The Cu chi tunnels and my half day in Ho Chi Minh
Trip Start
Oct 04, 2005
1
18
Trip End
Nov 06, 2005
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Wednesday, November 2, 2005
Cu Chi tunnels were the largest underground tunnels in the world. They were partly built during the Franco-Vietnamese war and they were made bigger during the American war. The worst fighting and devastation of land was happening here... Vietnamese are trying to grow back the jungle in this area, but in the mean time people grow rubber trees (it takes 60 years to grow a wood that you can call a jungle...).
The tunnels open to public are artificial now, made by the Vietnamese government for foreign tourist to see. They show you a movie about brave Cu Chi villagers and two "American Killers War Heroes No. 1". The tunnels are claustorphobic, especially because they let in 40 people at the time, and they are so low that most of the people have to crawl all the time... All sorts of thoughts went through my mind. I panicked at the beginning, than I stopped thinking of the worst, but there were just too many of us in there. Later on our guide told us a story of an elderly couple who got sick in the tunnels and they had to take them to the hospitla. The man dided of heart attack on the way to the hospital.
After Cu Chi I went to see the Museum of War Reminants, that has a hall of historical truths. Sloenia established diplomatic relationship with Vietnam in 1994.
There are pictures of photoreporters of war, who lost their lives in the American war, photos of people affected by chemicals American used to destroy the Vietnamese land and similar. What I found very interesting were the "tiger cages", small prison cells used to imprison VC fighters. This part of museum prooves that even in the 20th century people used same methods of torture as in the times of the Spanish inquisition.
After lunch (food stall on the street, I'm really douing it Vietnamese now...at the end of my trip, though...) I did shopping, but was not really good time for it because the market was closing up. Anyway, I had the best coffe ever!
