The Cu Chi Tunnels and Cao Dai Temple

One thing I wanted to see while I was here was the Cu Chi Tunnels. I remember reading about them in Time magazine too many years ago (I think it might have been the late 70's so I would have been really really young :-), and it always stuck in my mind as a clever idea.

The easiest (and cheapest) way to get there is on a tour, so I booked one that also included a trip to the Cao Dei Temple. It took hours to get there on a really bumpy road, althuogh the scenary was awesome, but eventually we arrived in Tây Ninh where the religion is based. It's a new religion - established in 1926 - you can read about it here.

The tour guide told us all sorts of stuff about it, and it didn't really sound like he knew what he was talking about. A quick 10 minute research, and I found out that pretty much none of what he told us was right - oh well.

But, it was fairly interesting to see. You can look around the main temple, and then stay for the first 20 minutes of the service. It was all a bit kitsch if you ask me.

The Eye:



The front bit of the temple:



For whom the bell tolls - time marches on:



The service:



Some more of the service:



Here's a video of the service:



And one of the band:



It went on like this for the whole time with no variation. Only problem was, every time they rang the bell, all I could think of was the opening of "For Whom The Bell Tolls" by Metallica. Check the video out and you'll know what I mean.

On a totally different note: there's another one of those pictures that I remember seeing and reading about in the late 70's. This one is the famous picture of Phan Thị Kim Phúc following the horrific Napalm attack on the village of Trang Bang, which is just down the road from the Cao Dai temple.

We actually drove on this road, although no mention was made of it on the tour. Here's the picture for anyone who's not seen it:



Image is copyrighted to "Nick Ut / The Associated Press".

There's just something terrible about this picture. The smoke in the background as the jungle burns, the girl screaming, and the soldiers walking along the road. Just after he took this picture Nick Ut personally drove the kids in this picture to the hospital for treatment.

It's such a sad picture.

From there, we headed to the Cu Chi tunnels through some incredible scenery - although the road was really bumpy and it took an age to get there.

Some people say that these aren't the real tunnels and that they've been altered so westerners can fit in them. Even if the first bit is true, it's worth going to see, as it was really interesting to see how the tunnels worked.

The only problem is, the first thing you do is watch a video which is supposed to be about the Cu Chi tunnels. In reality, it's a propaganda film. The film was terrible and I learned nothing from it. It kept going on like this:

This beautiful little girl from so and so village was a great hero and well known killer of Americans. She would hunt and kill Americans all day and on her first day killed five enemy American killers. Even though she was only a little girl she is a noble warrior for killing American enemy and has won such and such a medal for being killer of Americans.

Interestingly - later on while I was there I saw a group of Americans and their guide was laying it on thick saying: we love Americans and love you, we teach our children to love you, and to respect all Americans. We really love you Americans.

But nothing else I'd seen that afternoon lined up with what the guy was saying. To make matters even worse, when it was our turn to have the explanation the Americans had just had, our guide gave a totally different presentation all about traps to "kill American enemy", and how they used to hunt down the "American killers". They even went into great detail on how they salvaged the guns and bombs dropped by the Americans to hunt and kill American killers. It appears there's two versions of the tour - one for Americans, and one for everyone else.

After having to listen to all of that, we finally got to learn about the tunnels, which is when it started to get really interesting. They take us to a patch of earth with leaves: one minute it looks like a patch of regular earth, the next there's a tiny hole into the ground:

The trapdoor being uncovered:



The very very small entry hole - not sure I'd have fit:



A bamboo trap which is covered with leaves:



And what you'll find inside if you step on it:



From there, we actually went into the tunnels - and they were really tight. I don't mind confined spaces (as long as there's some light), so I was OK - but some people were freaking out.

Here's the westernised entrance :-)



And what it's like inside (this was one of the less enclosed sections - I couldn't get my camera out in the tight sections):



After we'd been in, they showed the air holes which were disguised as termite and ant hills. It was a really clever piece of engineering - although the propaganda film claimed that no one else in the world would be able to invent such a thing. Which got me thinking about coal mines in Yorkshire...but I decided not to say anything :-)

One final thing on the Cu Chi Tunnels - they have a firing range there, and it's not every day you get a chance to fire an AK47. So I thought - what the heck and had a go.

The AK47 - when you absolutely, positively have to:



On the walk back to the car park it started raining really heavily and it got me thinking how hard it must have been for all sides in the war. The jungle is so dense here, and with the rain, it must have been like being in hell.