My Chuchi Experience

Enough as been written about the Chuchi Tunnels so instead of regurgitating the history behind the vast and complex VC tunnel system, I thought I'd give you the highlights from my experience. First off, you need to understand that the Vietnamese have no problem in stating the obvious. If you are plump, you will be called “big man” or “big lady,” so hope they don’t characterize you this way. Before getting to the tunnels, everyone in my pack was lined up, and the guide went down the row pointing to people on which tunnel they could see. Tunnels have been recreated a littler wider for westerners to act like VC. Down the line they went: “big tunnel .. big tunnel .. little tunnel”; the closer they got to me, the more I wanted to be labeled “little tunnel.”
They pointed to me, sent me in with the smaller people, explained that we would be going down 8 meters into the ground and tunneling across 100 meters. There were “air holes” at 50 meters and the guide smiled and said “no problem, let’s go.” I was trying my best to remember metric conversions .. wondering how far and long would I be underground? What was this about an air hole? Does this mean I can’t breath before then? Suddenly I wanted to be fat.
The photos are of me getting in to the tunnel (you cover up with a door the way the VC did), and tunneling.