Cu Chi
Our first lesson of the day was one we appreciated a lot. How to cross the road. We are not even joking. Our host gave us a lesson as it's so crazy! 4 of us marched across lane after lane of motorbikes, cars and lorries with hands held high. Everyone avoided us, just!
The first local bus took us to a bus station so that was easy. Breakfast was taken from a small lane across the main road. Luckily this time there was a pedestrian bridge to cross. Pork, rice, soup and a few vegetables. Nice.
The next bus also left from the same station but we couldn't find it. It will remain the ever elusive number 13. They don't seem to use the number 13 as they believe it is unlucky. There is no 13th floor in the lift, it is always 12a. Was there really a 13 bus? Who knows. We found another bus that went to where we needed to go. This again stopped at a bus station so we knew to get off at the end. The last bus was a bit older and had seen a few battles. It was also the first one with mostly tourists heading to the less popular tunnel area of Ben Duoc.
We were dropped at the end of the road with only a short walk to the entrance. Tickets were purchased and we headed in to find our guide. There were old tanks, planes and helicopters, guns, bombs and all sorts of items left from the war. Our guide was a young friendly fellow but there were some interesting characters in our group. We had no choice but to take a tour but it was a clear reminder as why we try to avoid them!
The guide was great. He showed us hidden entrances, explained many of the tunnel features, wells, ventilation holes, booby traps, bunkers, meeting rooms and a medical room. We got to visit 3 tunnels but not the whole 250km of tunnels but maybe 50 metres. Each tunnel entrance was small and we climbed in one at a time. We could just about move in a crouched position. The tunnels were well lit and a good experience. There are apparently 3 levels. We went down to level 2 but level 3 is 10 metres underground! At the end we all ate cassava which was what the fighters did during their time underground.
After this we headed to the Liberation area only to find that (a) you needed a ticket and (b) you had to buy it at the entrance ... Which was 1.5km away. Unfortunately none of the signs at the entrance were in English so we had no idea we would need another ticket. Having already bought 2 tickets, one being the entrance fee and the other the fee for the guide we didn't feel we had time to go back and buy another.
The bus stop home was just outside the park gates. We only had to wait a short time and it arrived. This bus was all ours as no one else got on. A private service. It started to rain quite hard and the rush hour traffic arrived. We took 2 more buses whilst the rain continued and the traffic ground to a halt. Eventually, we made it home. We grabbed some dinner at a restaurant down the street before heading up to floor 19 for another evening of sharing stories with the family.
