Destinations

Ride day 30: Cu Chi Tunnels Loop

879

August 3, 2016

17 July 2016

We wake up late for our Cu Chi tunnels tour, and have to quickly grab all the essentials and rush down for breakfast before our guide Phuoc, arrives at 9.00 a.m. As we are eating our breakfast we see him outside, so rush to finish. We decided to ride our own bikes to the tunnels and we’d follow Phuoc on his scooter.

The ride out of D1 following Phuoc is a bit stop and go, as he sometimes cuts through narrow gaps or red lights and leaves us playing catch up. This improves however when we turn off the main roads and on to more back streets. We pass a bunch of food stores and side of road bbq’s. One with an entire cow on the spit. The very next restaurant I see has bat as a delicacy. That’s a first!

After an hour or so of riding, we park up outside a restaurant for a refreshments stop. We weren’t aware at this time that we were actually right outside the tunnels car park. We grab a drink of water, and then are told we can leave our bikes, helmet and backpack whilst we explore the tunnels.

In to the tunnels car park we walk, and it is full of coaches and minibuses. We pay the 220,000 VND for entrance for the two of us, then leave Phuoc at the gate and walk in through the modern tunnel under the road. We are shown in to one of a series of bunkers to watch an informative film from the 60’s dubbed in to English, whilst we wait for the group to gather and the Cu Chi guide to appear.

After this we are taken on a walk around the complex, with the opportunity to climb in to one of the original tunnel entrances, which was claustrophobic to say the least. We then follow down in to a series of tunnel networks, kitchen areas and past air tunnels. The display of some of the traps used was quite terrifying.

As we get closer to the constant sound of gun fire, we are offered the chance to pay to shoot a period weapon. We choose to share 10 bullets on the AK47 at the range (they also had M16 and M60 machine guns). The noise and the power of the gun is truly frightening as we take our turn. Following this there is a quick stop for local ginger tea and fried polenta sticks with salt, before heading out and back to where Phuoc was waiting for us.

Back at the small restaurant we have a basic lunch of pho bo and water, before again following Phuoc back towards D1. On the journey back we are taken to see a Chinese church and the huge Chinese market area (which sells a huge range of different fabrics), before eventually heading back through very heavy traffic (at one point so tight and so busy I had my wing mirror clipped by another bike as he was cutting in front) with Phuoc yet again making very strange lane changes and diving through red lights, making him very difficult to follow.

We get back to our hotel at 4:15 and go to pay the agreed 500,000 VND. It was then that the kicker came and Phuoc (who had essentially done nothing but direct us and offer no insight nor narrative) asked for 700,000, as he stated the 500,000 was for half a day. We argued a bit and pointed out he’d offered 500,000VND for two people for the tour, expecting to finish “around 4”. A frustrating end to the days tour.

The tunnels were amazing. The tour guide, not so much! However, we have roast dinner to look forward to.

A quick shower and change, then a 2 minute walk up the road to the book worm cafe for Sunday roast. An awesome roast dinner and a few beers was the plan. The roast certainly ticked the box. But, as we got talking to the travelling group of teachers at the next table (including pirate Steve), the beers kept flowing. Somewhere mid evening we brokered a swap deal with our old books for two new books we wanted (including for me the Guy Martin autobiography I’d been trying to get since UK).

A few more beers down, and playing high fives game with a local young girl who was meant to be selling us chewing gum. After feeling bad for her getting in trouble for enjoying herself playing with us, we bought two packs and played a bit more before she happily ran back to her mum. We finished our beers, Said our goodbyes and headed home.