One of my highlights in Saigon has to be our tour to the Cu Chi tunnels today. Cu Chi is about an hour and a half north of Saigon and a center of resistance during the war. Just as it was a few decades ago , it’s a forested region with pockets of rubber plantations. During French colonial times, rebels hid weapons in hidden holes and underground storerooms. But during the American war, these were expanded into an extensive tunnel network, comprising 250 km! We learned that the tunnels were built along three levels at 3, 6, and 8 meters, complete with stairways, air ducts, kitchens, sleeping quarters, wells, and booby traps. They were ingeniously designed with thousands of hidden entrances surrounded by booby traps, along with secret submerged entrances only accessible by swimming underwater in the Saigon River. Smoke was filtered and dissipated through various systems, so cooking could commence undetected from above. Air ducts were built into termite mounds, which provided camouflage.

model of tunnel system

B-52s destroyed nearly 80% of the tunnels in 1968-69 and defoliate/napalm was used extensively in the region, but it was from Cu Chi that the North launched effective offensives on Saigon. We got to go down into a couple of the tunnels, which were really really tiny. Many of the tunnels were built incredibly small, so Americans and other Western troops wouldn’t be able to enter or would get stuck due to their larger build.

it was tough for this little Asian lady to fit in this hole…imagine a GI trying to infiltrate the tunnels

We learned of all the horrors that the fighters faced below ground, along with the problems intruders encountered. One of the scariest things were tons of booby traps that we saw. Here’s some photos and descriptions of how they work:

false floor with metal spikes below

more spikes…yikes!

this set of spikes would swing down and impale any GI kicking down a door

Walking through the woods, it sounded like we were in the war, since there was also a firing range at which you could choose to use any of the weapons used by Vietnamese or American troops. Short bursts of AK-47s continually pierced the air. When she heard that there was a firing range, Joylani turned to me and said (seriously), “I want to fire an automatic weapon.” When we got there, she decided maybe not due to the super loud noise and the 1.5 USD per bullet price (minimum 10 bullets). Anyways, the tour of the tunnels was really interesting, between seeing and going in the claustrophobic tunnels, seeing the scariest looking booby-traps, and learning about the nature of the fighting that raged here.