Cu Chi Tunnels

June 5 8:20pm Vietnam time

Note to self. Next time you travel, bring a few of those whisps disposable toothbrushes. It would be really helpful for overnight trips.

Okay. So you know when you go for a really intense workout and you end up pretty drenched in sweat at the end? Welcome to my life. It's a little worse though. More like hot yoga even though I've never done that before. I'm just imagining. It's like literally within the first few seconds I'm outside I am sweating and maybe a minute or two later I am drenched. It's awesome. Maybe I'll go home and miss Asia so much that I'll want to do intense workouts all the time. Ha.

We just boarded our accommodation for the evening. If you haven't already guessed, I mean a sleeper train. I felt like a veteran because everyone was asking me about my experience on the sleeper train. I'm the only one who has been on one in Asia before. I wasn't really sure what to expect but based on the description in the packet it seemed like it may be pretty nice. Matt told us to prepare for the worst though.

First of all, we pulled up to the train station and I was like what!? It was actually a real building. Like in India you could tell it was a train station but it was pretty dirty. This building was really lit up. There was an actual building that you went into and it had air con so that was nice. There were also proper shops on either side of the station whereas in India there were little stands in a wall. We had about 30 minutes to wait before we got on the train. In the middle of the room there were large vending machine sized things. They were the air conditioners. There were seats all around those for people to sit.

When we boarded the train we had to walk outside the brightly lit, air conditioned building past a guard, show our tickets, and then walk out onto the platform. The platform was lined with shops and restaurants as well and there were chairs and tables on the building side. We weren't there when there was no train in the station but I don't think that people had to walk across the actual train tracks to get between platforms either. There weren't people sleeping on the ground and there weren't even that many people waiting to get on the train from the platform whereas in India it was fighting to get in the door. So interesting how different it is. I'm actually cold and snuggled up in my sleeping bag as well right now instead of terrified and hot as hell. It probably also helps that I am in a cabin with 3 other people from my group. Mars, Sarah, and Saskia.

The room is decorated like a mini hotel room. There are 4 mini waters provides for us. Matt told us not to eat the food on the train because its a community pot and a bad idea. I don't even know if the waters are complimentary but I would assume they are because everywhere we have been hotel wise in SE Asia has given 2 small bottles of complimentary water per room. That's actually really nice. Then you don't have to worry right away about finding clean water. It's not hard to come by though but if its late or something like that.

Anyway, the room has cute curtains on the window and the bed sheets look clean. Im still using my sleeping bag though. I also put my jacket on the pillow if I don't think it is clean. Someone told me to bring a pillowcase and I didn't and it may have been smart but the jacket works really well too.

We can lock our door from the inside as well. Matt showed us how to use a belt to tie around the door. He said that sometimes the train will jolt to a stop in the middle of the night because it hits a water buffalo or something. This causes the doors to sometimes come unhinged and fly open. So the belt is extra security to prevent someone from entering our room in the middle of the night and taking our bags.

The rooms are really clean as well. In India everything seemed really dirty. If I haven already made that clear 100 times. I felt like I didn't want to touch anything. This seems fine though. I'm doing the sleeping bag thing because I am still a weirdo about fabrics and stuff. There's even a television in our room!!!

Oh my god. Or, as they would say oh my Buddha... I just used the facilities and there is an option to use a western toilet! AND if that isn't luxurious enough there is also toilet paper and a soap dispenser in there. Like I'm on a five star sleeper train! This is ridiculous! The stall is even lined with wood paneling.

Side bar. I am semi convinced that I got stress fractures in the proximal ends of my first metatarsals before I left home from wearing heels to work. Thank you watermark staff for harassing me about my "tennis shoe" flats.

It's now 10pm and were all in bed with the lights off. We are heading to Nha Trang, the "Miami of Vietnam" with its sandy beaches and sky rises as well as some pricey beach bars. It sounds like we may have another booze cruise. We have 2 days in Nha Trang and 1 night before we board another sleeper train!

I think I've decided the best idea is to be really tired the day or 2 before you go on the sleeper train so you just pass out when you get on. We seem to be moving pretty fast actually. The train is called the Reunification Express. We are supposed to arrive at 5am which will suck because check in isn't until 9am. But, Matt is really hoping we hit a water buffalo or something to delay the train a bit because he heard that it is a faster train so we will actually be there by 4:30am. This train also seems faster and bumpier than the one in India but I don't know for sure.

Today was an intense day.

We went to the cu chi tunnels today. I pretty much knew nothing about them. I literally just went on these trips blindly. So I'm glad it's been a good company and things have worked out well cause I could have been screwed ha. Anyway, the tunnels are basically where the Vietnamese lived underground during the Vietnam War.

I think it's interesting, and maybe it's because I did AP US History, but I don't really ever remember learning about the Vietnam war at school. I don't know if its because we, as Americans, lost the war, or if we just didn't go up to those dates in any of my history classes. I kinda think it is more that one but I guess I'm not positive.

I also knew basically nothing about the Vietnam war. I can't say that anymore!

The bus trip from Saigon to the tunnels was about an hour and fifteen minutes but we made some stops along the way. We left the hotel at 8am. Our tour guide, Jackie, a local Vietnamese man who is 62 years old, told us an insane amount of information.

Our first stop was at this handicapped crafts place. It seemed really strange because Jackie told us that a bunch of the Vietnamese people who had been affected by the agent orange chemicals the US dropped on Vietnam to kill the crops to cut them off so they would surrender lived here. The US didn't think that agent orange would have an affect on people, just crops. It ended up affecting between 2 and 4 million Vietnamese people and many other American soldiers, South Korean soldiers, and Australian soldiers. Third generation children are still being born with major birth defects. agent orange was still in the soil for a really long time and affected many farmers and their families.

This place is where many of the people affected by agent orange live and work. They don't live in the city anymore so the government built an area for them to live in which I think they are given free accommodation. Jackie told us we would see where they live and work and that most of them are deformed or are missing limbs or have mutations. He said we are allowed to take photos. It seemed kind of strange and the way he explained it on the bus made it sound like we were going to a village to see deformed people and we could take photos of or with them.

When we got there, we got off the bus and a lady led us around. We first saw the shop area which is actually really cool. The workers all sit at work benches and they make art. There were a lot of different paintings they were working on when we were there. Someone sketches the drawing. Then they paint it. There is also an option to use egg shells or sea shells to make certain parts on the photo. It was amazing to see their bowl of egg shells and how detailed they cut them down to the correct size. There were also people sawing the broken pieces of sea shell into shapes for the pairings. They also had a bunch of furniture and accessories for the home or for women. Everything was really beautiful and the way the art was produced was intriguing but I still have a weird feeling about it. Like they are parading us through to see these people who maybe are being forced to work and who have been banished from the city and can't lead a normal life because of some terrible chemicals the US dropped on their farmland during the war. None of them had too crazy of injuries though either. Nothing grotesque or crazy weird.

I found a table I really liked but I thought it may look tacky and it was a ton of money like a few thousand dollars. It was of the sea with animals in it like dolphins and fish. There were a lot of beautiful things but I wasn't too sure if I should be supporting the cause or not. I think they work for $5 a day but totally not positive.

After this, we made a quick road stop to see them selling some strange animals. There were rats and eels and crabs and strange endangered birds, all alive. Finally, it was time to head to cu chi.

The Cu Chi tunnels are close to the Cambodian border and it is a ridiculously long tunnel system that stretches more than 200km. Before it was used for the Vietnam war, the tunnels were used to escape from the French ruling government during the early 20th century. During the Vietnam war in the 1960s, the tunnels were used again to fight against the South Vietnamese who were backed by the Americans.

People kept telling me they called the Vietnam war the American war, but Jackie kept saying it is the Vietnam War because the Vietnamese were fighting against the Vietnamese and they were killing each other. Essentially North Vietnam wanted South and North to be reunified under one government. North Vietnam was the communist rule and South Vietnam was backed by the anti-communists, the main ones being the US, S Korea, Australia, and the Philippines. The US used the phillipinos to infiltrate the tunnels because they were Asian and smaller meaning they could easily fit through the tunnel system.

The war was between 1959 and 1975. The US ended up losing the war. Approximately 55,000 Americans, 7,000 Australians and 2 million Vietnamese were killed during the war.

The Viet-com rebels had an elaborate network of workshops to make weapons, hospitals, kitchens, etc. that were all underground. The Viet-com actually lived in the south but supported the north. After the war the population of Vietnam had dropped to about 31 million. In a little under 40 years they added 60 million people to the population. Now, families are only allowed to have 2 children and large families are important so it is disheartening to the people.

Cu Chi was really cool to see. I would definitely recommend going there if you're around Saigon. On the walk, Jackie picked up a red centipede. Apparently you can hold the red ones but the black ones are poisonous. Good to know for "walking" through the tunnels...

The first place Jackie took us to was a spot that looked like a bunch of leaves. He told us that it was an entrance to the tunnel and that we needed to figure out how to open it. It was covered in leaves but if you moved the leaves, there was a small rope handle and a tiny wooden drop door. When I say tiny, I mean tiny. Then, Jackie told us to go through it. It honestly didn't even look like a person could fit through this hole. You had to go in legs first and then put your arms above your head and kinda shimmy your way inside. Then, there was a small drop down and then a tiny tunnel. This is one of the tunnels that has not been widened for the tourists. Literally, it is small. I can't keep all the tunnels separate now but this one was definitely the smallest one we went in. My head lamp was super helpful. They actually won't let you go in if you don't have a flashlight. I could stay on my feet in a squatting and bending over position most of the time but there was a point when I had to crawl on my hands an knees. It wasn't comfortable at all. Some people lived in this tunnel system for 2 years. It's so ridiculous to think about, especially when you're in there.

They had a tunnel that led down to the river as well so they were able to use that as a food source. There were 3 levels. The top level was just the different rooms. To get from room to room you had to go to lower levels. Being underground was so freaking hot. Like worse than just being super hot and sweating constantly. There were some centipedes and spiders in the tunnels too. The floor of this one was covered in leaves.

There are little ventilation systems that are just cement openings in the ground that have small holes in them. If you saw them and didn't know what they were I don't think you would really even notice them. There was one tunnel where we had to basically go down a slide. I think we were going from the second level to the third level but I don't know for sure. The other tunnels we went through were widened for tourists but they were still pretty small. The network of tunnels they built is just amazing.

There is a tourist tunnel you can explore which is 100m long with exits at 30m, 60m, and 100m. I know we did parts of it, but I don't know if we did all of it. I think we did? Some people got out at the 30m exit. Jackie didn't go in, and it was optional for us. A lot of people didn't and most people only did one or two. I think Ed and I were the only ones who did all of them. Jackie stood at exits to help us find them because you could just keep going.

Apart from the tunnels, there are also tanks on display as well as a lot of rooms from the first level. The rooms all have little hut like roofs now but it used to be completely covered. We saw one like this. You can't see where it is from the ground because it is covered with leaves and you would literally just walk over it and not even know. If you jump on it though you can hear that it is hollow underneath. I could stand up fully in this room... I think most people could. It is pretty small though. Spending a lot of time there sounds really terrible.

There are also big craters from bombs still. I think Jackie said there are over 100,000 bomb craters still on the property. They are huge. And, when the Vietnamese were making the tunnels, which is a process, they would dump the soil into the bomb craters. They used a small shovel thing and a little half bamboo trash type thing that looks like a large dust pan. They would also go to the bathroom in something similar to this bamboo contraption. There were 18,000 bathrooms underground because there were about 18,000 people living in the tunnels.

There were also a large number of traps on display. Vietnamese traps are terrible. I can see how and why this war was so bad for the American troops. First of all, it wasn't a war where they were fighting on a line and firing in an open battlefield. It was a completely different mind set for them having to try to navigate the jungle terrain of Vietnam let alone try to learn the best strategies for attacks. Also, the traps the Vietnamese left were very clever but you pretty much died upon encounter and if you didn't, you would definitely want to. They used a lot of nails and sharp objects. Some pierced your body, some pierced your leg, some you just fell into a death trap. It's all terrible. And, you couldn't see them because it just looked like a bunch of grass. Then all of a sudden you would step somewhere and fall into a trap door type thing and be dead. They put many traps one after another as well so soldiers just went down one after another.

At cu chi we also had the opportunity to fire different types of guns. There are 2 countries in the world with shooting ranges and they are Cambodia and Vietnam. Jackie said it is because there were so many bullets left over that they have a surplus. You have the opportunity to shoot Russian and American guns. 4 of us shared 10 bullets and we each payed about $5. We chose to fire the AK47. It was me, Courtney, Cara, and Sarah (she fired 1 bullet, the rest of us had 3). I went last. The girls said it hurt their shoulder but I didn't think that the kick was that bad. Walking out to the shooting range though without the ear protection on was pretty painfully loud. You only get ear protection when you're down on the shooting range. There is a guy there who made sure we were doing things correctly. It was actually pretty cool. We just fired bullets into a large mountain of sand. Ed and Andy picked up some bullet shells off the floor. I didn't even think about it. I wish I had though because it would have been a good gift/souvenir.

Mars, if you're reading this at some point in the future, just remember this is when you got a beer because you thought shooting would take a while so you ended up going through the tunnels with an open beer in your hand.

I tried filming some of the tunnels but I don't know how well it turned out. It is hard to see anything because its so dark.

Jackie is 62 years old and lived during the war. It was confusing because he said he was second lieutenant but we couldn't entirely figure out what for. He said something about translation so I don't know if he worked specifically that or if he was involved in war plans as well. He said a bunch of times that he is a survivor. His family was all killed. He went to prison for 2 years as well but he was glad to go because it kept him alive. There were 100,000 people in prison and 10% of them died from land mines. His mom told him he was going to die in the war and there was no way he would survive so I think he really takes pride in the fact that he survived. Jackie is a nick name because it is easier to say than his real name. He got the nick name before Jackie Chan. Now that Jackie Chan exists he doesn't like the name.

Here are some other random facts that Jackie gave us.

Vietnam was colonized by the French and the country didn't know English even in WWII.

There is now a law that says babies must wear helmets on a motor bike because 21,000 children died in a year due to motor bike accidents and not wearing a helmet.

There is a famous picture of a young girl running down the street naked. She had been set on fire by the Viet coms who attacked her on her way to school I think. She is still alive today and lives in Toronto. She was 9 when the photo was taken on 1972.

Vietnam used to use the Chinese symbols but they switched to English letters because that was what they used in schools and was already widely known.

There are no holidays in Vietnam. They survive off of tourism so they don't really have a break. There is a summer break for the children though which is 3 months long and it just started 5 days ago. Most shops open at 630am and are open until midnight. The pharmacy opens around 530am. School starts at 7am.

I was talking about the "swastika" but it may be called "swatika". I'm not sure...

The Mekong is the 5th longest river in the world.

We also went to the War Renenance Museum. It closed at 5 and we got there at 4 because we spent a lot of time at the tunnels. I was a little bummed because it was pretty rushed. It was really interesting though too. Matt said the museum used to be called "the American war crimes museum" until Clinton (1997) came over and apologized for the damage, donated a lot of American artifacts from the war, and made peace with Vietnam. The museum signs were actually in English which was nice. There aren't really English signs here on the streets.

When you first walk in there are a bunch of tanks and fighter planes sitting outside the museum on display. You can go right up to them and touch them. Then, there are 3 floors to the museum with photos and signs and artifacts from the war.

The first floor was a lot of propaganda. It was very anti American as well. There were posters and photographs from many different countries supporting Vietnam and asking the American troops to withdraw from the country. There were letters as well from Vietnamese people as well as other countries asking the Americans to leave Vietnam.

The second floor was all about the agent orange victims. This was crazy. The photos showed a lot of deformed people. Babies with parts of their brain missing or with oversized heads. There were some preserved fetuses as well that were joined together at the hip. People with closed up eye sockets and no eyes. Children born with no limbs.

There was a letter from a 23 year old Vietnamese person who was second generation to be affected by Agent Orange. The letter was to Obama. The person was born without legs and a left arm because their parents were affected by agent orange while farming their land. They are asking for aid for the 3 million people affected by agent orange. Their parents were devastated when they saw their child and the person wanted to become a doctor but they were told not to follow their dream because of not having legs and an arm. They also can't have children for fear that they may be born with birth defects or something worse.

The signs said that the US was accused of committing a war of aggression and war against peace on Vietnam. There were some pretty sick photographs as well such as American soldiers with skulls of Vietnamese or carrying carcasses of bodies that aren't even whole. Soldiers holding guns to people's heads.

There was also an area that showed the destruction the war left in Vietnam. I forgot to talk about how when we were at Cu Chi we also got to see a video and there were a few young female Vietnamese soldiers who became recognized as heroes during the war because they killed a bunch of American soldiers.

Jackie told us that the museum opened up 1 week after the war ended. That seems crazy to me!

At 5 we had to leave the museum and a group of us met outside to walk back to the hotel. We stopped at a bakery on the way to grab dinner for the train for the evening. I got a mini pizza thing but it didn't really taste like pizza. There was a pastry with bright green stuff in it and we couldn't figure out what it was. None of us got it. A few days later when we were on the street we saw colored rice. I think that is what it probably was.

Once we got back to the hotel, it was a whirl wind to try to get everyone ready and showered. We had 5 people in a day room. I ended up having 5 minutes to shower and pack. I did it though!

We had to say goodbye to Kristen and April at this point and that was sad, but also quick. We got on the bus and headed to the train station. Our first Vietnam over night train experience was ahead of us! Or, behind us since I wrote about it first thing in this post ha.