Bye Bye Mundane Life!!: Cu Chi tunnels

We splurged on a DIY breakfast of egg filled baguette with iced coffee from various street sellers before boarding the bus complete with Vietnamese guide who definately liked the sound of his own voice (who funnily enough had fought on the Americans side during the conflict) for an 1hrs drive through the streets of Saigon into the province of Cu Chi. On arrival we were ushered into a TV room for quick documentry on the war and then the fun really began!! Our guide who wouldn't shut up on the bus whizzed us about site with non stop commentary which was interesting because the attraction is based on the hardships of the Viet Cong but all he kept telling us was how hard it was for the Americans to overcome the enemy due to the fact they were unrecognisable from civilians so they had to fight and kill everyone! There was a fantastic collection of old booby traps and reinactments of wartime life as well as the exploration of an actual Viet Cong tunnel which measured about 1.6m high by 600mm wide making it a tight squeeze for this author and his partner to move around, these folks were tiny and it was very apparent why the Yanks couldn't get near them (this is when a Thai bride would be beneficial) however there were some fatties in our group but luckily we were first in so managed not to get stuck behind them. The Americans tried gassing them out, flooding the tunnels to flush them out and sending in dogs to chase them out all of which failed due to the complexity and size of these tunnels all 254km's of them, even bombing the area with B52's failed as the tunnels went 8m deep.
A really good trip made all the better with not having any rain meant we were in the mood for more Bia Hoa that evening after having a quick stroll around more of the City on our return late in the afternoon, it did of course rain but it dosen't rain in the bar so contentment was the word of the day...
Tomorrow we head to the coastal town of Moi'Ne to hopefully see some sun again....