Rough Guide to Vietnam - Jan Dodd [84]
Ho Chi Minh City and around | Around Ho Chi Minh City |
The Cu Chi tunnels
During the American War, the villages around the district of Cu Chi supported a substantial Viet Cong (VC) presence. Faced with American attempts to neutralize them, they quite literally dug themselves out of harm’s way, and the legendary Cu Chi tunnels were the result (see "A history of the tunnels"). Today, tourists can visit a short stretch of the tunnels, drop to their hands and knees and squeeze underground for an insight into life as a tunnel-dwelling resistance fighter. Some sections of the tunnels have been widened to allow passage for the fuller frame of Westerners but it’s still a dark, sweaty, claustrophobic experience, and not one you should rush into unless you’re confident you won’t suffer a subterranean freak-out.
There are two sites where the tunnels can be seen – Ben Dinh and, 15km beyond, Ben Duoc (both daily 7am–5pm; about $5 entrance, not generally included in tour price), though most foreigners get taken to Ben Dinh. If you don’t want to join a crowd in a bus (around $8 per person), four people will pay around $50 for a taxi following the same itinerary. Another option is to go by boat and return by bus ($14) – contact Delta Adventure Tours (see "Tour agents") for details.
The guided tour of Ben Dinh kicks off in a thatched hut, where a map of the region, a cross-section of the tunnels and a black and white movie bristling with national pride fill you in on the background. From there, you head out into the bush, where your guide will point out lethal booby-traps, concealed trap doors and an abandoned tank. There are several models showing how unexploded ordnance was ingeniously converted into lethal mines and traps, and a demonstration of how smoke from underground fires was cleverly dispersed far from its source.
When you reach the shooting range, you have the chance to shoulder an M16 or AK47 and shoot off a few rounds (about $15 per clip of bullets, depending which rifle you choose), or stop at the adjacent souvenir and snack stalls. Finally, you get the chance to stoop, crawl and drag yourself through a section of the tunnels about 140 metres long (with frequent escape routes for anyone who can’t hack it). It only takes 10–15 minutes to scramble through, but the pitch blackness and intense humidity can be discomforting, so when you emerge, you’ll be glad you don’t have to live down there for weeks on end as the VC did (see "Tunnel life").
Ho Chi Minh City and around | Around Ho Chi Minh City |
The Cao Dai Holy See at Tay Ninh
Above Cu Chi, Highway 22 pushes on northwestward through idyllic paddy flatlands. After several kilometres the highway runs through TRANG BANG, where the photographer Nick Ut captured one of the war’s most horrific and enduring images – that of a naked girl with her back in flames running along the highway, fleeing a napalm attack. The girl, Phan Thi Kim Phuc, now married and living in Canada, was named in 1997 as a goodwill ambassador for UNESCO. Despite third-degree burns covering half of her body, she remains remarkably unembittered, stating “I am happy because I am living without hatred.”
A few kilometres off the highway lies LONG HOA, the site of the enigmatic Cao Dai Great Temple, or Cathedral, of the Holy See of Tay Ninh District. Joss-stick factories line the road into Long Hoa, their produce bundled into mini-haystacks by the roadside to dry. Around 4km later you reach Long Hoa’s market, from where the cathedral itself is another 2km. Most people go on a tour(see "By organized tour"), but if you’d rather go it alone, infrequent buses to Tay Ninh depart from Ho Chi Minh City’s An Suong station; ask the driver to drop you off at the front gates of the temple.
Worshippers at the Cao