Tunnels, Puppets and Goodbyes

Phuket, Thailand, Wednesday, January 22, 2025--Vietnam was an interesting, positive and negative experience.   The country is moving quickly into the advanced world, car, scooters, electricity, commerce, and fashion.  At the same time, it is still visibly a communist country with very evident government buildings and police.  We understand there are approximately 1,200,000 police in a country of 100,000,000.  At the same time, too, the people are friendly, there is no evidence of beggars, homeless, or unemployed, though many are underemployed selling small goods.  The food is fine, though not the most interesting cuisine in the world.  And history from the last hundred years is everywhere--celebrating the 95th anniversary of the founding of the communist party to museums painting the histories of war against occupying Chinese and French, and the Americans from 1950 to 1975--from when we began supporting the French in their reoccupation of their colony when the Japanese left in defeat from the republic nominally established by Ho Chi Minh in 1945.

Our last full day in Vietnam was very full.  We ventured out to the Cu Chi tunnels, a  two and a half hour bus ride through typically traffic-clogged streets and highways northwest of Saigon, in part of the 100s of kilometers of underground tunnels built by the Viet Cong to destroy the South Vietnamese government and drive the French out.  They are magnificent in their horror and their effectiveness. 

Traps that mutilated opposing individual soldiers, tunnel entrances perhaps 15 inches square, and the tunnels themselves, often so tight that visitors are not recommended inside if they are over the age of 60.  John ventured into an entrance and did not proceeed.

What is quite fascinating is the presentations in museums are accurate in what they say.  What they don't explain is the American view of what was considered a dangerous country likely to fall under the control of China.  This of course was not what was really happening but certainly that was a reason given by the American government for its deep involvement.  Sad.

The tunnels are frightening in their extent and how they were virtually invisible to American and ARVN soldiers.  Their entrances are tiny.  Their air supply comes from false termite mounds that have air holes in them leading down.  They existed even under American bases.

Later in the afternoon on our return to Ho Chi Minh City, we dressed for dinner and for a show.  The show was by a troupe of water puppeteers who presented Vietnamese live with water puppets active in a huge pool of water.  

We finished the day with a big dinner to celebrate the end of the tour and much in the way of goodbyes among a group that got on very well.  A good trip.  Odyssey and Chung did a good job for us.