The tunnels were used by the Viet Kongs to fight the US forces. Many VietKongs died from the large scale bombings, and therefore they decided to live underground to get shelter from the aerial bombardments. Such is the will to live, which is why the Vietnamese are known to be survivors.
Life was tough. They survived by living on 4 rules. 1) No Sound. 2) No Smell. 3) No Trail. 4) No Smoke. The VietKong soldiers managed to accomplish all those things, which is probably why they managed to win a superpower.
The tunnels could reach 15 m deep, and with each level, the paths got smaller and smaller. Another reason is that the holes were designed to be narrow so that the bigger built American soldiers could not squeeze through or would get stuck halfway, vulnerable to enemy fire.
Air holes were tunneled through termite nests so that the dogs would not be able to sniff out the entrances to the tunnels. They had to learn how to communicate silently as the Americans dropped tree like voice detectors which were able to pinpoint Vietkong positions. So if a VietKong soldier speaks too loudly, the next thing he knows, a bomber would make a strafing run. Hence the first rule, No Sound.
No smell. How do they get rid of all the smoke fumes from cooking and the pungent smell of the toilets? The Vietkong cooked their food at night so that the fumes would not be so easily seen. As for the smell, they actually poured sulfur over to mask the smell and burned it as well. All the fumes would be funneled into this smoke disperser. Their chimneys do not disperse smoke from the same location. Rather, smoke is dispersed by using a manhole to cover the air hole, so smoke disperses faster, hence being less visible.
We saw the ingenuity of the Vietkong, making deadly traps out of primitive weapons, and they were really effective against the highly armed American forces. These traps were not meant to kill the soldier instantly, but rather incapacitate them and force other American soldiers to rescue their screaming comrades. Then, the VietKong soldiers would swarm to the source of the noise and eliminate all enemies in the area.
Throughout the area, there were many bomb craters to be seen. Also there were some trapdoors which were really well concealed. A VietKong soldier on the run can mysteriously disappear under a trapdoor small enough for a skinny man to squeeze through on the floor and reappear somewhere else.
We went down to a section of the Chu Chi tunnel. 70 metres sounds easy, but when actually crawling through, it was really tough. It can get quite unnerving and uncomfortable. I found it quite hard to believe that the tunnels were acutally twice its original size because the government had to expand it to enable bigger sized tourists to experience the Chu Chi tunnel. And we were only on the second level.
The most exciting thing about the entire trip to the Chu Chi tunnels was the firing range. We heard many "pop pop pop" sounds throughout our walk around the complex, wondering whether it was gunfire. Our suspicions were confirmed when we got to the firing range. Boy we were excited. The gun of choice was the AK 47. I myself bough 5 rounds for 10 Singapore Dollars. It was worth the money.
Went for lunch, then headed down to this huge complex, a Cau Dai temple. Cau Dai is an almagamation of many religions, including christianity, catholism, budhism, hinduism, taoism, confusionism amongst others. They believe that there is only one god, and he sends his ambassadors in the forms of the gods we know of today.
The temple was built in 1933 and completed in 1955. At full capacity it can sit 800 people. The positions taken denote the rank of the follower. There are 3 stages to Caudaism. 1st stage : Don't know who to pray to. 2nd stage : Know that there are a lot of Gods. Last stage : Realise that there is only One true God.
Caudaism combined many practices from all the different religions. For example, in the prayer, the men sit on the right while the ladies on the left. This is from confusionism, which preaches order. The hierachy of how they are seated is something like that of the vatican, with the main leader as the "pope". All followers are vegans and unmarried. They also had colour codes. Red for confusionism, Blue for Taoism and Yellow for Budhism. Those in white did not belong to any section of the "Church". And the purpose of prayers were noted by the headgear the worshipers were wearing. Those wearing black were mourners, praying for someone who has just passed on. Mourning usually lasts a month.
So how do the followers determine who to worship? In the past they used to use 15 year old male virgins to decide. They were put though a trance and were used as a medium to connect to the spiritual world. And whoever the medium is connected to would speak to the leaders of Caudai. Carh said that the design of the temple was sent from "God" through a medium as well. However this practice has been outlawed by the government as they do not want to have any religious unrest, especially when leaders can be politically motivated.
There are 3 million followers to date, and they strongly believe that if there is only one religion, there would not be any religious conflict.
After that we headed back to town to visit Saigon Square, another wholesale market.
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