National Day, Sept. 2, is the date the Vietnamese mark their independence from the French in 1945. I decided this would be a good time for a day-trip out to Cu Chi Tunnels, the network of underground bunkers and bases that virtually allowed the VC to launch the Tet Offensive, a big turning-point in the American War.
Cu Chi District lies about 60 km north-west of Saigon city-proper, though Cu Chi itself is still considered a "district" of Ho Chi Minh province. I bought a day ticket to Cu Chi and Tay Dinh for about $7 round-trip, and found myself in a Dodge Sprinter with four others, initially relieved I didn't have to take a giant bus. Relived, that is, until we started driving, and I realized our driver was a holy terror on wheels. Once out of the city he opened up the Sprinter like it was Monte Carlo for Light Commercial Vehicles, harassing every one who dared to set foot on the road, occasionally yielding to buses. Seriously, this guy was a menace. Imagine a lovely, lush, peaceful Vietnamese countryside, perhaps some birds chirping in the distance, animals grazing lazily, a light breeze swaying in the trees. Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, the angry roar of an overworked engine approaches, horn going beeeeeep beepbeepbeep beeeeeeeeeeeep, bulldozing through the countryside, leaving everyone to wonder what just happened.
But enough of the Terror of LacHung Tours.
The Cu Chi Tunnel site itself was a very interesting place. We spent about 2 hours or so getting an education on the various tactics used by the guerrillas during the French and American wars. The tunnel system is absolutely amazing, considering they were built almost entirely by hand, featured entrances that were underwater, and formed a network so extensive that it once reached Saigon city-center itself. A schematic from the Tunnel site gives you some idea of what parts of the system looked like:
A more extensive map of the tunnel system is harder to find online, so this will have to suffice.
We started above-ground. The tunnels were extremely important in positioning the VC for ambush and full-scale invasions, a threat to which the Americans responded by bombing the f*ck out of it (as is our custom). The area was carpet-bombed and defoliated for several years, trying to oust the guerrillas. But for every weapon the Americans implemented, the guerrillas seemed to have developed an equally clever deterrent.
Above is our guide, Lionel Richie. He preferred to be called this, for reasons known only to him. He is explaining here how the guerrillas used termites to create decoy tunnel air-holes. American soldiers would try to locate the tunnel air-holes to find entrances and also to attack the guerrillas' air supply; using termites to create holes in wooded mounds around the area helped the guerrillas detract attention, so Americans would end up gassing a bunch of bugs.
They would also go out scavenging for unexploded artillery, and subsequently dismantle the bombshells, extract the gunpowder, and make their own booby-traps and explosives. They also made networks of false tunnels with dead end and hazardously narrow passages. When the American "Tunnel Rats" tried to bust in, they would often get trapped in the tiny passageways, or blown up. It goes on-- The Americans brought in dogs to sniff out the tunnels, the guerrillas started wearing the uniforms of American soldiers they had killed. They also melted shrapnel and metal down to make some gnarly-ass spike traps:
This is what you stepped in.
This is what you got stuck with.
Then it was into the tunnels themselves.
The 1st and 2nd level of the Tunnels are the only levels open, as the third levels are so heavily booby-trapped and laced with explosives that it's not considered safe for tourists (Whew!). The Tunnels were built to accommodate the slight frame of a Vietnamese person, so even a svelte Westerner has to squeeze in. To wit:
The descent--level one
Level two.
You basically have to crab-walk through the tunnels, or hit all fours. The tunnels at this particular site were left in their original state, while tunnels elsewhere in the network have been made wider and taller for the western tourists. I preferred the real-deal, but only went about 40-50m into the tunnel passage open for tourists (about 150m altogether).
That was good enough for me.
There's obviously a good bit of history here. A visit to Cu Chi provides some real insight into how the world's biggest and most well-funded army could have been taken down by an army of deeply committed and equally ruthless nationals.
But of course, as with all sides of history, there comes a healthy dose of propaganda. We may think that the socialists are the propaganda kings, but that isn't necessarily true. Everyone tells history from their point of view, that's why it's such a contentious issue, and one that doesn't emerge for years after the fact. To be an American, a young American, observing the history of the American War from the Vietnamese perspective must be something like being a modern Briton learning about the American Revolution from the Freedom Trail in Boston. The narrative is one-sided.
What doesn't change, no matter which side is saying what, is that war is hell.
So I watched the video at the end of the tour that venerated the fighters at Cu Chi as "American Killer Heroes," and then went and shot a war-era Carbine rifle.
And with requisite hipster aplomb, made the image my Facebook profile photo.
I teetered at the prospect initially, I will admit. I had never shot a gun before, and was wondering if I should break that streak and also spend a bunch of money doing it-- the shooting was free. But the bullets were what cost ya. They charged about $10 for 10 bullets, about $25 for 10 bullets if you wanted to fire a machine gun (those bullets, undoubtedly, went much quicker). The people that were part of my tour were all young British teachers, who jumped at the chance to do it--one of them said to me, "We don't get to do this at all in Britain, I imagine in America you can do it all the time." Which may true, to a point-- we can own and shoot guns whenever we like, but we can't go around firing off AK-47's willy-nilly. That doesn't stop people from doing it, but they're what I like to call the "crazy people with guns." They're exceptional in the fact that they are completely insane.
In my case though, my nationalism eventually got the best of me. I mean, what kind of American would I be if I didn't shoot a gun? And pay a lot of money for bullets while I was at it?
Consumerism and Militarism, together for the first time!
Eh well. It was fun. Fun, and scary. The size bullets I was putting into the rifle would rip a man apart, and here I was firing them blindly into a sand hill, giggling a little each time as the shells popped out of the register/clip/whatever you call the place where the bullets go.
Strangely, after the Cu Chi Tunnel visit, we went to the Cao Dai "Temple of the Holy See" at Tay Ninh, which provided a somewhat bewildering contrast to a morning spent squatting in tunnels and learning about homemade weaponry set to the backdrop of gunfire. The pictures from the temple I'll post a little later, so stay tuned.
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