Vietnam: The Cu Chi Tunnels and the Might of the Viet Cong

If even half the things the Vietnamese regime tells about the Viet Cong are true, they were an impressive bunch indeed.

My bus trip to the Cao Dai temple discussed in the last post had as its ultimate destination the Cu Chi Tunnels, a key Vietnam War-era network of hiding spots, supply routes, and living quarters built by the Viet Cong several hours from Saigon. Their path sometimes lay right under the noses of the South Vietnamese and American armies, yet they were never successfully infiltrated or eliminated until a carpet bombing campaign at the end of the war.

(Incidentally, the South Vietnamese are never evoked in the nation-building propaganda information. It is always "the Americans" and sometimes "the imperialist Americans and their lackeys.")

Some of the subterfuges used by the Viet Cong to throw the enemy off their trail included: putting on their rubber flip-flops backwards to confuse the soldiers following them in the woods; washing with American soap to confuse the German shepherds trying to find the entrance to the tunnels, and using all sorts of clever and cruel traps to make sure their victims were never confused again.

(As our guide memorably said, when demonstrating a wooden door that had sharp metal spikes at waist level, "Man goes in--no more man."

Apparently, the Viet Cong lived on tapioca and salt (pictured here, this rather tasty root vegetable tastes like potatoes but I imagine it would get pretty boring after a while) and rarely emerged from their warren of interconnecting paths. There were openings concealed under a cover of leaves after every few meters but, for obvious reasons, they were not used all that frequently.

Our tour concluded with a trip down into one of these passageways. Although the air outside was cool, underground it was hot and humid. We crawled, crouching down on all fours. Suddenly seized with claustrophobia, I begged for mercy and emerged, gulping in fresh air, after only a few meters. Obviously, the Communists, and the nation they have created since 1975, were made of hardier stuff.