On the Way to the Cu Chi Tunnels

The Cu Chi tunnels are 25 miles (40 km) from Ho Chi Minh City. On the way to the tunnels, we got to see the area outside the mostly modern city (or at least what we saw of it). These rectangular houses are called tube houses, with the lots they are on narrow and long. We saw tube houses throughout Vietnam, but fancier ones than these farther north.

On the Way to the Cu Chi Tunnels

What can you carry on a motorscooter? It seems almost everything. The scooters are peoples’ cars and what they buy needs to be carried home.

On the Way to the Cu Chi Tunnels

The Vietnamese (and also the Cambodians) carry whole families on their motorscooters. But no matter how many young children and babies I saw carried on the scooters, seeing them left me with an uncomfortable feeling. There are many scooter accidents in both countries. Tho told us that the scooters have to carry a large black cloth so that if someone is killed in a scooter accident they can be covered up.

On the Way to the Cu Chi Tunnels

The number of motorscooters on the road in Vietnam is phenomenal.  However, traffic moves quickly and we didn’t run into any traffic jams as we would have if most of the scooters were instead cars. In fact, often the scooter traffic was faster–moving than was our bus.

On the Way to the Cu Chi Tunnels

Many vendors were selling yellow chrysanthemums for the Lunar New Year. Yellow is for gold and signifies wealth.

I have put my photos of our drive to and also our drive back from the Cu Chi tunnels on a slide show. Go to Slide Shows, Asia, Vietnam, “Neaarby Ho Chi Minh City: Going to the Cu Chi Tunnels, Tour Day 4(C)” or directly to

http://www.peggysphotos.com/nearby–ho–chi–minh–city–going–to–the–cu–chi–tunnels–tour–day–4c/

Cu Chi Tunnels

The Cu Chi tunnel complex is not a happy place to visit, but one I wanted to go to because I was curious about the tunnels as I had read much about them. It is a war memorial to the Viet Cong, our enemy during the Vietnam War (called in Vietnam “The American War”). The Viet Cong were South Vietnam guerrillas and some also fought with the People’s Army of North Vietnam.

This was an optional tour that you had to pay extra to go on. This photo is of an underground conference room. Here, we were shown an anti–American Vietnam War propaganda movie, which I found offensive, but we are in Vietnam, so, as one of my tourmates said, we should expect to hear the Vietnam side and interpretation of the war and we did.

Tho, our tour guide, is from North Vietnam (from Hanoi) but now living in the south in Ho Chi Minh City. His father fought in the North Vietnam army during the war and was injured. His father is also a Communist. Tho isn’t. So we also heard the North Vietnamese side of the war from Tho, but this was interesting from a curiosity viewpoint and we were gracious enough just to listen and not to argue.

To recap the Vietnam War: Vietnam was split into North Vietnam and South Vietnam in 1954 after the Communists under Ho Chi Minh defeated the French colonists. It was Ho Chi Minh’s dream of an united Vietnam under Communist rule. From 1955 to 1975, a war against South Vietnam ensued, supported with help from Russia and China, America’s enemies at that time. The United States started becoming involved in the war in the early 1960s,  as we didn’t want South Vietnam or other Southeast Asia countries becoming Communist, first sending American advisors and then in 1965 sending combat troops.  Over 9,000,000 U.S. servicemen served in Vietnam during the war, with over 500,000 there in 1967. Over 58,000 of our soldiers were killed. The total killed for the Vietnamese is estimated to be from 4 to 5 million. Our troops left in 1975 and North Vietnam overtook South Vietnam and Vietnam was united under Communist rule, which it remains today.

Cu Chi Tunnels

In the underground conference room, there was a lighted display of the tunnels. The Cu Chi tunnel system was extensive and also part of tunnel systems in other parts of Vietnam. The Viet Cong used the tunnels as hiding places, communication and supply routes, hospitals, food and weapon storage, and living quarters. Babies were born in the tunnels and people also died in the tunnels.

The Viet Cong figured out how to allow air into the tunnels and also how to dissipate the smoke from cooking underground. But there was little food, there were all kinds of bugs, some poisonous, in the tunnels, and many of the Viet Cong came down with malaria.

The tunnels were instrumental in the United States’ inability to defeat the Viet Cong. It gave them hiding places and also places from which to attack American bases.

Cu Chi Tunnels

The opening of one of the tunnels that tourists can go into. Some tunnels have been widened to allow Westerners to fit into them.

Cu Chi Tunnels

One of the booby traps set to ensnare American and South Vietnam soldiers.

I have put my photos of the Cu Chi tunnel complex on a slide show. Go to Slide Shows, Asia, Vietnam, “Nearby Ho Chin Minh City: Cu Chi Tunnels, Tour Day 4(D)” or directly to

http://www.peggysphotos.com/nearby–ho–chi–minh–city–cu–chi–tunnels–tour–day–4d/

Tho said that Agent Orange wasn’t used in the Cu Chi area, but one thing that both the North Vietnamese and  Americans soldiers have in common today is the lingering effects of the pesticide used to defoliate the Vietnam forests.