Cu Chi Tunnels and the War Museum

We were picked up at 7am from our hotel for our trip to the Cu Chi tunnels.  The village of Cu Chi is between the border of Cambodia and Saigon and played a major part in the battle of the area around Saigon.  It was about an hour and a half by road, so we chose a tour that would take us by speed-boat on the Saigon River.

The river was quite busy with some lager freight boats usually carrying sand and lots of small local fishing boats.  The river seemed to be quite fast flowing in Saigon, but in some places on the one hour trip, it was like a mill-pond.  At least there was a nice breeze as we sped along!

The Cu Chi tunnels have been opened for tourists to see how the Viet Cong existed underground during their fight against the US troops.  
One of the first thing our guide asked us was whether any of us were from America.  When we all answered "no", she just said "good".
When we watched the documentary video, we knew why!  It was quite ole, but repeatedly talked of the "murdering Americans".
There were examples of the traps that they made to catch the American GI's.

The tunnels themselves were tiny!  Paul went into one of the original sized tunnels and said it was really difficult to hoist yourself in and out because it was so narrow.

The ones we were allowed to go down had been increased to twice the height and width of the original ones.

The whole community lived underground and there were schools, homes and kitchens.  They were quite ingenious and would only cook in the very early hours of the morning. There were special funnels to take the smoke from the chamber to the surface, but the funnels were built at an angle so that the smoke would come to the surface many metres away from the actual site.  This was so that if the Americans saw the smoke and dropped a bomb, it would be too far away to do damage.  They cooked in the early hours so that the enemy may have assumed the smoke was early morning mist.

There was still a tank in the forest for a photo-opportunity!

We could also choose what type of gun to have a go at firing at the driving range.  We all chose AK-47's. The sound from them was absolutely deafening!

Back in Saigon, we went to the War remnants Museum.  It used to be called The Museum of American War Crimes, but they have recently changed the name to be less offensive to tourists from the USA.
The museum was a harrowing experience.  The facts and figures were astounding, but there were many journalists covering the war and some of the actual photographs were disturbingly graphic.  
Here are some of the facts:-

• 3 million Vietnamese were killed, of which 2 million were civilians.
• There were 2 million Vietnamese injured.
• 300,000 people are still unaccounted for.
• There are still 600,000 tonnes of bombs left in the countryside.
• 6.6 million hectares of land are still contaminated with bombs.
• 42135 people have been killed since the war by unexploded bombs.
• 62143 people have been injured since the end of the war by bombs.
• Between 1961 and 1971, 72 million litres of toxic chemicals were sprayed onto the land to try to eliminate the Vietnamese.
• 4.8 million people were exposed to the toxins during the war.

The toxins, and especially one called Agent Orange, is still responsible to this day for deformities in new born babies.  Originally, the deformities were caused by infected mother's breast milk and through the food chain, but it has now been proved that it has caused damage to the DNA, so deformed children continue to be born.
Another stark fact of this war is that during the whole of World War 2, there was a total tonnage of 5 million bombs. In the Vietnam War, there was a staggering 11.3 million tonnes of bombs!

We all were left feeling very subdued by what we had seen in the museum.  It is astounding that a nation that was subject to such horror can be so cheerful and welcoming to Western visitors.