Củ Chi tunnels

At 8am I headed to the park to meet a small group of people for a free tour of the Củ Chi tunnels, organised by the 'Talking with the Tourist' group. I went with my friend Uyen and there were four other tourists. We had to get two local buses and it took just over two hours to get there. The air conditioning on the buses isn't exactly great so we were all sweating the whole time. Finally we arrived and watched a black and white video on the history of the tunnels and the war from the Vietnamese perspective.

We then visited about five different tunnels and were told about the history of them, including the use of each tunnel and underground room. For the first tunnel (pictured), you had to lower yourself down. The longest tunnel was 50 meters and was also the narrowest. I could barely move when I was squatting down, which made walking difficult and actually fairly painful. My legs were like jelly afterwards!

The journey back was another two hours of immense heat. I'm glad I finally visited the tunnels to see this important part of Vietnamese history but it was a very long day and a lot of effort.