Tunneling in Cu Chi

Like always, we are not staying in a location long enough. If you have been following our Instagram feed you would see the hash tag #whyarentwestayingherelonger an inordinate amount of times lately, and this definitely goes for Ho Chi Minh city as well. This city has your classic Vietnam craziness, an uber hip downtown, as well as a historical vibe from the Vietnam war. I could sit here and list all of the reasons why #whyarentwestayingherelonger was constantly in our minds when we visited this city, but I would rather tell you about a less broad and more interesting topic.

Like I said, Ho Chi Minh was more of a pit stop for our family, but that doesn’t mean we’re just going to lounge around and play Wii in our apartment; we wanted to squeeze as much out of this awesome city as possible. So we did 3 main activities when we weren’t eating great food: visited a Vietnam war museum, went to the Cu Chi tunnels, and paint-balled. You can probably guess which one I’m going to talk about judging by my title, so no more stalling, and let’s get to the good stuff.

We all made an effort to get up early to catch a boat to Cu Chi. The boat took about 1 hour to get there, which gave us just the right amount of time to find out that a bachelor party group was going to be somewhat obnoxious during the whole trip. We arrived at Cu Chi where our tour guide told us what the Cu Chi tunnels were all about.

The Cu Chi tunnels were used in the Vietnam war as a hideout/battlefield for the Viet Cong. The tunnels would make it ideal for gorilla warfare. Gorilla Warfare is a type of battling invented by the North Vietnamese and resistance fighters in the South.  The warfare involved  hiding in holes and popping out to shoot, stab or blow up somebody, or blending in with local farmers, making it hard to know who was a soldier or not.

We made our way out to a B5-2 bomb crater. The US military was frustrated with gorilla warfare and Operation Crimp kicked into gear. On January 7, 1966 the US military dropped 30 tons of explosives on Cu Chi attempting to destroy the tunnel system. They failed at their main objective but they sure did clear the region of Cu Chi of the color green.

Next we came to an actual tunnel entry point. A man demonstrated how to enter the tunnel, close the door and camouflage it. When I say “door” it’s more like a textbook size wooden block that only the ones who chow celery daily can fit into. The obnoxious bachelor party group all took their turns giggling and attempting to fit into the hole. Wescott and I took our turns, and as we closed the lid behind us we soon found that there was an aura of creep lurking under there and we popped back up right away.

Our guide led us to a station where someone demonstrated how the terrifying traps would kill you slowly and tear apart your flesh.

We finally came to a tunnel where we would go in. We stepped into the tunnel and as the tunnel got smaller and smaller, I adjusted my position to an uncomfortable, bent over stance.   Like a Hex bug, I occasionally bumped into the soft dirt wall in order to know where to turn. Finally after a minute of the hamstring straining walking, I was blinded by the light of day. Some who spent weeks in the tunnels would come out color blind.

We climbed out of the tunnel and headed over to the shooting range. It seemed slightly “jacked-up” to have a reenactment of the horrible blood bath of many soldiers with real guns that they used in the war, but we rolled with it. Wescott and dad shot AK47s while Yve, my mom, and I hung out while Tuck and Jones licked there drumstick ice creams.

After that we were done with our big tour and were ready to hit the road; or river in this case. My head was filled with new knowledge about the war and about how bachelor party groups should have their own tour group or just not come to these kind of things. We got on the boat and said good-bye to Cu Chi as it faded away in the pollution.

If you want to learn more about the Vietnam war check out Wescott’s enlightening movie timeline.