Good Night and Goodbye Vietnam!

So on my final day in Vietnam, Molly and I decided to take a trip to the Cu Chi tunnels. The tunnels are about an hour and a half north of Saigon, Cu Chi is famous for its 200-kilometer network of underground tunnels. The tunnels were built and used by the Vietcong forces during wars with the French and the Americans.

There was an official SAS program that would have taken us to the tunnels, but we decided that going independently would be the much more affordable way to do it. We found a travel agency that gave English-speaking tours to the tunnels and bought tickets with them. We took a taxi to the travel agency, bought our tickets, and then had breakfast at the next-door French restaurant. Then we hopped on the bus, for an exciting 2 hour drive. The traffic was really bad that morning, but even worse, the air-conditioning on the bus kept shutting down. Every time the AC would quit, the bus would slow down (but not stop) and two guys would jump off and run along side the bus, pounding on the sides of it until the AC started back up again. The bus driver would be yelling out the window to them whether or not it was working. It was quite the experience!

When we got to the tunnels, we watched a video explaining their history and construction that was interesting not really for its information, but for how propagandistic it was (and it was biased to the side that I never get to hear bias for back home). After the film we toured the area, seeing the carefully hidden doors to the tunnels, the air vents, the smoke vents, and the traps. Then we had the chance to crawl through the tunnels ourselves. What was amazing was not just how dark and creepy the tunnels were but how small they were – and we were seeing them after they had been enlarged 40% to accommodate tourists. It was impossible to imagine actually living for months at a time without being able to stand, and spending most of that time crawling on your hands and knees, or in the lower sections, even on your belly.

The other cool thing about the Cu Chi was that we were seriously out in the jungle. We walked on a winding muddy path through dense forest that you really couldn’t see through. Gunshots rang out over the area because there was a shooting range for people to try out an AK-47, and that sound added a lot of atmosphere to the place. We were there for about 2 hours total, and by the time we were done, we were all hot and sweaty and ready to climb back onto our (semi) air-conditioned bus.

The ride back was pretty uneventful, and once were in Saigon again Molly and I got lunch at a little hole in the wall restaurant that had awesome food. At lunch we met a really cool American lady who has been living in Vietnam, teaching, for the past couple years. She was really awesome, she told us all about her love of Vietnam, gave us some shopping advice, and even some tips about what we ought to do in Thailand. It was really great to have the opportunity to share our Vietnam experiences with her, to tell her about the awesomeness of our entire trip, and just to reflect for a little while on how amazing this place was with someone who felt that way so strongly that she had picked up and moved here.

Though I basically loved all of my time in Vietnam, the thing that stands out the most to me was how incredibly friendly, kind, and welcoming everybody we met was to us, even when we are so obviously American. I had expected to meet people who continued to hold grudges against the U.S. for the war (which would have been completely understandable), but nobody did, at least not to us. Tung, our tour guide from the Mekong Delta trip said it was because the Vietnamese are Buddhist, and they choose not to hold onto regrets, not to live in the past, and I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I do know that not a single person was unkind to me in any way shape or form in Vietnam, and that was wonderful.

On a last note, I also have to include the song I made up with Molly and Sam that sums up the hardships of our fourth day in Vietnam. To the tune of the 12 days of Christmas, the countdown part:

12 bikers honking
11 knee-deep puddles
10 different tailors
9 streets to cross
8 knock-off movies
7 pairs of shoes
6 shots of liquor
5 tired girls
4 dollars left
3 slippery steps
2 broken ankles
And 1 horrible, motorbike death!