Didn't Even Have to Use My AK

FEBRUARY 20, 2010
Ho Chi Minh City

I had wanted to take a day trip to the Mekong Delta, which included a long boat ride on the river out to the tributaries at its end. It is the only way to really see how those fishing communities live, and is said to be quaint and picturesque. I was disappointed to learn that it was a 12 hour excursion which included a 3 hour bus ride there and back. Since I would be leaving Saigon the following day on a 6 hour bus ride to Da Lat, I opted for the closer and shorter trip out to the Cu Chi Tunnels, about 60 km from Saigon. The War Museum had really been enough for me, but I also had exhausted much of what there was to do in the city, and I knew an organised tour was likely a good way to meet people (I was correct).

During the war, The Viet Cong used an underground system of tunnels to combat the US and South and the government has turned them into a huge tourist attraction. They lived in these multi-level tunnels, spanning over 250 kilometers in an area known for being a hotbed of activity, for several years. It was guerrilla warfare at its finest. While these tunnels provided somewhat of a safe haven from napalm and agent orange assaults, it also allowed the fighters to create and plant thousands of hideously imaginative traps designed to capture, maim and kill GI's. The War Remnants Museum makes a deliberate and unapologetic spectacle of massacres, tortures and other war crimes committed by the Americans, many of them called out by name, rank and photo. They are portrayed as villains of the worst kind. Here, at the Cu Chi Tunnels, the very same barbarism is praised and glorified when committed by the VC (and to the tune of “Phoung Nguyen, hero of Viet Cong, killed 342 Americans! Made many prisoners!”). I immediately had a problem with the logic, but decided to keep that sentiment to myself, and also to maybe say I was Canadian if asked. Our tour guide was a funny little guy who knew I was from NY; the armed guards and proud members of the Communist party, I sensed, were not.

Speaking of the tour guide, he was a chipper young fellow named Hui. He probably wasn't that young actually and I thought only after we parted to ask him if he'd been born during the war. (The men in this country age oddly. Hui could have been my age, or older, or he could have been 25. My guess is the former.) He hopped on the mini bus like a streak of lightning and started talking a mile a minute. He was met with a a tough crowd: 4 twenty somethings who had just taken a 10 hour taxi overnight from Nha Trang and went from the taxi to this bus, a couple from Ireland who I later shared beers with, 2 young Germans who had the unfortunate seats of front row (3 across including the driver), 6 surly Turks and me. Hui was annoying but harmless, cracking jokes and singing, just trying to loosen up a bunch of tourists who had no interest in engaging him. I kind of felt bad for him.

About an hour into the journey as I was willing him to shut the hell up, he stopped cracking jokes and broke into some old war song. Amazing how a crowd can be captivated by somber song somehow befitting the surroundings. Now he had our attention and, song finished, began to talk, somewhat seriously, about the war. He said that his father's family was from the South but that his mother's family was from the North, and that there was some serious bloodshed due to the family's division (here's where I started questioning his age), and that it was an all too common story for everyone living in the south of the country today. I listened to a few more details and then he said something interesting, seemingly addressed at me since I had told him where I was from. Apparently a tourist from France asked him if he hated the Americans, assuming he would say yes. He told me he replied saying, “No. I hate the French. They started it all,” with an immense sense of pride. He followed that up with a glass-half full sentiment, that the war provided him with a good job for which he was thankful, as the government paid for him to go to school and learn English to be a certified tour guide, and that in 10 years Iraqis would be able to earn a decent living doing the same thing as him. Not sure I agreed with him, but it was food for thought.
We arrived at the tunnels and the tour started with a propaganda film, followed by some government comedian who told us, in all seriousness, “is true story, is no bullshit” that Americans would get stuck in the narrow tunnels because they, “smoke too much marijuana and then eat too much hamburger,” as he pointed to the diagram of the bloated GI stuck in the tunnels with the enemy coming at him from both directions. Followed by a chance for us to climb into a secret hiding hole (I declined) and pose for a photo. And then we heard a giant blast, which was undoubtedly a gunshot. I thought it was a nice touch, the battle ambiance. Fast forward to a lot of meandering, displays of myriad VC traps and bombs, and we were at the tunnel entrance. I walked down a steep staircase into the first room, which was well lit and led off into a lower, darker, and very narrow tunnel. As I get claustrophobic and am afraid of the dark (plus we were told that the 2nd and 3rd levels of the tunnels had been closed off to tourists because someone had died down there), I turned around and climbed back out. All the while listening to gunshots off in the distance. It was an erie and unpleasant feeling. My fellow tourists who completed the run of the tunnels that were open to them all emerged gasping for breath and telling me “you made the right choice, mate. Wouldn't want to go down there again.” Off to the gift/ice cream hut and what do you know – an entire artillery of US weapons was right in front of my eyes. That shooting we'd heard was real, and for sale. You could have your pick of guns, AK-47, M-16's, they even had a rocket launcher, though I hope that one was just for show. The prices for ammo were steep; you paid by the clip. The Turks in our group were all about it and scurried off donning schoolboy grins. I, on the other hand, had absolutely zero desire to handle a gun that belonged to a dead American, let alone shoot anymore bullets into this landscape. We sat and ate our bootleg King Cones to the sound of automatic weapons.

Back in the afternoon heat of Saigon, and I was ready for a beer. Luckily, so was an Irish couple who had been on the tour. We found a spot on a semi-busy corner and sipped Tiger beers as we watched the afternoon traffic grow heavy with cityfolk returning from their Tet holiday.

I'd have to say, it was a good day.