War History -Cu Chi Tunnels

Hi Everyone, today we went to the cu chi tunnels, which is an open air museum showcasing the tunnels used by the Cu Chi gorilla fighters during the Vietnam war. Now, it should be said that war museums always have a "dark and depressing" atmosphere but this was crazy! As you walk around learning about the tunnel system and the underground life these people lead, you can here the machine guns, M16's, AK 47's and other various guns being fired at the shooting range near by. Get close enough and you can even smell all that gun powder. The presence of this weaponry made this place feel a little too real. It always surprises me how immune we are to what we see on TV but come to a place like this, and you feel assaulted with this reality.

As presented, the Cu chi area was mostly farmland inhabited by a peaceful people who enjoyed picking fruit and tending to the rubber trees. It was known as "The land of many gardens". The Americans came in to help the Saigon government, even though this government had almost fallen 12 times previously. The Americans also decided ( according to the documentary we saw) to ravage and kill these peaceful people. The Americans or the "crazy bunch of devils" fired into schools, houses at pots and pans, women/children and even at Buda statues! The Cu chi people were determined to fight back and became known as having a gun in one hand an a plow in the other.

They expanded upon the tunnel system that had begun during the French war. In the end, the tunnels were over 250km long and existed on three different layers. The cu chi fighters were really really hidden from the American troops and adapted traditional animal traps to thwart the enemy. We started our tour by seeing an opening to a tunnel.










The entrance is so small, I can't even fit! Well, you can see where I got stuck!







After this we continued on to see many of the traps used in the ground. All of the are slightly different but the basic idea is that the enemy falls into a pit activating a spiking device that kills him. Here are some examples:







These two images above show a bamboo trap that swings when stepped on, dropping the person down into a pit onto the spikes below. Here are some other spike devices used:












Next, we saw a demonstration of how the guerilla figures made shoes out of old tires that are stronger than any shoe produced today!








There was a section of tunnel that was open to tourists, it has been enlarged to allow for our bigger bodies and most of the tunnel system has been closed to tourists after fears arose that we may get stuck down there! Also, as most of the tunnels were only carved out of the dirt 95% of them have collapsed with time. Here is how little the enlarged one was:




The people who occupied these tunnels were intelligent! The cooking was done at night or in the early morning so that the smoke could not be seen. In the morning it would come up out of the tunnels and look like fog.They also had many hidden air holes that looked to be nothing more than termite hills.




We also heard about two "Hero American killers". One was a small girl who new she could go anywhere the enemy could, the other one was a man who had a knack for setting land mines and anticipating the movement of enemy soldiers. Please note, to me "hero" is misplaced here but I wanted to give you some of the authentic vocabulary/sayings used in the documentary presentation we saw today. Overall, this tour was really informative and we learned a lot even if the gunfire in the background was a bit hard on my senses!