Cu Chi Tunnels

On Wednesday Nick and I headed to the Cu Chi tunnels about 75km outside of Saigon. These were the staging grounds for the Viet Cong on their attacks on Saigon, and the place where they gathered after travelling down from the North through the mountain region.

They say there are about 220km worth of tunnels varying in depth from the surface to about 10-15m deep. They developed intricate methods to disperse smoke and intricate ways to hide the massive amounts of dirt they were accumulating. They wore shoes made from car/truck tyres, and ate little more than a limited supply of rice and tapioca. They carried little more than a water bottle, torch, gun and rice. Unlike there well equipped American enemy.

Its been quite interesting seeing the “other side” of the Vietnam war with the vast majority of the documentation stating how bad the americans were. In fact the “war remnants” museum we visited used to be called the Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes.

So anyway, history lesson over, the Cu Chi tunnels are surrounded by a load of Rubber plantations:

In Vietnamese culture, the Men aren’t supposed to cook, so the “sections” of troops making up a team of Viet Cong typically had a woman in the group to cook and tend to injuries. Seen here is a mock up of a woman: (haha)

The VC were proud of their exploits, and here is a destroyed tank that they managed to get:

The holes that they used to enter and exit their tunnels were always very small, and they were typically made of timber in order to help keep out water when it rained. Plus they found that when wet it expanded and sealed it even better.

When entering the hole they ensured that all tracks were erased and then put an appropriate amount of debris on the lid and closed it up. Before you know it, it’s disappeared in the ethos of the jungle.

Besides guarding each hole vigilantly, they also set numerous traps in each of the tunnels and the jungle, for the GI’s.

This one below was something I found really interesting/clever. Just by fixing some pipes in the wall of this hole, and tying the ropes to the end of the spikes, you get a perfect side spike action. Simple yet effective.

This one is good to spike your entire body as you fell into it. Hrmmm Painful.

The one below on the right, was used to get you when you entered a doorway, and just when you thought the average GI could fend it away by grapping it at the top, you’d discover the bottom half is jointed to pivot up into your crouch when you stop the top half.

They were adept at using the unexploded ordinance too using them to design there own explosives.

Then we headed to the shooting range, where we had a choice of weapons to fire ranging from an M60 to an AK-47.

The price you paid was per bullet, with a minimum of 10 bullets purchased. So it was about $20 to shoot the guns, and Nick and I went halfs for 5 shots each.

We headed down the range, a whole 10m to get there, and the noise was INCREDIBLE, these were all very loud guns, and the hearing protection was questionable at best.

The headphones they provided didn’t even have much padding, and were of the brand SONYO. Nothing but the best.

 

RAMBO bullets!! Looking at the bigger picture, you can see a mix of the quality of each bullet.

Here is Nick behind the M60. Guns and the Guns…

I had a go first and the gun jammed after the first shot, the shots were so loud I think I was a little confused and thought I may have shot more. But a reanalysis of the video suggests just one worked before the dodgy bullets and overused guns jammed it. (The video is a whole 196Mb so a little too big to upload in the short term) but here is Nick. Ironically when I went to shoot again it jammed as well after another 3 shots.

 

The tunnels were next, they were interesting, alot of people chickened out, but Nick and I went the whole distance, about 100m+ at times they were pitch black and sometimes they were really narrow. At the end of it my legs were very sore and I was soaking with sweat, not sure I could have handled those conditions for the kind of periods the Vietnamese did.

Here is a video Nick took of the tunnels, gives you an idea of the intensity.