Blog

We booked a tour to the Cu Chi Tunnels through our accommodation with TNK travel.

Ushered on to a bus with 30 other tourists for a two hour bus ride to the  Cu Chi Tunnels. We had heard it was a must see while in Ho Chi Minh City. A collection of 250 km underground tunnels built during the Vietnam war for the VC to hide and survive. We were told 16 thousand people lived in the tunnels and after walking through 20 meters of a part of a tunnel I have no idea how they did it.
The tunnels themselves have been made taller and wider for tourists to visit, now they are approximately 1 meter high, a half meter taller than they were during the war. There are 3 levels of tunnels that vary in depth between 1-10 meters underground. Tourists can only visit the first level. The creation of the tunnels is astounding and being able to visit the tunnels gave us an idea of how clever and resourceful the Vietnamese were.

In saying that the tour it self was extremely ‘touristy’! We were one of a couple hundred people visiting the tunnels and we were moved around like a herd of cattle. We stood on tiptoe trying to see over other tourists heads and the most popular part of the tour for most tourists was the chance to fire a rifle at a dirt wall rather than take in the history of the area they were visiting.

I’m not saying I’m not glad we visited the Cu Chi Tunnels. We payed about 10 AUD each for the tour, but in hindsight I think it would have been better paying a bit extra and getting a tour with a smaller group, although the our tour guide was very knowledgeable. It was good fun crouching through the tunnels, even if I only made it 20 meters while Brett crawled the whole 100 m you could explore.