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Experience
the war! Live as a Vietcong!
In Cu Chi (pronounce Kootshee), about fourty kilometers west of Saigon
starts a system of tunnels from the time of the French war until the
"American" war -yes that is how the Vietnam war is called
there. The tunnels expanded over 240 km and reached until the end of
the Ho Chi Minh trail south of Cambodia. On the ground the Americans
searched the Vietcong but he was sitting exactly under them. The tunnels
are so narrow that a non-Vietnamese can't get in See the picture. There
are some parts of the system widened to allow tourist visits. That
is interesting, you can see sleeping rooms, hospitalrooms, weapon production
facilities and a bunker kitchen. We tried there "Guerillafood",
maniok with salt and pepper dipped in chopped peanuts. Not too ugly
but I would not put it on a menu list.
Everywhere in the jungle were camouflaged
entries to the system, sometimes also under water. I creeped in a tunnel
for about 30 meter, ist is really hot like a sauna and narrow and stuffy.
In a wamuseum you can see all sorts
of traps and hand made weapons. One trap was named souvenirtrap, the
second lower one in the picture at the bottom of this page. Why? After
stepping into it, the soldier could not pull out his foot without the
trap. So he had to take it with him, that is why. Traps were made mostly
out of bamboo or steel from American shells, very effective, saved
lots of ammunition, which was rare for the Vietcong. They waited in
ambush until the comrades of a wounded soldier came to rescue him.
Then they opened fire.
Only few areas in South Vietnam
had been under control of the South Vietnamese government and the Vietcong
looked like the farmers. So it was impossible to separate them from
the population. A museum in Cu Chi gives detailed explanations clearly
representing the official Vietnamese view. |
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