Cu ChiTravel Guide

Củ Chi is a suburban district of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Around 70 kilometers northwest of Saigon, Cu Chi Tunnel is right near the so-called "Iron Triangle" of Southern Vietnam. Both the Saigon River and Route 1 pass through this region which used to serve as major supply routes in and out of Saigon during the war. Hence, the Cu Chi (in Vietnamese: Củ Chi) and the nearby Ben Cat districts had immense strategic value for the NLF (National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam), contributing to persuading the weary Americans into withdrawal, and has now become a popular tourist attraction for both domestic and international visitors

History

The Cu Chi Tunnel is a huge network of underground tunnels in the Cu Chi district, and part of a larger tunnel network underlying much of Vietnam. It became legendary in the war for facilitating the local guerrillas to  win over the American troops. At first, there was no direct order of building the tunnels. However, many patriots who worked secretly in the region and were hidden by local families were caught in the French sweep operations. The locals thus had to dig secret shelters as hiding places for these patriots in the ground around their houses, which was the very early part of the tunnel. Still, the French found out and many more were captured hiding in these secret shelters. Gradually they learned to dig tunnels from one shelter to another, making the Cu Chi complex. Finally, in 1965, the tunnel was completed for the Viet Minh to hide from French air and ground sweeps.
If you are historians, or simply history-desirers, and would like to figure out how hard and heart-breaking the Vietnamese people lived and won over the past war, you should come here and try a real supposed day of the Viet tough life in the underground shelter of Cu Chi by yourself.

Tunnel content. The tunnel network stretches over 250km in total length, and comprises numerous shelters, classes, sleeping chambers, kitchens and wells inside, which were built to house and feed the growing number of residents. Several rudimentary hospitals were created to treat the wounded. Most of the supplies and materials were stolen or scavenged from U.S. bases or troops.