WAR (very graphic)
Trip Start
Aug 07, 2008
1
28
79
Trip End
Ongoing
Ho Chi Minh City,
Vietnam
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
while in HCMC, we visited two main attractions:
1. the Cu Chi Tunnels. there is an area outside of HCMC called Cu Chi. during the Vietnam Conflict (notice how i used "conflict" instead of war... correct me if i'm wrong, but i believe the US never formally declared war and thus its officially documented as the Vietnam Conflict - of course, this is only state-side)... anyways, this area was apparently a great tactical position in military terms... don't as me why... to make a long story short, the vietnamese dug these tunnels throughout the area. the tunnels were no higher than say 4 ft at the most.. you had to bend over and walk through in squat position to get through... and there were three levels of these tunnels, the lowest level requiring the soldiers to combat crawl around. they slept, cooked and pretty much lived in these tunnels... no wonder the US troops couldn't get at them with air raids. the vietnamese would just pop out, have combat and disappear into these tunnels. amazing. well, a two hour drive outside of HCMC, there's an area where they preserved these tunnels and made it into an outdoor museum of sorts. you get to crawl through the tunnels, watch a documentary, see how war times were and even shoot a variety of guns (if you chose to pay the fee... eunice and i opted out of this). the whole place was really cool. there is one area where you can crawl up to 120 meters through a tunnel. that's almost 400ft... about 1.5 football field length, i think. anyways, i made it 20 meters... I HATE being boxed in... claustraphobia kicked right in inside the crapped, pitch black, hot humid tunnels. it gives me chills even thinking about it right now.. eunice made it 40 meters... apparently, she likes being suffocated and boxed in... no one made it 120 meters... the person that went the furthest in our group managed about 80 meters or so.
2. War Remnants Museum. definitely worth it to spend an hour or two here. the museum is dedicated to the Vietnam War from Vietnam's perspective. the theme of this museum is "How the US really screwed up Vietnam." up until recently, the museum's official name was "The American War Crimes Museum". i don't think the US liked that very much... so, there are 5 sections to the museum. the first two buildings are a series of pictures from photographers that were in the war. some of the pics are vivid dipictions of gruesome reality; things they don't teach in school back in the states; things that you really have to prepare youself to see. i'm an imigrant to the states, but seeing those things made me want to apologize to the vietnamese as an individual naturalized and living in the states. the pics in the first two buildings showed battles, rest times, torture, prisoner treatment... the horrid reality of every day life on the frontlines of war. (i've added some select pics). the third building started off with displays about the equipment used in the war... guns, rockets, mines, basic equipment... and it quickly moved to displays about how the US not only carpet bombed most of SE asia and vietnam in particular (there are still land mines throughout the area... there is an ongoing effort to clear the land of the tens of millions of mines scattered throughout), but about how the it did something FAR worse... enter "chemical warfare" into the vietnam war.... the US pretty much dumped AGENT ORANGE and other toxins all over the place. they had before and after pics of different areas around vietnam. before was a lush, agriculturally rich landscape and the after pics showed a barren wasteland... very much like how hollywood would produce it... but the worst was not even the land that was damaged.... the worst was how it affected the people and the people of the next generation. there was a huge area devoted to pictures of people who had developed sickening deformitites. now, as a therapist, i see some nasty stuff. but this was beyond that. they even had on display some aborted fetuses that were deformed. it was a very strong experience. the fourth building was dedicated to what were called TIGER CAGES... these were holding and torture cells during the war. creeping walking through them. and the last building was just a dedication to photographers of the war including pics of vietnam then and now. i guess it was an end on somewhat of a happy note.
so, aside from what we learned about war, eunice and i just lazed around the city, had our last meals in vietnam (super sadness to the max), met up with some friends (again the same group that we met in Ha Long Bay), checked out the local market and arranged our transport for Cambodia.
and with that, we say "goodbye" (sniff sniff) to the wonderful country of Vietnam... we hope to return someday....
enjoy the pics.
