Day 10 – 12.10.2016
This morning we hopped onto the bus to see the Chu Chi Tunnels. I was really looking forward to this trip, as I was expecting it to give me the last little details I needed to get a grasp on Vietnams history.
It is amazing to see that there are so many Vietnamese of all ages that come out every morning to the parks and stretch, go for a run, practice Chi Gong, work on the provided mashines and just exercise.
Our first stop before heading to the tunnels was the farm of a local family that produces rice paper. They too were affected by the war but I’ll tell you about that later. The family owns a couple of large pigs to produce the piglets that then go out to be sold for food.
One of these pigs was a real character! Or circus pig?
Next we learned how to produce rice papers.
It is actually quite easy once you have the technique down... You add three scoops of the rice flour and water mixture into your application cup.
Then you turn your cup around onto the purple cloth surface. Underneath there is a large pot of water that is boiling and the steam reaches the cloth surface. Then you close the lid and only after a short time, the ricepaper pancake is ready to be rolled off using a towel like club, onto the club and onto the mat.
The better you make them and roll them off, the more likely you are to get a rice paper without any holest hat is roughly always the same size. Since my first one looked so terrible, I was able to try again another time. Quite small in comparison, but less holes :)! By the way – because the rice papers are left too dry / cool off on these mats, there is always a smooth side and one textured side from the mat. They only need about 30 minutes in the sun for them to have fully dried off and be ready for consumption or export. They get about 1$ for a pack of 40 rice papers.
We then got to walk through the farmers garden and everyone was delighted by the amount of large Jack fruit growing in her garden.
I wasn’t quite sure what jack fruit was, but here is the wikipedia LINK.
Her family also grows Tapioca (again LINK), from which the roots are used as a potato substitute.
She also has a rubber tree that she uses for demonstrations. They carve a little piece into the tree and the white rubber liquid just trickles down into a bowl. A tree can fill a bowl of coconut shape every single day.
Even outside on the countryside the people had to deal with bombings. For example this farmer, her backyard has a little pond that was created by a bomb. It’s all very very real!
She too, like other families had little tunnels under ground in which they could hide when the bombings took place.
All the rice papers left out to dry.
Next stop – the Chu Chi tunnels. Here is an extract from one of the brochures:
The Ben Dinh Tunnel is the historic revolutionary relic. This was the base of Cu Chi District Party Committee during the resistance tot he Americans. It was also the place for dining, living, meeting, as well as unique battle deployment with contributions to fighting the enemy and national salvation.
The tunnel system is situated about 70km in the North-West of Ho Chi Minh City centre.
We entered the area where the tunnel system is located. First stop was a secret tunnel entry where we got to try how to enter and hide in such a tunnel. The openings are quite narrow!
If a couple of people were running to get back into one of these entrys, the job of the last person was the most important one. They would have to camouflage the surroundings and the cover of the entry as to not to draw any attention to where these tunnels started. There were many false entries to trick the enemy but there were also installations that would hinder anyone from following the Vietnamese down the tunnels. For example they would add a mine to the entry of a part of the tunnel. As soon as it was ready to go off, he would move to another part of the tunnel, the enemy would try to get in and the mine would go off, destroying the entry to the tunnel and also the enemy in its course.
A camouflaged entry:
It is quite dark down there!
Next up we got to see a sea saw trap. Previously these traps used to be set up for hunting, against tigers or other predators. The enemy would step onto the trap, fall into the spikes, and the trap would rotate covering the fallen prey for the next soldier to fall into the trap. The locals used to call this trap the Americans nightmare, as the moans of the soldiers in the trap would go on all night, messing with the moral of the soldiers.
There were several different openings and exits that were transformed to look like natural occurences, such as several termite hills. Most of these termite hills were actually man made however. For example this „termite“ hill was used as a shooting stand as demonstrated by flower our guide (her Vietnamese name translated to English means flower).
All along the tunnels there are several trenches and rapid distribution lines, that used to look like river beds filled with barbed wire.
Most of the tunnel exits have now been uncovered so that tourists can experience the size and the feel of these tunnels. Taking into account that we tourists are all much taller and larger than the tiny Vietnamese!
The traditional uniform of the liberation front. Black for the woman (who would usually be active at night, sneak to the American bases and steal all kinds of things from there – food, flashlights, medicine, weapons and ammunition, and soap and shampoo. Soap and shampoo you might wonder why they would steal that... Early on the Americans would bring in search dogs to find the entrys to the tunnels or the location of the people hiding underneath. At first the Vietnamese would cover their entrys with chili powder and other unpleasant substances – the dogs would run away whenever they came into contact with these substances. Eventually the Americans understood why the dogs were running away, and so the Vietnamese had to change their tactic. They used the soap and the shampoo from the Americans on their entries. Now the dogs would think that they were among their own and would walk straight past the entries of the tunnels. )
As the woman were mainly active at night, they needed to know the premises off by heart as to not fall into any traps and to not get noticed by the enemy.
and khaki green for the men...
There have never been proper maps for the tunnels, and the tunnel system could only live on in the minds of the people, as when captured they would not be able to tell the American forces where the entrys and exits were.
The tunnels had to be ventilated in order for the people living inside to survive. They did this by having long air holes coming out from different parts of the tunnel. They too had to be disguised, for example this „termite hill“ is one of these air holes.
Below is an American tank that was destroyed here by a landmine.
Next we were shown more traps that the people oft he Cu Chi tunnels used to trap and injure their enemys. Their goal was to lower moral, to eliminate possible enemys and to cause them to have to move around the woods slower in order to not fall into the traps and get brutally injured.
Sticking trap – falling inside and getting trapped by metal rods with hooks that dig into the leg.
Clipping armpit trap. Yes, the terrible. You step into it and the sides with metal hooks swing upwards and spike your armpits and insides.
Window trap – similar concept as the armpit trap, just with constantly rotating spikes.
Folding chair trap – you fall into it, the spikes come and get you.
Fish trap – used to be used by the fishers. You step in, your foot gets caught by the principal spike and when you want to take your foot out, you generally do more damage by the joining spikes. The Vietnamese also liked to call these traps „Vietnamese souvenirs“
Other spikey traps.
In the military workshops the people living in the tunnels would reassemble dropped bombs by the Americans, remove the detonator, remove some of the gun powder and cut the bomb into parts in order to repurpose the bombs into landines.
Add a stick and the landmine is perfectly hidden until a tank drives over it.
Another hidden entry way – this entry our guide had to find and swipe clear.
There was also the possibility of shooting guns at a shooting range. The sound of these guns firing away echoed all through the forrest adding to the eerie feeling of this place. It let you experience a bit how it would have felt like back in the days.
At the shooting range you could try out machine guns, AK 47 and M60, just to name a few. (I couldnt tell, I was too scared to shoot any... and it was so so loud!)
This is a nice little story. The Vietnamese would make their shoes out of old tires. In order to confuse the Americans, who would follow their footsteps to the entry holes, they would make the shoes but add the straps „the wrong way round“, that way they could position a landmine, and walk away from it and it would seem as though they had just walked towards the landmine, tricking the Americans.
Finally we got to try out the tunnels. Like I said, we foreigners are a lot larger and getting through the tunnels was a bit of a challenge. The tunnel system that is preserved for the tourists is maximum 100 metres. However those who get claustrophic can get off at 10 metres if they wish to do so. Our core team of three however managed to do the full 100 metres. It’s quite narrow and you have to duck down and waddle through the tunnel. I can’t imagine a large bulky American having to go through them. That is why they used the „rat pack“ quite a lot. They would send opposing Vietnamese into the tunnels to find their way around the tunnels and scare out the hiding Vietnamese. As they too didnt really know about tunnel system and had to actually find the entry points, this was quite a difficult mission for them.
We managed pretty well though. It was hot and we were sweating profoundly, but we made it! (But there are km of tunnels and tunnel system.!) Apparently the tunnels were originally built in a very simple way during the French colonisation, but were improved and made more complicated during the American war.
Not all parts of the tunnel system were as low, there were also some parts where the high officials would meet to discuss tactics, strategy and probably politics and warfare.
This would have been the dining area (minus the roof of course!)
This was the kitchen area.This replica isn’t really doing it justice, seeing as you can see the smoke come out of the roof. Generally they would have had a serious of chambers aside the kitchen that would move away from the kitchen and the place were people were gathering.
Then they would let this smoke out at a different position from the kitchen, and as it had passed through the different chambers, the smoke was much less and less thick and visible.
Examples of camouflaged uniform.
The main food for the fighters was the tapioca root. This was great for storing and would provide enough energy to go on for a while. It tastes a bit like potato or Yucca. Some fighters stayed in the tunnels for up to 7 weeks and just fed on those roots. They would obtain them from nearby farmers supporting the process or from plants that had been planted along the way.
After the little snack we watched a documentary about the tunnels and then headed back to the city. Here we went out for lunch and found this – I think Japanese place – that makes Udon noodles.Quite yummy.
At 18:00 it was time to meet our new group, or better said, or new tour guide Channa and one more group member Mario who would be replacing Florin.
Insurance details were exchanged, the itinerary was checked and then it was time to grab dinner.
We went to a Vietnamese place on the „party / backpackers heaven“ street that we had been to the night before. The food here wasn’t as good as we had experienced the last couple of dinners, but hey :) it was a lovely evening. And yes, thats nachos, and yes I was craving some „Western“ food! Don’t judge!
