Exploring Vietnam and Cambodia

On the way to see the Cu Chi tunnels, we stopped at a bamboo products showroom. We were shown a large range of products from toothpaste to underwear to clothing to bed blankets. It was all really nice and high quality. The showroom was huge and we ran the gauntlet of eager sales staff in an effort to get to the other end and the exit. Several people did buy things.

Then it was on to the Cu Chi Tunnels.

“Communist forces began digging a network of tunnels under the jungle terrain of South Vietnam in the late 1940s, during their war of independence from French colonial authority. Tunnels were often dug by hand, only a short distance at a time. As the United States increasingly escalated its military presence in Vietnam in support of a non-Communist regime in South Vietnam beginning in the early 1960s, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops (as Communist supporters in South Vietnam were known) gradually expanded the tunnels. At its peak during the Vietnam War, the network of tunnels in the Cu Chi district linked VC support bases over a distance of some 250 kilometers, from the outskirts of Saigon all the way to the Cambodian border.”

Once at the tunnels, we watched a video of the tunnels being built and the organisation needed to support this task.

The VC could hide in well camouflaged holes in the ground or enter a tunnel by equally well camouflaged entrances. A hole through the ground to a nearby termite mound supplied air.

Bamboo booby traps traps were laid - these were used as animal (Tiger) traps once upon a time but were equally effective against the enemy. They were a camouflaged trapdoor with bamboo spikes sticking up from the bottom, often covered with poison.

There were many variations but all involved a trapdoor at ground level.

The tunnels allowed the VC to travel great distances and 'house' thousands of people. Visitors have the opportunity to enter the tunnel and crawl along to the next entrance. Probably half of our group did.

As well as hiding places for the VC during combat, they served as communication and supply routes, hospitals, food and weapon caches and living quarters.

Tonight we dined in the dark at Noir Restaurant. We were greeted by deaf people, asked to be seated and were given wooden puzzles to solve. Most had nine blocks of different shapes that fitted into the same shape cutout on a wooden board. Blindfolded, the task was to fit the blocks into the correct size cutout.

For me, it was a small bowl containing uncooked rice, coffee beans and four small paper clips - I had to find the paper clips. Sounds easy…

There were to be six us at our table which was in a room upstairs and we would be served by totally blind but hearing people. Our waitress led us upstairs, with each of us holding the shoulder of the one in front, to an absolutely pitch black room. She then guided us to our seats. It had been explained already that we would have three courses of tasting platters - four starters, four mains and three deserts. There were bowls on wooden trays and we were to start with top right, then bottom right, bottom left and finally top left for both starters and mains. Desserts we ate right to left.

I thoroughly enjoyed the night - it was a very different experience.Read more