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Cu chi district is well-known nationwide as the base where the
Vietnamese mounted their operations of the Tet
Offensive in 1968.The tunnels are between 0.4 to
1m wide, just enough for a person to walk along
by bending or dragging. However, parts of the
tunnels have been modified to accommodate
visitors. The upper soil layer is between 3 to
5m thick and can support the weight of a 60-ton
tank and the damage of light cannons and bombs.
The underground network provided meeting rooms,
sleeping quarters, commanding rooms, hospitals,
and other social rooms. By visiting the Cu
Chi tunnels provides a better understanding
of the prolonged resistance war of the
Vietnamese people and also of the persistent and
clever character of the Vietnamese nation.
A place that’s physically invisible, the Cu Chi tunnels have sure
carved themselves a celebrated niche in the
history of guerilla warfare. Its celebrated and
unseen geography straddles – all of it
underground – something which the Americans
eventually found as much to their embarrassment
as to their detriment. They were dug, before the
American War, in the late 1940s, as a
peasant-army response to a more mobile and
ruthless French occupation. The plan was simple:
take the resistance briefly to the enemy and
then, literally, vanish.
Firstly, the French then the Americans were baffled as to where
they melted to, presuming, that it was somewhere
under cover of the night in the Mekong delta.
But the answer lay in the sprawling city under
their feet – miles and miles of tunnels. In the
gap between French occupation and the arrival of
the Americans the tunnels fell largely into
disrepair, but the area’s thick natural earth
kept them intact and maintained by nature. In
turn it became not just a place of hasty retreat
or of refuge, but, in the words of one military
historian, "an underground land of steel, home
to the depth of hatred and the incommutability
of the people. "It became, against the Americans
and under their noses, a resistance base and the
headquarters of the southern Vietnam Liberation
Forces. The linked threat from the Viet Cong -
the armed forces of the National Liberation
Front of South Vietnam - against the southern
city forced the unwitting Americans to select Cu
Chi as the best site for a massive supply base –
smack on top of the then 25-year old tunnel
network. Even sporadic and American’s grudgingly
had to later admit, daring attacks on the new
base, failed for months to indicate where the
attackers were coming from – and, importantly,
where they were retreating to. It was only when
captives and defectors talked that it became
slightly more clear. But still the entries,
exits, and even the sheer scale of the tunnels
weren’t even guessed at. Chemicals, smoke-outs,
razing by fire, and bulldozing of whole areas,
pinpointed only a few of the well-hidden tunnels
and their entrances. The emergence of the Tunnel
Rats, a detachment of southern Vietnamese
working with Americans small enough to fit in
the tunnels, could only guess at the sheer scale
of Cu Chi. By the time peace had come, little of
the complex, and its infrastructure of schools,
dormitories, hospitals, and miles of tunnels,
had been uncovered. Now, in peace, only some of
it is uncovered – as a much-visited part of the
southern tourist trail. Many of the tunnels are
expanded replicas, to avoid any claustrophobia
they would induce in tourists. The wells that
provided the vital drinking water are still
active, producing clear and clean water to the
three-tiered system of tunnels that sustained
life. A detailed map is almost impossible, for
security reasons if nothing else: an innate
sense of direction guided the tunnellers and
those who lived in them.
Many routes linked to local rivers, including the Saigon River,
their top soil firm enough to take construction
and the movement of heavy machinery by American
tanks, the middle tier from mortar attacks, and
the lower, 8-10m down was impregnable. A series
of hidden, and sometimes booby-trapped, doors
connected the routes, down through a system of
narrow, often unlit and invented tunnels. At one
point American troops brought in a well-trained
squad of 3000 sniffer dogs, but the German
Shepherds were too bulky to navigate the
courses. One legend has it that the dogs were
deterred by Vietnamese using American soap to
throw them off their scent, but more usually
pepper and chilly spray was laid at entrances,
often hidden in mounds disguised as molehills,
to throw them off. But the Americans were never
passive about the tunnels, despite being unaware
of their sheer complexity. Large-scale raiding
operations used tanks, artillery and air raids,
water was pumped through known tunnels, and
engineers laid toxic gas. But one American
commander’s report at the time said: "It’s
impossible to destroy the tunnels because they
are too deep and extremely tortuous."
Today the halls that showed propagandas films,
housed educational meetings and schooled
Vietnamese in warfare are largely intact. So too
are the kitchens where visitors can dine on
steamed manioc, pressed rice with sesame and
salt, a popular meal during the war, as they are
assailed with true stories of how life went on
as near-normal, much of the time. Ancestors were
worshipped there, teaching was well-timetabled,
poultry was raised – and even couples trusted,
fell in love, were wed, and honeymooned there.
But visitors have it easier: those
re-constructed tunnels give the flavour of the
tunnels but not the claustrophobia and the
sacrifice of the estimated 18,000 who served
their silent and unseen war there with only
around one-third surviving, the rest casualties
of American assaults, snakes, rats and insects.
Now the unseen and undeclared No Man’s Land is undergoing a
revival, saluted as a Relic of National History
and Culture with its Halls of Tradition
displaying pictures and exhibits. The nearby
Ben Duoc-Cu Chi War Memorial, where the
reproduced tunnels have been built, stands as
an-above ground salute to a hidden war.
Cao Dai Great Temple built between 1933 and 1955. The Great Temple
is 140m long and 40m wide. It has 4 towers each
with a different name: Tam Dai, Hiep Thien Dai,
Cuu Trung Dai, and Bat Quai Dai. The interior of
the temple consists of a colonnaded hall and a
sanctuary. The 2 rows of columns are decorated
with dragons and are coated in white, red, and
blue paint. The domed ceiling is divided into 9
parts similar to a night sky full of stars and
symbolizing heaven. Under the dome is a giant
star-speckled blue globe on which is painted the
Divine Eye, the official symbol of Caodaism. Cao
Dai followers worship Jesus Christ, Confucius,
Taoism, and Buddha.
Everyday, there are 4 times of services, 6 a.m., noon, 6 p.m., and
midnight, on our tour visiting Cu Chi tunnels
and Tay Ninh province, we can witness the solemn
ceremony of the unique religion - Caodaism at
Caodai Holly See at its noon tide prayer
service with followers dressed in red, blue,
yellow and white robes. |
