This weekend we took a half day trip with a couple of our friends about an hour outside of Saigon to a town called Cu Chi. The town itself is nothing too special but the draw here is access to a huge network of tunnels built by Northern fighters and town people during the Vietnam War. At the height of the tunnel system, it stretched from Saigon all the way to the Cambodian border. Around Cu Chi where we went, there are about 250 km worth of tunnels.
Being that this is Vietnam there was a good mix of history, propaganda, and a general lack of rules. It was very interesting to walk around this area that has been called ",,the most bombed, shelled, gassed, defoliated and generally devastated area in the history of warfare." At one point in time there was a gentleman showing us how some booby trap systems worked. As some of our group continued on he pulled us aside to show us a framed photograph on the wall. The photo was of a young guy coming out of the tunnels with an AK-47. He then preceded to tell us that the young guy in the photo was acutally him as an 18 year old soldier. It was a pretty crazy story, to say the least.
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| No rules here. Climbing all over historical artifacts is no problem. Here is our group on a destroyed US tank. |
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| Adam going down into the tunnels. It was a very dark, hot and cramped 100 yards crawl. Crazy to think people lived in these tunnels |
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| Heidi heeding the advice of a soldier trapped in a booby trap and getting out as fast as she can (yes, that is sweat under her arms!) |
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| Our friend Graham trying to fit into an original tunnel entrance |
Beyond history and education, we also had a good time hanging out with our friends. It was nice to get out of the city for half a day and see some country side, green space, and open roads.
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