We booked a van and a guide to take us to the village of Củ Chi, to visit the famous tunnel system used by the Viet Cong villagers during the war. The visit started with an interesting 1970s propaganda video. I thought that the narrator might have been the same woman who used to broadcast enemy messages at the American troops during the war. She spoke very fluent English and had a pleasant voice while delivering messages of death and misery.
Our guide showed us the map of a tunnel system that we would visit, which comprised a headquarters area that included a war room, rudimentary medical facility, cooking area, and sleeping quarters. First, we visited a simple tunnel and saw how well camouflaged it was. We were able to try to enter and crawl underground.
The tunnels are claustrophobic and I was amazed that the villagers essentially lived underground for years, sustaining themselves on tapioca roots. Five minutes were my limit before my heart rate began to increase. One tunnel had a slide to enter a lower chamber, and it turns out that slides are not especially enjoyable when confined and dark.
We also viewed how the villagers used sharpened bamboo and pieces of US bomb casings to fashion various gruesome traps throughout the jungle. Sometimes snakes and tigers were added along with spikes to the larger traps, which was creatively macabre. The traps reminded me of a mural of the Chinese version of Dante's inferno that used to adorn the Tiger Balm Gardens in Hong Kong.
Our guide, Cuong, lost his mother and two aunts from bombings and his arms are scarred from napalm. All throughout Vietnam, you can see the terrible cost of war through people with missing limbs or scars. Even over forty years later, land mines are still exploding in fields. In Hong Kong several explosives are located each year. The effects of war last generations beyond the cease fire.
SB disappearing into the tunnel
A ventilation shaft
A ventilation shaft
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