Vietnam's Northern Line

13th December - Cu chi - Southern Vietnam

Hey fool, gimme that gun!

Ever since the age of 12, I have been 12. When, at an age of 28, I had the opportunity to go down some Viet Minh tunnels and shoot machine guns all in the same day, I was as giddy as a schoolboy.

The Cu Chi area, some 50km outside Saigon, was an area of fierce fighting between American and Viet Minh forces in the late '60s. This type of combat was not new to the Viet Minh who had been fighting the occupational forces of the French and later the Americans since the '50s and had developed a vast network of tunnels (some of which ran underneath American military installations) to allow them to quickly move between locations in relative safety.

Today, it is possible to visit the tunnels to learn about the plight of the VM. However for many, it is a chance to crawl through small, dark underground passages and shoot machine guns. I hesitate whether to exclude myself from this number.

After the main part of the tour, which includes shows of tiger traps, bolt holes and craters from the payloads of B52s, you are invited to spend your hard earned dollar on varying 7.62mm rounds for a number of different weapons.

I opted for the 10 rounds on the M60 (tripod mounted 'big boy') machine gun and another 5 on an AK47. The former, being fully automatic, belt-fed and with a rate of fire of 550rpm, ate most of my money in a single burst whilst simultaneously rendering me deaf. I finished off the rest of the bullets and might have even hit the target. The AK, a more lightweight assualt rifle, proved quite accuate an easy to handle. However it didn't look as cool.

After the joys of handling live weopons, one might reasonably expect the rest of the day to be comparatively dull. However, that was not to be: Shortly after ruptering both eardrums, we were invited to closely inspect a 100m length of the tunnels, with depths ranging from 3 - 9 metres underground.

Although most people took this tour to see the tunnels, I was surprised at the number of people who abstained at the last minute. I was happy to play follow the leader as we descended into the humid and thoroughly claustrophobic entrance to the tunnels. From that point onwards, it was a case of trying to keep up with those in front whilst sweating one's way around the network of tunnels. I think that the picture below aptly demonstrates my state of relaxation (well it was pretty dark when the flash went out...).