Saigon and the Cu-Chi Tunnels

So - Saigon

Certainly much cleaner and more forward thinking than Cambodia so far - the toilets are far nicer, if that is any way to judge a nation....

14,000 people are killed every year on motorbikes generally although this has fallen to only 10,000 apparently since the wearing of compulsory helmets.

There is also no minimum age for buying booze and fags. If you can speak, walk, and physically carry them, they are yours for a piffling amount of dong.

Today we went to the Cu-Chi tunnels, - a wiggly collection of tunnels in the dense jungle about 20k outside Saigon.

They were dug by hand, the resulting earth used to fill in craters left from the bombs from the B52's or to construct fake termite mounds which were used to disguise tunnel ventilation shafts; entire communities lived in them underground in them during the war.

The entrances were absolutely tiny - only 1ft x 1.5 ft across... only the Vietnamese and very very small westerners can get in. (Those small blokes in the US army who actually could get down them were known as “tunnel rats”)

They were really hard to see too; so much so that apparently an American encampment was built right on top of one network unbeknownst to them. You can see how small they are in comparison to western feet here!

Oh... firstly we watched a fascinating film about how the strong proud and excellent Viet Cong army defeated the "evil devil Americans" and all about how said EDA’s killed thousands of Vietnamese citizens, all of whom were innocently picnicking, thus forcing them to create these tunnels to fight back. Awards were given to Viet Cong soldiers according to how many Americans they killed. Interesting to hear the Viet side of the story.....

We also heard how the independence of Vietnam from France still leaves a bitter scar on the proud French nation.

You've got to hand it to these guys; they really don't take any shit.

Aaaaaaaaanyway ....They lived and slept in these tiny tunnels, some of which had been widened for us westerners. Went through some, and was very pleased I had my torch (thanks Mummy!) they were very twisty turny and up and downy... so you couldn’t shoot down and hit too many people obviously. The tunnels would often end underwater so that the tunnel dwellers could make their escape into the river if their tunnels were discovered.

Interestingly, when they needed to go to the "happy room" which is what they call the toilet here, if you needed to go for "big happy" this was done in a box and disposed of later, however "little happy" was collected as if you soaked material in it, the ammonia would help protect you from many of the chemicals dropped by the Americans if you then held it over your mouth and nose. So there you are.

We were shown some of the home made traps that the Viet cong created, also how they made rice paper for spring rolls, how they made sandals out of tyres, and how cooking (mostly tapioca root) was done in bunkers with chimneys that came out some 100's of yards away.

There was also an opportunity to fire AK47's but I value my hearing and thought I could probably live my whole life without firing a real one.