At least one of these tunnels was 7 km long and went directly under an American base. This allowed the Viet Cong to direct sniper fire and then vanish. The entrances to the tunnels were tiny and incredibly well concealed.
The tunnels were very cleverly organised, over 3 levels. The deepest tunnels were several metres deep. The tunnels themselves held many dangers for an unsuspecting or chasing enemy. Also the Viet Cong created clever and unbelievably nasty booby traps on the surface.
One of the highlights of the trip was going through one of these tunnels. EVen though it was close to the surface and only about 120m long it was actually fairly hard work. There is not much air down there, it is a very confined space, it is hot, and you are trying to run bent nearly double. I came out panting and perspiring and my shoulders lost a lot of skin from scraping along the tunnel walls. And I wasn't even being chased or shot at! It was a fantastic experience and really worth doing. I am sorry I did not get a photo of us inside the tunnel but it was very difficult to take one.
The guides at the site were excellent but the guide Intrepid sent us was absolutely hopeless. This was really unfortunate because everything else on the trip was excellent. Not only did she not know her stuff, many of the things she said were just plain completely wrong. Even without knowing much about the place I could tell she was wrong so I hung back and listened to one of the dite guides who was excellent. Unfortunately the rest of the group did not do this and missed out on a lot of information.
No comments:
Post a Comment