Cu Chi Tunnels

We booked a trip to the Chu Chi tunnels through our hostel as they were the cheapest and all of the tours seemed to be essentially the same. Strangely none of the tours actually include the price of admission, only a tour guide and the bus ride. What I knew before going was that the Cu Chi tunnels were used during the Vietnam War by the Viet Cong(VC) to secretly get around and attack the American and South Vietnam forces.

I imagined that the tunnels would be a memorial to all of the lives that were lost and there would be some recreated tunnels that were made for tourists to crawl through to see what it was like being in the tunnels.

Instead we were first shown a video that was made in the 1970's and shows the "American Devil" invading Vietnam and killing both women and children. The video then begins to celebrate various VC that killed American's depicting the ways the VC did it and how many Americans they each killed.

Like the museum yesterday, the video did not mention anything about there being a South Vietnamese Army. There were several times I felt like walking out on the video or shouting at the video that was playing. Everything that was being presented was so illogical and factually inaccurate.

After the video we were shown some actual tunnels and were given a chance to crawl through some tunnels, only a couple of people wanted to squeeze into these holes and I was one of them.

We were then shown the various deadly traps that the VC used to maim and kill American's. Many of them were highly gruesome and I overheard someone on the tour say "This almost makes me feel sorry for the American's".

Next we were taken to a shooting range where for an extra fee you could fire several different kinds of guns, I opted not to partake in that and instead ate a cob of corn while sitting far too close to the guns that were going off.

We were then taken to some tourist sized tunnels that everyone could go down inside of and wander around.

I would like to note that I don't normally like to have smiley pictures taken at places that people have died but as this was presented more as a theme park than a memorial I deemed it acceptable. Despite my cheery pictures I found today to be very emotional.

On the bus ride back to HCMC the tour guide was asked what he and his family did during the war and he said that his father fought with the Southern Vietnamese army against the VC and a lot of people were confused. People on our bus didn't understand that the North and South of Vietnam were fighting against each other. Apparently anyone who's family fought for the South cannot have family members serve in the police force, I would imagine there are other restrictions as well, for three generations.

I was glad to hear that despite all of the anti American propaganda that the tour guide said that most Vietnamese people like Americans as they do not hold what happened during the war against the American people.

I have found that when I tell Vietnamese people that I come from America they have all been really excited and love to talk to me about America and anyone they know who has been there or family members that live there.

Check out the rest of my pictures from today in the slideshow below: