Saigon and Cu Chi Tunnels

Monday morning we flew to Saigon, our first stop was the Scars of the Vietnam War Museum. The Museum consists of a collection of photographs taken by photographers from around the world in an effort to explain what happened in the Vietnam War from the North Vietnamese point of view. A major part of the display was devoted to the US’s use of chemical weapons in particular Agent Orange, and the initial effects as well as the lasting effects. This is not the place for me to express my feelings on what I saw and what I felt.

We ate lunch at a hot pot shop, Vietnams fast food. Hot Pot is a little meat and a lot of vegetables and noodles submerged in a hot chicken broth and seasoned to taste, it was quite good filling and very low calorie. It’s easy to see why the Vietnamese are so thin, I have yet to see a fat Vietnamese. The day was concluded with a bus tour of Saigon, a vibrant city of 8 million that is more western than any other city that we have seen in Vietnam. That’s not to say it looks like your city, but it is cleaner, laid out more like a western city and wealthier. The average Saigon worker makes $400 a month and that has been pulled up with the major investment in their Technology Park by Intel which pays its average worked $800 per month.

Tuesday morning five of us left the hotel and went out on our own to see the Cu Chi Tunnels 24 miles outside of Saigon. For decades the Cu Chi people had dug shelters under their homes to hide from intruders then the French and then the Americans. They soon learned that if their enemies discovered their subterranean hiding place they were easy killing so they started to build tunnels from one hideout to the other. Most of the tunnels were 9 to ten feet below ground while some went as deep as 36 feet all leading to underground bunkers. By the time the Americans set up their Army base outside of Saigon and neighboring the Ch Chi land the tunnel city had reached over 200 miles of tunnels and bunkers. This served as an excellent hiding and staging ground for the Vietcong. While the American used the latest technology and military hardware to fight the Cu Chi people the Cu Chi’s used the tools that they had been using for centuries to trap and kill animals, including punji pits, leg spikes, and
Punji sticks would be placed in areas likely to be passed through by enemy troops. The presence of punji sticks may be camouflaged by natural undergrowth, crops, grass, brush or similar materials. They were often incorporated into various types of traps; for example, a camouflaged pit into which a man might fall . They were often smeared with human feces to increase the risk of infection.

Sometimes a pit would be dug with punji sticks in the sides pointing downward at an angle. A soldier stepping into the pit would find it impossible to remove his leg without doing severe damage, and injuries might be incurred by the simple fact of falling forward while one's leg is in a narrow, vertical, stake-lined pit. Such pits would require time and care to dig the soldier's leg out, immobilizing the unit longer than if the foot were simply pierced, in which case the victim could be evacuated.

Punji sticks were sometimes deployed in the preparation of an ambush. Soldiers lying in wait for the enemy to pass would deploy punji sticks in the areas where the surprised enemy might be expected to take cover, thus soldiers diving for cover would impale themselves.

The time spent in the tunnels served to again present the Vietnam War from the Vietnamese people point of view. I find it amazing the this same company is now under the rule of the same Communist Party that ran the Americans out and now is dependant on companies like Intel, Microsoft, Coke and Budweiser for its future development.