One of the things I was most looking forward to about going to Vietnam was to find out more about the Vietnam War. Going to Saigon and not going to the historical Cu Chi Tunnel would've been unacceptable. As advised by my friends and reviews online, we bought our tour (A Travel Mate) at our hotel lobby. There should be tours you can easily book at your hotel, and if you do not see one, I am pretty sure the hotel staff can help you arrange something. We booked the half-day tour to the Cu Chi Tunnels, equipped with transport to and back from our hotel.
Bought this cute hat somewhere in the Bến Thành Market opposite our hotel!
We got picked up at our hotel right on time at around 8 in the morning. Our tour guide, Mervin (real name Thành) was very vocal and funny, if you appreciate dry humor. He was also very obviously pro-communist, which I believe is quite common. My friend said she had a tour guide who wasn't, as his grandfather or some other family member used to fight for the North back in the Vietnam War.
We took a van there and the journey took roughly about an hour and a half.
We were quite worried because when we were there back in the forth week of September, it kept raining almost everyday and it was drizzling when we were on the way to the Cu Chi Tunnels..
Our van. There were maybe around 10 of us in the tour group, with people from Italy, America (who were the unfortunate receivers of some VERY dry humor from our tour guide....) England, and even Sabah, Kota Kinabalu where I am from. Mervin made the effort to get to know all of us and told us lots of interesting history about the Cu Chi Tunnels and Vietnam on our way to our destination. It was all very serious but he made it a little less with his many jokes, which my BF seemed to appreciate the most out of the whole bunch lol
On the way there, we stopped somewhere to look at handicrafts and ceramics made by the locals for sale.
They were fascinating to watch and the ceramics would make lovely souvenirs to bring back home!
After around 1.5 hours, we finally reached our destination and yay to the fact that it stopped raining!
We got to see the booby traps that were created by the Viet Congs. This one, the Punji Trap, was a disguised grass door which spun open to reveal sharp spears deep into the ground that will pierce through anything, or anyone that steps on it.
This was one of the holes that the Viet Congs would crawl into to get to the tunnels
One of the tourists climbing into the tunnel. It was really small, but the Viet Congs, being Vietnamese, being Asians were really small, not to mention their lack of healthy and nourishing food, all fit into these hidden holes easily.
We didn't enter the Cu Chi Tunnels through this hole.
It was really quite the eye-opener to learn about how the Viet Congs survived back in the Vietnam War. They lived in the tunnels for such long periods of time that whenever they got to come out, they would cherish it; the fresh air, the sun and even the sound of crickets!
If you are unfamiliar with the history of the Viet Congs, the South and the Americans during the Vietnam War, I highly recommend that you check it out, or try to visit the Cu Chi Tunnels in Vietnam because its hella interesting. I do not marvel war, but I really feel sad for the people who were involved and the countless lives that were lost. Its baffling how many have to die to get unity.
We also could try out the shooting range (at a separate charge) but nobody in the tour did it because there was a long queue and there was only one in operation.
Oh, just a lady doing her thing and making spring roll rice paper...
OK- the good part. We got into the Cu Chi Tunnels!
As you can KINDA see from the videos, the tunnels were pitch black, tiny (even for me and I'm only 5ft tall) and very narrow. It is also 15 feet deep into the ground. The good thing was there were exits for you to bail at almost every turn in the tunnel if you felt too claustrophobic. We didn't go all the way because in all honesty, I felt really hot and it was pretty scary in there!! I cannot imagine how the VC used to sleep, move and eat and basically LIVE down in those tunnels back in the War. It must've been so difficult.
It was way smaller than the tunnels we went to in the DMZ in South Korea, that is for sure.
If you were wondering, the tunnels opened for tourists have been well-preserved and managed by the government especially for tourist purposes, so it was safe and well-managed. When a tourist on our tour asked Mervin if Vietnam still had secret tunnels, Mervin said he wasn't allowed to say and that he has a chip implanted on his neck which beeps when he isn't supposed to say something, and it was beeping. lol.
After that, we went back to our hotel. But not without getting a taste of the tapioca that the VC used to eat back in the War. It was bland but with salt, it filled the tummy!
I personally really enjoyed the tour so much, and it really did damn well fuel my historic geekiness!
I highly recommend you take the Cu Chi Tunnels tour, even if you hate history, because hey... you never know, one day you might need to crawl into a tunnel yourself, what with Trump as president now.. Damn.
