Cu Chi Tunnels & Mekong Delta

On Friday 9th Feb we set off on our one big day trip from Saigon, to visit the Cu Chi tunnels and the Mekong Delta. We were picked up from our hotel by a luxurious "limousine" bus where we were soon joined by an Australian family, which actually included a man who fought in Vietnam in 1969 and 1971 as part of the Australian forces. Our guide, Sang, was an absolute fund of information on the local culture and history. It was particularly interesting to hear his point of view as a Southern Vietnamese person, as all of the museums follow the Government line, which is of course the communist Northern Vietnamese side which won the war. Tellingly, he referred to the war as the "Civil War" instead of the official "American War" which is the terminology used by the Government forces.

Cu Chi is about 90 minutes north of Saigon, and is part of a huge network of tunnels totalling over 120km in length. The Viet Cong (V.C. or "Charlie") would travel down from the north via the Ho Chi Minh trail, a series of mountain paths mostly passing through nearby Cambodia. Once they were near they would float down the Saigon river by night, camouflaged under water lilies or water hyacinth, until they reached a point where they could access the tunnels. The Viet Cong lived in the tunnels by day, only emerging from hidden access points to shoot at nearby US or South Vietnam (ARVN) soldiers. At night, the US soldiers would withdraw to their bases, and the V.C. would emerge to cook, eat, resupply, and set new traps in the surrounding area.

At the site, we were shown various entrances and underground rooms, as well as a large variety of traps that were set surrounding the complex.

There was then a brief diversion for some tourist fun at the shooting range, where we tried out the AK47 and the M16. However at nearly €50 for 20 bullets, it was a brief experience!

Finally, we got to actually go down into the tunnels themselves. The tunnels have been widened to allow tourists to enter more easily, but they are still low, narrow and dark, with many people finding them claustrophobic. Of our group, only the slender teenagers made it the whole way through, with the rest of us who entered rapidly exiting at the first opportunity. By this stage the temperature had warmed up to about 34 degrees, with extremely high humidity, and the temp in the tunnels was close to 40 degrees!

After lunch at the tunnels, we were happy to get back on the air conditioned bus for the two hour drive to the Mekong (pronounced May-kong) River. The Mekong passes through 6 different countries (China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam), and the nutrient-rich river delta in southern Vietnam is why the area has historically been called the rice bowl of Asia. However, so many dams have been built upstream that in the dry season there is no longer enough fresh water in the delta region, leading to many locals needing to move to Saigon to try to earn enough money to survive each year. It's also unfortunately one of the most polluted rivers in the world, with plastic from all six countries flowing to the sea - almost 40 thousand tonnes a year.

Once we arrive in the city of My Tho we transfer onto a small boat, which chugs noisily downstream for about twenty minutes while we drink from fresh coconuts on board. Our first stop is at a small coconut candy factory, where we sample various flavours before trying out some local rice wine, flavoured with coconut, banana, or.... snake!

Incidentally, the snake wine was the nicest of the available varieties 😁.

We then travelled back towards My Tho with a stop at another island for some exotic fruits and a demonstration by some local singers. After a number of impenetrable Vietnamese songs, we were treated to a bizarre version of "if you're happy and you know it..." which included the verse "... slap your face", followed by a Vietnamese version of Auld Lang Syne, this being New Year's Eve in Vietnam!

Finally, we hop (carefully) into a small rowing boat for a short but idyllic journey down a small canal, before returning to the motorboat and the bus for the drive back to Saigon.