American War - Cu Chi tunnels and War Remnants Museum

I'm sure we've all heard of the Vietnam war known to the Vietnamese as the American War. What I guess is baffling is how a nation that managed to put a man on the moon, with superior firepower and professional soldiers managed to get their butts kicked by essentially a nation of farmers with very basic weapons. (Although later these were supplied by China/USSR). A clue to this may have been found by looking back to the history of Vietnam since they had already kicked out the French and the Japanese before them.

Today we know the answer - if you're a small force then you don't have a conventional war but a guerrilla one where you fight only when and where you choose and try to blend in with the civilians who will also help you. Talking of where, I visited the Cu Chi tunnels to the north of Ho Chih Minh which provided the perfect place from which the Vietnamese could fight. These tunnels however were up to three levels deep to withstand bombing and small trapdoors (built for Vietnamese people size and booby traps to prevent enemies following them down. I managed to get a copy of this book
Publish Saigon which had more info from both sides.

Personally I have claustrophobia so I wouldn't last 5 minutes. I managed to get my body into this small opening which was the same size as my size 7 (UK - 8 US) feet and I couldn't put my head in for fear of getting trapped. There was a wider 100m tunnel for tourists later on but I only made it 10m before heading back - apparently it got narrower and narrower!

If you don't have mines then how do you stop tanks? Well after the American's bombed an area, the explosives in the unexploded bombs was used to make mines to use against people and tanks. These are examples of some bombs and of a tank that went over one of their homemade mines.



The other defense is to reuse the metal from the bombs to create some really nasty booby traps for any soldiers walking around in your area. There were about 6 or 7 variations of these and you didn't die straight away. The Vietnamese knew the Americans would then expend a lot of effort trying to save their injured soldiers. our guide demonstrates one.


At the tunnels place you have a chance to fire a number of guns. Never having fired one before I took the opportunity to fire an AK47 at US1$ a bullet. The first thing you notice is that it is VERY LOUD even with the supplied ear mufflers. You can also fire hand guns and machine guns but the latter seemed an expensive option and I wanted to hang on to my ear drums!


In the city of Ho Chih Min (also known as Saigon to locals) is the War Remnants Museum which for me showed the horror of war especially with the use of Agent Orange and Nepalm