The Cu Chi tunnels, and the war fought under the rice fields

The district of Cu Chi lies about an hour's drive north-west of Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon. It is a flat land of rice fields, rubber plantations and small towns, and it looks entirely peaceful. Beneath it runs one of the most extraordinary military works of the twentieth century: a network of tunnels dug by hand with hoes and baskets, extending for hundreds of kilometres by most estimates, with rooms, kitchens, wells, hospitals and command posts hidden underground.

How the tunnels were dug

The first tunnels were dug in the late 1940s, during the war of independence against the French, as hiding places for guerrilla fighters and their weapons. In the 1960s, as the war against the South Vietnamese government and its American allies intensified, the network was greatly extended. Cu Chi lay close to Saigon, in an area the Americans called the Iron Triangle, and it became a base from which the National Liberation Front, the Viet Cong, could strike at the capital and the American bases around it.

The tunnels were built on several levels, connected by narrow shafts and hidden trapdoors. They were dug through the hard laterite clay, which held its shape without supports. Entrances were tiny, often just big enough for a slim person to slip through, and concealed under leaves. Ventilation holes were disguised as termite mounds. Kitchens used a special kind of stove, which piped the smoke away through long underground channels so that it emerged far from the kitchen as a thin haze, making it hard for the enemy to spot. Around the tunnels, the ground was protected by booby traps of sharpened bamboo and hidden pits.

The war underground

Life in the tunnels was terribly hard. Fighters and villagers spent long periods underground in heat, darkness and foul air, alongside insects, rats and disease, while the land above them was shelled and bombed. The American forces launched major operations to clear the area, bulldozing forests, flooding tunnels, using dogs, gas and explosives, and later carpet-bombing the region with B-52s. They also sent specially trained soldiers, known as tunnel rats, into the tunnels with a pistol and a torch to fight in the dark. Huge numbers on both sides were killed in and around Cu Chi. Much of the farmland was turned into a cratered wasteland, and it has taken decades to recover.

Visiting today

Two sections of the network, at Ben Dinh and Ben Duoc, have been preserved and opened to visitors. Some of the tunnels have been widened to allow visitors to crawl through short stretches, and even these enlarged passages are cramped, hot and dark. Anyone with claustrophobia can watch from above. Guides demonstrate the hidden entrances, the traps and the kitchens, and a film made during the war presents the Vietnamese view of events. There is also a firing range where visitors can fire wartime rifles, and the sound of gunfire across the site can be jarring.

The sites are told from the Vietnamese point of view, as the story of a people's resistance. Whatever one's view of the war, the ingenuity and endurance that went into the tunnels are hard to deny, and so is the suffering they represent.

The tours that include Cu Chi

The tunnels are a common excursion from Ho Chi Minh City, and several cycling tours include them. Explore Worldwide's Upgraded Cycle Vietnam, thirteen nights, includes the Cu Chi tunnels. It also takes in the south-east coast: Binh Chau, Ke Ga Cape, Phan Thiet and Mui Ne with the White Lake dunes, Phan Rang, Nui Chua National Park and Nha Trang.

Explore Worldwide's Cycle Vietnam and Cambodia, twelve nights, includes Cu Chi, the Mekong Delta towns of My Tho, Ben Tre, Can Tho and Chau Doc, then Phnom Penh, Kampong Cham, Kampong Thom, Siem Reap and Angkor Wat. Explore Worldwide's Cycle Saigon to Hanoi, thirteen nights, includes Cu Chi on a route that runs the length of the country.

A visit to Cu Chi takes half a day, and it is not a light one. It is worth combining with a visit to the War Remnants Museum in the city to understand the wider story.