Co Chi Coup

Thursday 2 October 2008
Saigon (Ho CHi Minh City)

So we get up early and get a bus to the Co Chi Tunnels - these are the tunnels that the Viet Minh built initially suring the French War but then mainly and extensively during the American War to hide and also attack. The tunnels were built at random and by independent people so no one knew the whole system. They were so long that the Americans actually built a base on top of them, not knowing that they were already there.

We see all the history and the different tachniques used in building and hiding the tunnels. We hear about the techniquues the Americans used to try to get rid of them, none of which worked successfully. We watch the booby traps that the Vietnamese created for the Americans. Painful.
And we get to crawls through the tunnels which, as my family will tell you, is something that I loved.

After we returned to the city we had lunch at a Vietnamese "fast food" place which was very tasty. After that the good Doctor and I went to Reunification Palace, formerly the Presidential Palace of South Vietnam during the war, and previous to that the colonial headquarters of the French. The initial building in French colonial style was destroyed and it was rebuilt during the war as a 1970s eyesore. Walking round it you get a great sense that it would make a great baddy's lair from a 70s James Bond - it's all tasteless furniture and colours in an opulent style. But the basement is interesting, all old telecommunications equipment and maps, where the war operations were run from. I half expected to see some uniformed minions drive past on an electric buggy - two at the front and two at the back, facing backwards.

By the time we were ready to leave it was raining like a bitch once again so we caught a taxi which was actually pretty cheap.

In the evening we went to the Contintental Hotel where Graham Greene wrote and set The Quiet American, before dinner and going to bed at an unreasonably early 10.30.