Cu Chi Tunnels

Imagine going down a few steps into a tunnel that slopes downward into the earth, and gets smaller and smaller. A guide is ahead of you, but his flashlight doesn't light your way as much as his. It's getting warmer and warmer, you must crouch down more and more as the tunnel narrows. You hear the guide's voice outside asking if you want to continue to a deeper tunnel, and pretty much all you want to do is see daylight. Now imagine that it's 1968 and you're chasing an enemy who might have booby trapped these tunnels and you realize that the tunnels are built for someone much small than yourself. Combine the heat and cramped quarters with the fear of combat. No thanks!

This was one highlight of the Cu Chi tunnel tour -- lots of others, including watching how they divert kitchen stove smoke far away from the kitchen, or seeing how they use an underground river entrance as one way to get into/out of the tunnels without being detected! Wow!

Unlike the tour of the Delta, which involved a two-hour trip down a road that was fully built up the entire way down (with large apartment buildings and gated communities going up along the way), the area around Cu Chi was far more 'rural' (even if it was closer to Saigon). More rice paddies visible and more small villages, although very few thatched huts that the Vietnam war movies and other coverage of the war have made famous. More like brick and clay houses. Lots of water buffalo and cows crazing about. And passed several people with the dried rice beside the road, threshing it for the rice itself.

One of my biggest takeaways from this visit to Vietnam is how the country is growing so fast. Major bridges being built over the Mekong river, connecting a large region to the south with Saigon and environs, without the need to take a ferry boat. Large construction projects all over Saigon itself and its suburbs. A strong sense that the country is attracting busines investment. This country is not the country it was 30 years ago, and will change a lot more in the next ten years. Glad to see it as it is today!