INDOCHINA/ Saigon/ Ho Chi Minh City/ Cu Chi Tunnels

The city is the largest in Vietnam, and is known as Saigon by the older people who knew it before and during the "American" War.  It is known as Ho Chi Minh City by the younger folk.  What an exciting and pulsating city it is, too!  More about that later.  First we visited the final leg of our Vietnam War journey, the Cu Chi Tunnels.  The tunnels really emphasized for me that this war was a death trap for our American troops who were fighting in a guerilla warfare situation against an enemy who looked identical to the friendly South Vietnamese, an enemy that didn't follow the international rules of the Geneva Convention, and (in this case) an enemy who lived in a sprawling underground labyrinth city of tunnels beneath a dense jungle.

Map of the underground tunnel system (Cu Chi Tunnels)

Shells were manufactured in underground rooms

Storage of munitions

One of many booby traps rigged as a torture device for the GI's

Entrance to underground bunker

Our guide demonstrating how the Vietcong easily climbed into the tunnels

The streets are decorated with bright lights and flowers for the upcoming Chinese New Year