A highly recommended tour that you need to take when you're in saigon...
This trip will take you to the wartorn era of Vietnam, and the guide will give you information on how the Vietcongs lived and fought the war back in the days... after which you'd realize why the Vietcongs won over the Americans; jungle guerilla fighting was the way to go then.
They showed us booby traps and airholes for their underground tunnel, they also let you buy a maximum of 5 bullets so you can shoot any weapon of choice (that is if you want to) I opt not too since I did that back in high school when we had our bivouac, and also when I went to the firing range the shots were just horribly deafening (i guess that's what you get with o*d age :o), the most expensive one is the AK47 and the bullet ranges from $1 to $1.5 each.
The highlight of the tour was going inside the actual tunnel, some of us had flashlights but the guide said to refrain from using them so we could get the real feel inside. It was soooooo dark and narrow you could just almost fit inside. There was a lot of screaming and panicked voices specially from the group of young Singaporeans that were like shouting expletives in English and Chinese, it was like we were in a real war haha-- they were nervous in a good way...While traversing the tunnel, claustrophobia comes to mind. There were two brits ahead of me leading the pack, the second one; a chubby bloke decided to take the detour on the first sign of light. The other one went back when he thought that there was a dead end, he told me "go ahead be my guest if you find a way through i'll follow suit". He didn't see the hole on top of the "dead end wall", I did (may flashlight kasi ako hahaha) so I carried on, there were moments were I thought of taking the detour which is the easy way out, but good thing i continued coz it was really rewarding and the Chilean woman behind me was giving me some sort of boost to keep on moving forward by chatting with me like we're not inside a deep dark hole, i was filming the whole tunnel crawl w/ my camera phone the whole time and it was like the blair witch project, vietcong style--"I'm sowee, i'm sowee i'm wesponsible".
We didn't really crawl, but more like walking on squat (duck walk). When I finally got out at the end there was a big sigh of relief, there was an adrenalin rush and an urge that you had to get out of the tunnel as fast as you can else the whole structure collapses on top of you. I was breathing hard outside but at the same time I can feel my heartbeat go into normal mode again =).
It was tiring and I was really sure I was going to have cramps right after, thank god i'm not good at predictions.
If you're a genuine claustrophobic I would insist that you go inside the tunnel and give a go at it, I can almost assure you that this would make your phobia disappear... if it doesn't ummmm, well... you're screwed! soweee!After the tunnel we were treated to a Viet cup of tea and tapioca (i didn't know that it's cassava hehe, i'm still not sure upto now, i'll google it later).
There was also this Chilean couple in the group that first sounded turkish when they spoke to each other but had Spanish words that I understood... so I put my un pocito Spanish to use, and amazingly I understood the woman and answered in a sometimes barok español, I found out that their spanish is diferente from the general south american speaking countries. I spoke several sentences until my vocabulary just gave up hehe...
Even though I was the only soloista in the group; overall I had a great time; knowing my spanish would almost survive in the real world, and I also enjoy talking to some of the Singaporean kids fresh from their graduation (college I think), and they're doing some travels a a gift for themselves; I wish I had a gift like that too when I was a student--the only travel I got back then was a trip to the nearest sari-sari store to buy Datu Puti.
I was glad I actually tried my poquitito spanish. It goes to show that travel does make your world smaller and your experience richer.
p.s.
-bus and guide $4 at any tour agency
-entrance ticket to Cuc hi 80.000 dong
-Datu Puti P12.00 isang plastik
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