Living through the Vietnam War
People i met here, who contributed to and improved my trip: Juliana (Russia)
A trip to the Cu Chi tunnels was one of the main things i'd been looking forward to in Vietnam and we visited the site as a day trip from Saigon. On the way, we stopped off at an arts and craft village, which employed disabled and handicapped workers, who made some really excellent egg shell lackered pieces of art. The one downside to traveling so long is that you can't carry around all the stuff you would love to buy and you can't keep shipping stuff home every week!
We arrived and watched a short video on the history of the tunnels and the ethnic people who lived in the area. It was such an important site during the war due to its close proximity to Saigon, the capital of south Vietnam.
Our first experience was to climb into one of the hideouts in the ground, which was just wide enough to squeeze into, with its height only big enough for small Vietnamese people to be able to stand in. It was certainly a clostrophobic experience and one i was pleased to only have to experience on a solitary occasion. Along the way, we came across US tanks that were destroyed, several small tunnels and what looked like a termite mound, which was in fact a cleverly disguised air hole, for the troops and families who went underground. Next we were shown many of the traps that the Vietnamese soldiers layed, which would no doubt have been horrific to be caught up in.
Finally we were led to a small network of tunnels, which we worked our way long, becoming ever hotter, stressed and relieved to get out of at the other end! It was a really interesting insight into what these people had to go through during this turbulent period of History.
On our way back to Saigon, we were dropped at the War Remnants Museum, which had shockingly gruesome pictures and stories of American war crimes against the Vietnamese people. It was disappointingly one sided, but did show the horrors of War and how it can clearly effect the human mind. It proved to be an enlightening and sombering day.
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