We had an early start (7:00 a.m. pick up!) & were taken to the Cu Chi tunnels, some 30 Kms from HCMC. According to our guide book, these tunnels stretch to the Cambodian border and were key to winning the Vietnam War. There were lots of school kids on an organised tour when we went. They were all very polite, most calling out "Hello" when they saw us, Westerners. We first have a talk explaining that from the French colonial days it was common for families to have safe bunkers built under their homes to hide from officials. Over time this was extended to tunnels linking adjoining houses and eventually larger tunnel networks were built up.
In the Vietnam War this idea was significantly expanded by the Vietcong near Saigon to give them a major tactical advantage over the Southern Vietnamese & USA forces. Eventually 250 miles of tunnels were built in the area, 3 levels deep which included sleeping, storage, cooking & medical areas.
The forested terrain meant that the carpet of dry leaves was ideal for camouflaging the entrances as well as the ventilation & sniping holes.
As you can see in the photos we had several narrow tunnels to clamber through - all quite short, the longest one we went through was only about 30 metres long. I thought they were all very narrow, but was a bit deflated to find out that they in fact have been widened for tourists.
