Monday 02 November 2015

Breakfast included…….Today the Vietnam tour starts in earnest. I have to wake early again. 6am should do. Breakfast is at 7am. From my previous experience, breakfast is not included for budget accommodation unless you’re lucky. At Kim Khoi it is, but as I imagined it’s just enough to get you started in the morning. You will get a bread roll with jam, tea or coffee. You can get a fried egg as well but I’m attracted to the cheese until it arrives. It’s the familiar proceesed cheese portion. This one is the familiar laughing cow brand. I’m sure there’s a joke in their somewhere but best get going.
Cu Chi Tunnels…….I’m hardly holding back with my first tour. You cannot get a more high profile location out of Hi Chi Minh City than Cu Chi Tunnels and to be honest I’ve been fascinated by this site for a long time yet never had a real opportunity to study it. I’ve booked a morning tour and I need to present myself at the tour office by 7.50pm. The bus is waiting just around the corner. Inevitably there is a delay as passengers are collected up from their various hotels. It’s closer to 9am before the bus heads northwest towards Cu Chi District. However in Vietnam you never can expect a bus to run much more that 50 km/hour. It’s hard going. The target time to reach the district is 11am building in a stop on the way even though it’s no more that 70 km from the city.
When a stop is made for what the guide calls ‘a visit to the Happy Room’, I’m prepared for what comes next from reading my guide notes. The guide explains that we have arrived at a government centre for handicapped people, where they receive support. That support includes training in the production of high quality handicrafts. You are invited to look around the production process and then into the saleroom where there are some highly decorative products on display. I can confirm that this craft work is labour intensive and time consuming but this is reflected in the price of the products they make. We’re told that these people have to work the same as everybody else so they are not a burden on the state. Hmmmm! That’s not quite how it works in the West, especially due to circumstances that led to these people’s misfortune. The guide starts quoting figures and I just know I’ve been here before after my visit to Xieng Khouang Province in Laos. Yes it’s all to do with the US bombing campaign and use of Agent Orange, a herbicide. Visiting the centre is designed to play on your emotions but I resist buying anything at the moment. It’s just too early in the tour and don’t want to carry around more that I need. It’s not too far now to the battlefield. During this period we get to see a video. It’s a copy of the one they show inside the tunnel site and will save time. We’re also given some safety instructions.

After seemingly endless urban driving the area opens up to open woodland but around here there are rubber plantations. Beyond that are the forest lands near the Cambodian border. When we arrive at the car and bus park it is practically full. This site is becoming very popular. I pay the entrance fee of 110,000 dong, just the price of a beer in the UK and follow the guide. Everything inside is designed to be natural. All exhibits and tunnel entrances are covered with a shelter of thatched leaves, including the information room where they show the video. Here, despite being just a hole in the ground there are three information sources that as simple as they are give a clear idea of what went on here during the Vietnam War. The first is the video which we’ve already seen, the second is a vertical profile showing the tunnel structure and the third is simply a map on a board. The video is hardly a documentary but a propaganda production given the background to the war and the heroic deeds of the Vietcong and local guerilla forces. With the use of the other two sources the guide is able to extract the maximum to demonstrate how it was that a nation without much technology and equipment could defy such a major world power. In this short period I learn an awful lot. In particular I hadn’t previously realised how close the Vietcong were able to get to Saigon and hold an area that had been virtually obliterated off the map. The key was the Cu Chi Tunnel, a network of tunnels at least 250 km. I soon find out that these are no ordinary tunnels with no comparison whatever with the tunnels of WW1 or any other conflict for that matter.
The next two hours are spent in quite a small area but it was the headquarters of the Vietcong Army with its rear protected by the Mekong River and fed by the Ho Chi Minh Trail. From here they not only defended their base but managed to tighten a grip on and overpower the US stronghold in the area which ultimately led to the fall of Saigon.

As a tour blog I'am somewhat restricted to cover all that can be witnessed in the area so it’s best if I make a list. We are guided around the now reforested area to see the discrete tunnel entrances, bamboo traps, fighting bunkers, ventilation shafts, improvised production of weapons, kitchens, first aid posts and much more. I left off this list the tunnels themselves which form a three level system of interlocking passages. The tour group had the opportunity to enter the tunnels themselves which were constructed using nothing more than a hand pick and a wicker basket. The tunnels did not need supports. The ground itself is strong enough to give support. Undoubtedly there is one factor which no attacker could have predicted in a human struggle. Those who enter the tunnel even just for 20 metres realises how small they are. They can only be traversed effectively in a crouched position and we’re amazed to learn that they have been widened to accommodate tourists. It would have been impossible for men of even medium physique to pass through them. One US commander reported ‘the Vietcong are nowhere to be seen yet they are everywhere’. At every turn we were shown how the Vietcong remained concealed through their ingenuity. The best example given was the use by the US of sniffer dogs. The guide called them German dogs so I assume they were alsatians. They were confused by stripping cloths off the bodies of dead US soldiers and placing them at tunnel entrances. It worked.

After a couple of hours the group reaches the shooting range. Firing was heard throughout the guided tour. Here anybody can fire a rifle or a machine gun. I guess most people by now will have heard of the infamous AK47. You will have to pay for a minimum of ten bullets which will cost at least 300,000 dong, about $14. I wonder how it is that this option is available but the guide explains that so much equipment was left courtesy of the American taxpayer that it will keep tourists happy for many years to come. With that it’s time to head back to the coach. It’s now only 20 minutes to get to get back to the city. That’s all the time I spend awake.
Winding down……..Dropped off near Kim Khoi Hotel I have another go at eating Vietnamese food. Well the jury’s still out on that. A couple of important jobs remain before the day is out. The most important is to book my onward trip tomorrow to Dalat. That 7 seven hour trip will start at 9am. Finally I buy a Vietnamese SIM card for my phone. That works fine.

Q: How many motorcycles are there in Ho Chi Minh City?
A: Out if a population of nearly 9 million, there are over 7 million motorcycles.
Q: What is the legal number of people that can ride on a motorcycle?
A: Two adults and one child but Vietnam is now a free country now so nobody takes any notice.
Q: Do Vietnamese people think they are now freer than people in the West?
A: Yes! In the USA people drive on the right-hand side of the road with tight speed restrictions. In the UK people drive on the left-hand side of the road with tight speed restrictions. In Vietnam you can drive on both sides of the road with no speed restrictions! Next Page.