December 16th, 2024
We flew back to Ho Chi Minh City from Phu Quoc Island and
had a two-night stay in La Vela Hotel.
The hotel was nicely decorated for Christmas but the regular décor,
especially the carpets in the hallways, transported us back to the 70s. The place did make some points back with its
pool deck on the top floor although we decided not to dine at the restaurant as
it was a bit weird too, so we went out.
Naomi chose Casa del Sol, a Mexican restaurant which had an excellent
ambience, decent food and she enjoyed her margarita. My cerveza wasn’t bad either.
Flying from Phu Quoc to Ho Chi Minh City.
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The following morning, we ordered a Grab for a long drive,
over an hour and a half, out of the city to visit one of two sites of the Cu
Chi Tunnels. We opted to visit the
further spot call Ben Duoc as it was supposed to have longer tunnels, and fewer
tourists.
The Cu Chi Tunnels is
an extensive network of tunnels that ran throughout the rural Cu Chi District,
located northwest of Ho Chi Minh City.
These tunnels were used during the Vietnam War, and specifically during
the Tet Offensive in
1968, a major offensive by the North Vietnamese People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN)
and the Viet Cong against the South Vietnamese Army of the Republic of Vietnam
and the US Armed Forces. It coincided
with the Lunar New Year festival called Tết Nguyên Đán and hence
it garnered the name of the Tet Offensive.
It caught the south off-guard as many of the south Vietnamese soldiers
were on leave for the holiday.
I discovered an interesting little fact that I found out
from reading a bit more about the Tet Offensive. In Hollywood Vietnam War movies, you always hear
the US soldiers talking about looking for “Charlie”. I always wondered where this name came
from. Well, the Viet Cong were the
communist supporters in South Vietnam, which was shortened from “Việt Nam cộng sản” and means “Vietnamese
Communist”. In the international
phonetic alphabet (Alpha, Bravo..etc), V. C. would be Victor Charlie. “Charlie” was used to refer to not just the
Viet Cong, but the soldiers from North Vietnam.
Hmm, interesting…now you know.
We bought tickets at an entrance gate and were told that we
would get a guide inside. The lady motioned for us to walk along a path
into the forest. We were not exactly
sure how we were supposed to find a guide.
Just 30 meters along the path
there was an explanation coming from a speaker, talking about something in
Vietnamese. We waited for a bit to see
if it would switch to English, but it didn’t.
Continuing on, we found a few spots with a sign for a number to press if
you had an audio guide, which we didn’t, and then we caught up to a group that
had a guide. They were standing around a
little shelter that had a mannequin of a Viet Cong soldier. The Caucasian guide with a beard was explaining
in English various aspects of what the soldier was wearing. We hung out, just listening in, and when he
was finished and started to walk to the next spot on the tour, I asked a member
of the group where they got the guide from, and he responded that they came
with him from the city. Okay, not our
guy.
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Naomi and I continued to walk along what seemed to be the
main path and within 100 meters we stumbled across a few buildings. The first one had a number of rows of chairs
lined up with a big TV at the front and a model of the tunnels on one side of
the screen, and a map on the other. A
lady in a green uniform was sitting by the other structure. She stood up and came over to us by the first
building. “Watch this 15-minute movie
first.” We assumed afterwards that we
would get a guide. Perfect.
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We were the only two, sitting in the front row of about 40
seats. The movie was from the late 1960s
and produced by the Viet Cong. It was
black and white, or almost blue and white, and the production quality was quite
low. The film started by showing the
peaceful farmers and their families from the Cu Chi region enjoying life,
working hard but also enjoying picnics…but then the “pack of wild devils”, the
Americans, started bombing them. The documentary
praised the heroics of their fighters, both male and female, who would be given
medals for being “American Killers”.
That phrase came up numerous times during the film.
Afterwards, we were paired up with a guide, a young guy in his
early to mid twenties, whose names was Thang (pronounced “tang”). He was spoke English very well and was super
informative. He brought us to the first
tunnel, which had an easy opening with a small staircase leading down into it…almost
like it was the “warm-up tunnel”.
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Thang told us that we would go into some smaller, more
difficult to enter, tunnels if we wanted to (of course we did!), but all of
these had not only been strengthened to make them “tourist safe”. They were also slightly bigger than the real
tunnels, to allow more fat ass, tall tourists through them.
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The tunnels were used by Viet Cong soldiers as hiding
spots during combat, as well as serving as communication and supply
routes, hospitals, food and weapon caches and living quarters for numerous
North Vietnamese fighters. The tunnel systems were of great importance to the
Viet Cong in their resistance to American and ARVN forces, and helped to
counter the growing American military presence.
The highlight for me was entering one tunnel that had a tiny
entrance covered by leaves. Once you
removed the small lid, you went in feet first, and then grabbed the lid, trying
to keep as many leaves on it as possible, put your arms above your head and
then sank directly down into the hole. Naomi
did better than I did as I lost a few more leaves off of the lid so the
entrance wasn’t completely conspicuous.
I couldn’t imagine having to do it in a rush with enemy soldiers closing
in on you!
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After our tour with Thang, we checked out some war remnants
outside the entrance such as some used ordnance like cluster bombs, mortars,
guns and across the street there was a big transport plane, a tank, a Huey helicopter
and a jeep.
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We had heard that you could fire actual guns at a shooting
range, so we had to check that out. It
took a little while to find out where it was, but our Grab driver, an older man
who had brought us out from the city and decided to stick around to take us
back, asked a security guard for directions.
There was a sign showing the different types of guns you
could choose from. The cost was 60,000
dong per bullet ($3.40 CAD). I wanted to
shoot one of the most mass produced and used assault rifles in the world, the AK-47. Naomi, having shot some guns during her
military training when she was a young woman in Israel, wished to try a handgun,
which she had never used before.
Unfortunately, we found out that there was a minimum of 10 bullets per
gun type. Naomi graciously offered to
forego shooting a hand and we decided to shoot 5 bullets each of an AK-47.
We grabbed some ear protectors (or “ear defenders” as my British family would say…which I love) and walked out to the range. There were a few guns, including the AK-47, mounted on a railing, which obviously made them easier to shoot as there wouldn’t be much of a kickback from them. Since she has some previous experience at this, I suggested to Naomi that she shoot first. I was impressed. It looked like she knew what she was doing!
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It didn’t take long for her to rattle through her 5 bullets,
now it was my turn. I aimed at the
target about 60 meters away which had a big mound of dirt behind it and pulled
the trigger. Bang! But I had no idea where the shot went. The same happened for the next four
shots. I did see one of Naomi’s shots hit
the dirt about 3 feet above the target but had no idea on all the rest…still
fun though. I wonder how different it
would be if the gun wasn’t mounted as we didn’t really experience the kickback
from the shot. I guess check that one
off the bucket list, even though I didn’t know it was on it!
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After the drive back to the hotel, we ventured up to the
rooftop pool to relax for the remainder of the afternoon. We lucked out and got some decent lounge chairs
right by the pool. The water was quite
frigid, yet still a spectacular spot.
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That evening, Naomi chose a Japanese restaurant for dinner,
which was within walking distance of the Notre Dame of Saigon. She really wanted to see it lit up at night.
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After a yummy sushi dinner, we wandered to the church, and
it was impressive. Thousands of white lights
were draped all over it. It was “Insta-time”
baby.
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Sadly, the next day was the last for us together on this trip. Naomi was flying off to Bangkok and I flew to the small city of Dalat, northeast of Ho Chi Minh City. Naomi would have a couple nights of relaxation in a fancy hotel in Bangkok before flying home as it was the end of her vacation. It was five fantastic weeks we had spend together in Thailand and mainly Vietnam…we sure covered a lot of ground and did a lot of things. Thanks Naomi!!!
