Cu Chi Tunnels

Nicole and I woke early the next morning, mostly due to our jetlag I think.  We did some planning for the day, and decided on breakfast at a food stall close to the market that she had researched.  We brought along our hostel roommate Charles from the UK, and the three of us set out. 

Breakfast was a coconut and a traditional Vietnamese dish of rice noodles and seafood, which we ate shoulder to shoulder with locals, sitting in the child-sized plastic seats on the sidewalk as people strolled past. 
We made our way back to the hostel after, to pack for that day, and set out in search of our tourist destination: the Cu Chi Tunnels.  I had done some research, and tours were abundant; however, I found there were actually two different sites for the Cu Chi Tunnels.  Initially, I assumed both sites were part of the original tunnel system, but after a bit of reading, I discovered that the most well-known site (at least for tourists), Ben Dinh, was actually a replica created specifically for tourists, due to…not kidding…our size.  The Ben Dinh tunnel site was constructed for larger sized tourists to fit inside.  Even if we couldn’t squeeze through, we decided we wanted to see the original site instead, so we picked the Ben Duoc Cu Chi Tunnels, which actually no tours visited.  We found buses that could take us on the two hour journey outside of the city.  Our hostel was conveniently located right by the bus station, so we walked over and looked at all the buses, searching for the #13, and napping a bit along the way out, arrived at the Cu Chi bus station, where we changed to the #79 bus toward Ben Duoc.  Tourists basically never take this bus unless they are going to the tunnels, so when we arrived, the bus attendant motioned for us to hop off.  The location was not very well marked with signage, but we did find the grounds easily enough, and were able to then find a tiny sign pointing to the tunnels. 
 When we arrived, we were ushered into outdoor seating to watch a short film on the tunnels, which, much like the War Remnants Museum, did not portray the “American War of Aggression” in our favor.  Once the film was over, we were guided through to different sections of the tunnels.  The guide brought us to a rectangular hole in the ground about 1.5 feet by 9 inches, which we were able to shimmy into…barely. 

We then were able to crouch down and slowly walk through the tunnel built about two feet underground.  That particular tunnel was only about six yards long, before popping up at a different location, but man was it cramped.  Throughout the tour, the guide brought us to longer and longer tunnel systems that reached farther and farther underground, finally ending with a 60 yard long stretch of tunnel that went down a few floors and back up to the surface, with areas we could barely squeeze through while touching the sides and roof of the tunnel.  It was terrible!  It felt like there was barely any air below the layers of earth above us.  We were dripping with sweat and our thighs and backs burned from having to remain in such a crouched position while walking.  Part of us wanted to stop and breath during the walk, but there was no place to feel like you could get more air or space or feel comfortable, so we just had to keep going as fast as we could.  Mind you, it felt this way even with the additional ventilation placed throughout the tunnels.  At one point above ground, the guide showed us the original ventilation system, which was a hole about the size of an apple.  These holes punctuated the ground at irregular intervals and were all the Vietnamese used during the war to provide themselves with enough oxygen and ventilation.  We also got to see the booby-traps they had built: area of Earth dug up, with sharp bamboo spikes sticking up, and the entire hole covered with layers of palm leaves and dirt for camouflage.  It was interesting, but by the end were we beat, hot, sweaty and gasping for fresh air and the sky.  We walked through the rest of the grounds, which included a large temple.  The walls all had bright colorful mosaics, which, upon closer inspection, were Vietnamese horrible depictions of the war, showing foreign soldiers burning and torturing Vietnamese villagers.  It seemed a bit overkill for the side of a religious building, but then I think about how Christian churches can get pretty graphic with their own art, so to each their own I guess.  Anyway, we finished up the tunnel grounds and made our way back to the street to wait for the bus, which only took about ten minutes to arrive.  The bus number this time was different, but when we asked the bus driver if he went to “Ho Chi Minh City”, he responded yes, he did, no stops.  Great!  That was even better than our trip out there; though hmm, in my research I didn’t remember reading anything about a direct bus to the city.  But the driver would never mislead us right?  Ug, why don’t I learn? We ended up having to pay for two extra buses, hauling A** down the highway at one point to catch a bus, which dropped us off way outside of the city.  Ug.  By the time we finally arrived back at the hostel, we were tired and hungry.  We fell into bed to relax before prying ourselves up for a dinner place Nicole had researched.  It was a bit out of the way, so we hopped back on the bus, which I will say is a really efficient and cheap way to get around the city.  Once we got off the bus, something kind of interesting happened while Nicole was looking at her phone map; a woman approached and told her she should put away her phone at night, because drivers can come past and snatch it.  I will say, even in the US that would be uncommon.  That woman had no reason to walk away from what she was doing to help us.  It was very nice of her, and we quickly followed her instructions (we couldn’t figure it out on the map anyway).  We walked a bit, and hopped into a pharmacy where two girls looked on their phones for where the restaurant was; again so nice of them!  In not too long, we found the restaurant, and it was packed!  It was mostly an outdoor eatery with all the cooking done out in the open, with examples of their specialty dish, shrimp pancakes out on display.  Everything we saw we wanted! 

We settled down to a long communal table and ordered two local beers, shrimp pancakes and egg rolls.  As we looked around at the other customers, we noticed two of the signature indications of truly authentic good food.  1) Jam packed.  2)  Jam packed with locals.  Barely a tourist in sight!  It was in fact an amazing find.  The food was fantastic, and to this day (I’m very delayed in writing this), probably one of my top ten meals in Southeast Asia.  We were so stuffed by the end of the dinner, we opted to walk several miles back instead of just taking the bus again.  It was a really nice walk though, with tons of people out and about socializing in the parks and restaurants.  We passed through a nice rotunda with a park and tons of lanterns and tinkle lights and decided to stop for a quick beer and some people watching.  Vietnam is great at night, because they are obsessed with their tinkle lights and no city as much as Ho Chi Minh!  We finally made our way home a bit later than expected.  Instead of just getting to crash in bed, like I wanted, I instead ran around to about five different tour companies (luckily, I was in the heart of the backpacker area, so they were all relatively close to one another), looking for a full day Mekong Delta tour.  We had been going back and forth as to whether we should spend the time and money on a tour to the Mekong, but in the end we decided to go for it. In actuality, this proved a bit more difficult than expect due to the 40^th Anniversary of the Reunification of Vietnam.  Everything was completely booked!  I ran around until I finally found a company that had budgeted for the huge influx of extra tourists over the weekend.  I booked the tour for the next morning, and headed back to the hostel to absolutely dissolve into the bed.  It was probably about 9pm.