One of the most popular things to do while in Saigon is to take a trip north of the city to the Cu Chi Tunnels. This network of tunnels is what allowed the Viet Cong to effectively control a swath of territory that was under 100km from Saigon.
The tour we did was one of the more striking examples of propaganda I have come across on this trip. As a Canadian, I couldn't help but wonder how an American would feel doing the same tour I did (I don't think anyone on my bus was American, so there was no around to ask). I couldn't even fathom how someone would feel if they had a close relative that fought in the Vietnam War.
Before I get ahead of myself, I want to write about how much one has to admire both the craftiness and the persistence of the Viet Cong. They would have lived in these tunnels for decades if that's what they had to do to get the American army out of their country. Living in the tunnels for a couple days may be a neat/novel experience, but I think I would go mad living in those tunnels in such cramped quarters, for weeks at a time.
The Viet Cong dug a network consisting of three levels, and hundreds of kilometres completely by hand. All they had were bamboo dustpans and steel shovels to excavate the tunnels. They thought of everything - a system of filter rooms so that steam and smoke would not give them away while they were cooking, hidden shoots of bamboo going up to the surface to ensure a supply of fresh air, and connecting the tunnels to the Saigon river so that when the Americans tried to flood the tunnels the water simply passed through them into the river.
The tunnels really are a marvel of design and engineering, even more so when you consider that tanks were roaming just metres above them, not to mention the constant bombing raids from American bombers. I guess the clay earth helped make for sturdy tunnels, since I did not see any wood support shafts that most mines seem to have.
Anyway, time to get back to have the tour of the tunnels made me feel. While I admired the resolve of the Viet Cong, I felt that the tour lacked any semblance of balance, and that my guide basically thought the death of an American soldier was a laughing matter. It's one thing to turn the death of one's enemy into a joke when you are producing a piece of fiction, such as in Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds (yes, I admit I laughed a few times during that movie). Tarantino did a wonderful job of turning the killing of Nazi's into a joke, while also weaving intensely serious moments into the movie.
While showing us a number of the different traps the Viet Cong set to kill Americans, our guide was basically laughing when he showed us the different mechanisms belonging to each trap.
Not every American soldier in Vietnam committed war crimes, and not every American soldier
in Vietnam was there on his own free will (although I guess they could have deserted and fled to Canada - an extremely difficult decision for most to make). If my father or grandfather had died from one of those traps, I would have wanted to punch my tour guide. Lucky for me, I basically have no family that were American citizens that far back (please correct me if I'm wrong!).
Nonetheless, I am glad I went. It was a great learning experience, and getting to crawl through the tunnels was really cool. Steve and I decided to go through the 100m tunnel - the second longest one they have for tourists to go through. We would have done the full 140 or so metres, but we didn't see anywhere to keep going once we got to the 100m point. There was a couple from Australia right behind us - the boyfriend was 6"6. I couldn't believe that he fit through!
