Dave's South East Asia Adventure!!: Chu Chi Tunnels

Checked out a place called Chu Chi Tunnels today, in the HCMC area. During the war the Vietnamese people built a network of tunnels to fight the Americans. Watched a little documentary old film first....man do they ever hate the Americans. During the film they said that the Americans were "like crazy devils" because they bombed schools, farming villages, etc. Also they said that the Vietnamese soldiers were often young girls "filled with hatred for the Americans because the slaughtered her family". They told stories of a few Vietnamese who won the "American Killer Hero" award....crazy....I guess it's not all in the past?

The tunnels were genious and the way they fought was genious. The tunnels were SO small, but then again...so are the Vietnamese people. The tunnels we saw were made bigger for tourists...but even still they were scary small. Apparently they had over 200km of tunnels linking together, and 3 different levels. Even the way they cooked was brilliant: They devised a series of chambers for the smoke, eventually escaping into the open at least 300ft from the actual kitchen. They did this so that if the Americans saw the smoke and bombed, it wouldn't be close enough kill anyone....but even still they only cooked very early in the morning, and late at night. It was cool the see. Also we saw all the different kinds of war tactics they used, and all the booby traps they set....kind of cool.

We got to go into the tunnels if we wanted and travel underground until the next entrance. Honestly it was messed up, it was so dark in there, only the little red target light from my camera enabled me to see where I was going.