Cu Chi Tunnels

Just outside of Saigon are the Cu Chi tunnels, a major hub of the Viet Cong's resistance against American forces. It was a very interesting place to visit. I learned a lot, and it was sobering to think of all the soldiers that fought and died among those very trees.

When we arrived, we were funneled into a movie theater and shown a very propagandized video explaining how the Americans came from so far away to bomb innocent villagepeople because they wanted the rich and fertile land around Cu Chi, a novel explanation for the Vietnam War.

We were then allowed to explore the grounds with our guide, who showed us (totally unrealistic) replicas of everyday wartime life of the Viet Cong soldiers...

As well as the endless variety of grousome booby traps laid in the ground to catch American soldiers.

At the end of the tour, we crawled through about 100 meters of the actual tunnels. Going down...

It kept getting smaller!

Walking while crouching is not the easiest thing in the world. My quads were burning and everyone was sweating. At one point we had to slide down an incline. People actually lived in this network of crawl spaces for weeks without once seeing daylight. And these have been enlarged multiple times to accommodate the fat foreigners! Difficult to imagine...