Travel blog: Vietnam and the Viet Cong tunnels

Viet Cong tunnels in the jungle of Vietnam

Sunday, 30, Nov 2008 12:00

Nick Claxton has never ventured outside of Europe before but a combination of too many years in London, a lack of proper responsibilities and an unhealthy admiration for Michael Palin now means he is spending a year travelling the globe. A terminally-disorganised 24-year-old taking on the world - solo. Here is his 21st blog entry:

Handing over US dollars for a ride to Vietnam was mildly ironic, I thought. But just 12 bucks got me a seat on a Mekong Express bus that trundled out of Phnom Penh, through Agent Orange-scarred hills and into my very first Communist country.

My first stop was Vietnam's largest urban area - Ho Chi Minh City on the maps, but still Saigon to everyone living there. And like many other packed urban areas, it's a rowdy mix of workers, ex-pats and travellers that can make you feel somewhat anonymous.

That feeling is further ingrained as you dodge the hordes of motorbikes that cram every part of Saigon. It's much more relaxing to keep out of the maelstrom in a road-side café and drink in the atmosphere - preferably over a Bia Saigon and some of the best street food in south-east Asia.

However, outside of the restaurants and bars, I found Saigon to be lacking charm. Perhaps it was the big-city lifestyle or the stark comparison to lazy days in Cambodia, but actually it may have been my fault - I got to know Saigon by taking the first city tour of my trip.

Maybe I just chose a poor company (InnoViet - around US$40 [£25]), but the whole experience felt rushed. We were allotted only an hour at the War Remnants Museum, so had barely enough time to rush around half of the graphic and stomach-turning exhibits.

But most bizarre were the diversions to an unremarkable colonial-era cathedral and the Central Post Office - I can honestly say I was thrilled by neither.

This helped convince me to use Saigon as a base for some trips out of town - with a visit to the area around My Tho in the Mekong Delta top of my list (whole-day tour for $40).

Out in the countryside, it was intriguing to discover how whole families (including their dogs!) live on the river - farming for fish, transporting huge amounts of cargo, making coconut sweets and rice paper, as well as relying on a regular stream of tourist revenue.

However, I will never understand the point of floating markets, to be honest. I mean, there's perfectly good fields if they'd just pull into the riverbanks!

But this doesn't seem to cross the mind of the sellers who somehow remain sure-footed and dry while throwing their wares between boats - even managing to flash a smile and pose for the cameras mid-sale as we grabbed a final snap before heading back to Saigon.

It only took a few days though before I decided another trip away from the city was needed - and I got my first real Vietnam War history lesson with a tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels (again, around $40 for the whole day).

This 200km-long warren had been a key stronghold for the Viet Cong guerrilla fighters in their long struggle for Saigon. The tunnels snake their way to within 70km of the city - which allowed them to use them as their main base in the Tet Offensive of 1968.

But following the withdrawal of US troops and the Communists' eventual victory, the government turned these tunnels into a major tourist destination that attracts tens of buses from Saigon each day.

Just how much the war has been turned into a money-spinner can be seen from the soft drink stalls and souvenir stalls - offering bullets-on-a-chain, rubber Viet Cong sandals or fake American GI lighters with legends like 'Death is my business and business has been good' or 'I know I'm going to heaven because I've already been to hell: Vietnam'.

But we managed to quickly shake off the tourist gauntlet around the buses and after a short lecture about the tunnels' history, we were led out into the forest.

Only young saplings remain of the once dense foliage after it was razed by the American Green Machine's B-52 bombing runs and napalm strikes to try and smoke out the Viet Cong.

And as you wander past used shells and the relics of burnt-out tanks, the atmosphere is slightly eerie. Then again, maybe I had been put on edge by the constant accompaniment of rattling rifle-fire from the nearby shooting range (most guns priced at $1 a bullet).

So with Vietnam War movie-clips running through my head, it was easy to imagine bombers overhead and an unseen enemy in the trees. The guide made it abundantly clear just how tough it must have been for the US marines by showing off the Viet Cong's gruesome but ingenious assortment of traps before disappearing without trace into a tiny foxhole. It must have been like fighting the wind.

But the main event of the tour was definitely getting to descend into the tunnels for ourselves. Near the surface are the fighting tunnels which were generally pretty tight to scramble through - I'm fairly slight and a few inches shorter than six foot, but still found it a real squeeze.

Thankfully, everything opens up slightly as you descend into larger hand-hewn caverns which were used as living quarters, ammo dumps and rudimentary kitchens - but deeper still (and off-limits) were the bomb shelters.

These are buried some 10 metres under the surface, though the swimming pool-sized craters scattered around the forest showed that even this may not of been enough to protect from the huge payload of the B52s.

Only around 100 yards of the tunnels are open for tourists to get disorientated in. But despite following just a few steps behind the person ahead of me, I still came up about four exits and a hundred metres away from everyone else! How the Viet Cong fighters lived, hid and fought down there for months at a time, I've no idea.

And, of course, the most amazing thing is they emerged from these rough and ready tunnels war-weary, battle-scarred but ultimately victorious.

Nicolas Claxton