Squished in the Cu Chi Tunnels, Vietnam

The Cu Chi tunnels, about 18 miles (30km) NW of Saigon, are a system of tunnels built during the war against the French and later expanded in the war with the Americans. The 250 km maze of tunnels were home to over 16,000 local villagers fighting who became guerilla fighters fighting for the North Vietnamese against South Vietnam and America. Some were even built under U.S. bases allowing them to launch surprise attacks. The North Vietnamese people were very resourceful and creative. They were able to hide themselves and the existence of their tunnels using trap doors and booby traps etc. Once underground they had living areas, weapons factories, hospitals, and kitchens - all cleverly designed to hide escaping smoke.

The tunnels themselves are really tiny - Vietnamese are an extremely slight and petite race, and the sections that we saw and crawled through had been widened especially for tourists! I tried to crouch down and crawl through, but it got very hot and claustrophobic for me, so I literally reversed back into the glorious daylight and fresh air. Phew! Martin, on the the other hand, had no trouble at all and did about 120m of the tunnels, every so often popping up in a bunker and then scurrying down again like a little mole. There's not a lot left of the tunnels now. The area has been classed as 'the most bombed, shelled, gassed, defoliated and generally devastated area in the history of warfare'. More bluntly put ...they bombed the *&#@ out of it! * Mush