I always love the first day of a New Year… It’s a bit like a new exercise book – filled with the potential to be whatever we make of it. I’m pretty excited about ’13 – my favourite number and a big 0 birthday. I hope it brings health and happiness for you all 🙂
Today we headed to the Cu Chi Tunnels about an hour out if HCMC. During the American War, the people of Cu Chi dug a complex system of underground tunnels for shelter, and to provide a way of moving around the battle zone undetected.
There are over 250 km of tunnels in the area, all dug by hand. The entrance holes were about 30 x 40 cm, and the tunnels themselves would be about a metre wide and metre tall. Absolutely tiny, and in the dark would have been unbelievably claustrophobic. This guy is in one of the entrances… I don’t think anyone bigger than Alex would have fit! Good job that today they’ve made the entrances larger for the tourists to access the tunnels.
We crawled through about 10m of tunnels, and that was enough. How they spent days down their is beyond me!
The ingenuity of these people was amazing. There were multiple entrances and exits to ensure that the people were never trapped, and the tunnels twist and turn to limit the risk of gunfire or grenades being thrown deep inside. The camouflage is incredible – every few metres there are ventilation shafts which are disguised as termite mounds, and the soil that came from the tunnels was used to fill the craters left by bombs.
Smoke from cooking was dispersed through multiple vents covered in cotton and foliage so that only a small amount of smoke was visible at any point. Shoes were made from tyre rubber and designed to be worn both forwards and backwards so footprints appear to go in the opposite direction.
Throughout the tunnel site we could hear the sound of gunshots. Initially, I thought that maybe it was just sound effects, but then we came across an area where tourists could enter a firing range and use some of the weapons that had been used in the war. After what we’ve seen and heard in the past couple of days I can’t fathom why anyone would want to participate. It seemed insensitive and disrespectful to us, but many Chinese tourists were lining up to have a go… just plain bad taste.
This afternoon we sought an opportunity to get a 360 degree of HCMC at the Saigon Skytower. This is a new building on the HCMC skyline, designed to look like the bud of a lotus flower. From the 49th floor you get great views over this enormous city and beyond. It also has a helipad on the 52nd floor (that’s the circle sticking out the side)- Andrew and the girls were disappointed you couldn’t go out there… I felt sick at the thought of it!
All in all, not a bad way to kick off the New Year. Tomorrow we’re off to the Mekong Delta for a couple of days – should be a great way to finish the trip.
Love M & theBunch xx
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