of Cu Chi and its surrounding areas and this intricate underground network contained all the necessary amenities required to live with latrines, wells, meeting rooms and sleeping quarters all built to house the strong-willed Viet Cong troops. These Viet Cong soldiers would often live for weeks underground and the defence structures that they had in place made them a very difficult opposition to fight and try as they might, the Americans could not relieve these tunnels of their obstinate and highly aggressive inhabitants .

On the morning of the 16th therefore, along with the Da Lat girls, I set off on the road to Cu Chi to hopefully learn more about an area which played a key role during a very turbulent period in Vietnam's history. Upon arrival at Cu Chi, we left the air-conditioned bubble of our mini-bus and entered the stifling heat generated by a sun who had surged in grandeur over the past hour from it's dominant throne in the sky. Quickly heading to the cool confines of the complex we were shown a video which spent a lot of time berating the Americans and rejoiced in reeling off figures concerning how many 'evil' Americans had been 'eliminated' by the brave and noble Viet Cong soldiers. Albeit a rather biased account of the events which took place here, although the Americans had a lot to answer for in this war, the video did show some interesting black and white footage of Viet Cong soldiers in battle and building the tunnels in horrendous looking conditions. When the video had finished we headed off into a dry evergreen forest populated by clumps of bamboo thickets and tropical hardwoods while a carpet of fallen leaves crunched loudly underfoot. The thickets of bamboo gave way to a clearing and we all huddled round to observe a method the Viet Cong used as a means of surprising and attacking unsuspecting American GI's whilst fighting in the area. A local park officer, our very own Viet Cong soldier for the day, bent down and scraped away some of the dead leaves to reveal a small man hole cover. Removing the cover, making sure the leaves were kept on top, he then disappeared down the hole carefully placing the cover back over his head as he descended so that within five seconds there was no trace of the opening or the 6ft man who had just been standing there. A sneaky little maneuver and along with the hundreds of others of these small underground pockets, it must have been terrifying to fight an enemy who could appear and re-appear anywhere in the forest. The second part of the tour ran through some of the grizzly defence mechanisms used as part of the Viet Cong's resistance against the surging American forces and we were shown some of booby traps which were set up to seriously maim or kill American GI's who unwittingly walked into them. The first was the swinging door trap which swung on a central pivot revealing a sharp set of spikes below which would skewer any GI unfortunate enough to walk over it. A series of other evil-looking devices were shown including the see-saw, swing-up trap and full body impaling traps - see the photographs below. Moving on we stopped off to check out an immobilised tank before heading to the shooting range where it was possible to shoot live ammunition from a range of semi and fully automatic machine guns. The price for 10 bullets for the AK-47 was 350,000 dong (11 quid) and seeing a once in a lifetime opportunity before me, I decided to go for it having never fired a gun before, especially an AK-47! Approaching the shooting range I was handed some ear muffs which were extremely necessary as the noise from other guns like the M16 was absolutely deafening up close. All the guns had their barrels secured to a bar to prevent any psychos from going on a rampage and once the guard had loaded the AK-47 for me, I stepped up to the plate and got a huge rush from dispensing a few rounds into the targets at the far end of the range. Pulling the trigger resulted in a slight recoil which hugged my shoulder menacingly and gave me an alarming sense of satisfaction from the power which rested in my hands. What a lawless place, only in Camodia eh! The final part of the tour had us scurrying through a sample section of tunnel which had been widened to allow fat Western tourists to squeeze through, although not such a problem for my slight frame! Climbing down a steep set of stairs, the sun was blocked from entering the forbidding looking passages which meant that after a few turns the light at the entrance faded into obscurity behind me, leaving only darkness ahead. Traversing the initial section of the tunnel was pretty easy going as it was still big enough to crouch through however as it grew narrower and tighter it became necessary to scramble along on hands and knees until the end. With no air vents, the temperature was as stifling - if not worse due to the close confines - as the temperature under the raging sun above ground and I finally emerged, one hundred meters later, a sweating, gasping mess. To think that people lived for weeks and fought in conditions far worse than I experienced beggars belief and only goes to show how far the human body can be pushed in the face of extreme adversity. Along with the War Remnants Museum back in the city, my trip to the Cu Chi tunnels was a fascinating history lesson that has given me a much greater understanding of a war which captivated the world for twenty years.