Asia Honeymoon (7) - Cu Chi Tunnels

22 March

We meet our guide, Chong and the one other person on this portion of the trip, an older Australian woman named Susan.

The tunnels are very interesting. We start the tour with an old VC propaganda film, which is such a bad piece of propaganda it is funny. Our guide warns us about it. The tunnels are a small section of a vast tunnel system near Saigon. In 1965, the Americans actually built their first military base over the tunnel complex and did not discover it until a few months later.

I can only make it through the first 100 meters before claustrophobia sets in. The tunnels were not made for 6 foot, 200 pound westerners. Although not over commercialized, the place is set for tourists. The tunnels were restored and opened when the government realized western, especially American, tourists would fly to Vietnam and pay to see them. You can buy various knickknacks and take your picture in an "authentic" communist underground meeting room. I have the wife take a picture of me beside the VC flag and a picture of Uncle Ho. hopefully this picture never gets out or my political career will be over, just like John Kerry. I'm kidding, but more on Kerry in a bit.

The best part of the tunnels for me is the examples of VC traps. They are very ingenious and very nasty. It is not the kind of thing I would want to face in battle.

Overall, the tour is very good. Not really polished, but I am not here for polish, a la Disneyland. I thought it would be very political, filled with communist BS, but it is not. As I said, the only propaganda was the initial film, which is so obviously propaganda as to be funny, and probably very interesting to those who study that sort of thing, or perhaps marketing executives.

If you vists Saigon, you must see the Cu Chi Tunnels.