Vietcong Tunnels, Vietnam
I haven’t spent much time in Vietnam, just few days in Ho Chi Min City. If you’re there, there is one thing I can recommend for you to see: the Vietcong tunnels. As the official tour was over, our guide has arranged for another, local guide to get us there. It felt like a private tour, just for the four of us.
The area is quite big and you spend few hours just wandering around. You are shown how the traps worked that Vietcong was setting up for Americans, how they were surviving, what they were eating, how they would sort out the sewage system etc. All quite impressive if you consider the climate you’re in and the size of the operation.
You are also shown to a tunnel entrance, one that you can try out for yourself, and then the original entrance, one that you will never fit in. Unless you’re ten years old. They were tiny!!! You can also go through one of the tunnels. There are exits every ten meters I think, after which they get smaller and smaller. I was unlucky as an older couple that was in front of me kept stopping. There is almost no air to breathe, you’re squat-walking and they decided to stop and chat. People in front of you, people behind you and no way to go. I took the first exit.
There was also an opportunity to buy bullets and shoot some AK-40. I refused out right. The gun shots I heard were far from entertaining. I don’t understand the fun in shooting a real gun. However, I never tried – the surroundings and context I felt, were not appropriate. Maybe somewhere else some other time.
