HCMC: Củ Chi Tunnels

This trip was meant to be a birthday present for my father who's birthday was on 11-11-11... My mom came along of course! :) The entire trip was sponsored by Hb and I from flights to accommodations to ground tours and even pocket money of USD100 each. This is the 2nd time we took my parents on an all-expense-paid holiday. The previous one was to Bangkok where Hb and I had our honeymoon back in 2009. The pleasure of having the means to bring them for holidays meant a great deal to me and I sincerely hope to have the ability to continue doing so. :) This post documents our 4D3N holiday from 25-28 Nov 2011.

My lovely parents! Love them loads!

25-Nov (Friday) - 1st Half of the Day
We took the first flight out to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Vietnam at 9.10am. HCMC's time zone is an hour behind us... so while the flight took approximately 2 hours, we reached at 10.10am local time. At the Tan Son Nhat International Airport, we were quickly greeted by our local tour guide; Mr. Trung (pronounced as "Mr. Chung"). Mr. Trung is a 2nd generation Chinese born in Vietnam who speaks perfect Cantonese with a bit of a Hongkie-accent. Since we booked a private tour, we didn't have to share our 7-seater van with anyone else. :)

Our transport for the next 4 days with Mr. Trung as our Tour Guide

We were supposed to visit Củ Chi Tunnels (pronounced as "koo-chi") the following day but Mr. Trung suggested that we do it that day so that we can have a more relaxing tour the following day. Since we had nothing planned, we said OK. The drive Northwest to the area of Củ Chi took approximately 2 1/2hours! The road was pretty rough and bumpy. Only when we alighted the van, we realized why. They took us into a jungle!

According to Wikipedia:
The Cu Chi Tunnels are an elaborate underground community made up of 250km of tunnels and chambers below the city. These tunnels were dug with simple tools and bare hands during the French occupation in the 1940s, and further expanded during the Vietnam War in the 1960s to provide refuge and a defensive advantage over the American soldiers.

The tunnels were the location of several military campaigns during the Vietnam War, and were the Viet Cong's base of operations and were used by Viet Cong guerrillas as hiding spots during combat. Despite all the bombings in their town, the Cu Chi people were able to continue their lives beneath the soil, where they slept, ate, planned attacks, healed their sick and taught their young. Some even wed and gave birth underground, but over 10,000 lost their lives here.

We were told that the tour will take anywhere from 60 to 90min so we quickly asked Mr. Trung if we could have lunch first. He took us to this restaurant overlooking the Saigon River. Here, we had noodles and fried rice. I ordered the dry-beef-noodle and it came with lots and lots of vege!!! Taste wise, OK-lah though the beef slices could've been more tender:

Lunch by the Saigon River

Prior to trekking the jungle, we had to stop by this place to view a video introduction about the Củ Chi Tunnels and the soldiers living there. The audio and visual quality was pretty bad. Plus it was in Mandarin, so I couldn't really understand what it was trying to say but that was OK cos' later Mr. Trung explained further in greater details. :)

Brief history and overview of the Củ Chi Tunnels

First we were told to locate the opening of the tunnel. Obviously, we didn't know where to even begin looking. To our surprise, it was just there! Right in front of our eyes nicely camouflaged with dried leaves. The local guide in uniform (not sure if he's a soldier but he did look kinda young) demonstrated how to get into the tunnel. Here's Hb trying it out and oh, the tunnel entrance was only a bit bigger than a piece of A4 paper!

Hide & Seek? :D

Only Hb tried out the first tunnel cos' (1) It was kinda deep (my mom and I are too short) (2) The opening was too small (my parents would probably get stuck halfway)... hehehe... So needless to say when we were told that we could all try the second tunnel which has been adjusted in terms of width and height to accommodate tourists and cleaned so that it's not insects-infested, it quickly became the highlight of our tour. The ceiling height was ultra low to prevent it from caving in thus we had to duck-walk some parts of the tunnel. It was also dark with still air making it pretty suffocating and hot. Along the way, we talked, joked and laughed so loudly that Mr. Trung and my father could hear our silly antics above the tunnel. Imagine if we were soldiers... die-lah cos' enemies will be able to hear us from miles away... hahahaha...

At the end of the tour, we were served tapioca and pandan tea. Something that the soldiers ate and drink cos' they didn't have the means nor resources to get proper food. Now I know why the tunnel openings were all so small... the soldiers must've been really skinny and under-nourished. Poor thing...

So ya, that marked the end of our Củ Chi Tunnels tour!

Here are some of the fun words I learnt that day. They kinda sounded like Mandarin:

• Toilets are called WC 
• "Nu" = female and "Nam" = male
• "Kam-en" = thank you

To be continued...