Confessions of a Tunnel Rat

Day the last. I woke up to find a plate of breakfast sandwiches in the reading room. Hot cheese and some sort of pink meat. So sweet. I read some more Dog Years and ate them up. Then I got the camera bag together for the last day.

The schedule called for an afternoon trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels, and I had three hours to kill. I might have walked down there but there was sudden pressure to take a ride with my host's dad. He's retired and loves to get out of the house.

If nothing else, this was a really cool slice of domestic life in a major Southeast Asian city. So, I hopped on the back of the old man's bike and we zipped back to the mall food court they call downtown.

A few weeks ago, I would have used this opportunity to blitz-visit an outlying neighborhood, like when I slithered over to Cobra Town, but the hot outlier here is "Chinatown." And as interesting as the idea of a Chinatown just a few hours away from actual Chinese towns might be, it didn't feel like anything I needed to negotiate with a tuk tuk for.

So, I took a slow walk over to the areas I'd sped by yesterday when I was trying to ditch the aggressive cyclist. Fountains, columns, gift shops, tours to the Cu Chi Tunnels, day cruises to floating markets on the Mekong.

On a dirtier side street, I saw a dude reading the paper in a duct-taped old chair. He had a bunch of barber-shop equipment hanging on a chain link fence, and I touched my scruffy face and tossed my shaggy travel hair and thought, "Hef won't like me like this."

So, I was like, "How much for a cut and a shave?"  Four of your Earth dollars was the reply. He got out of the chair, and I got in.

None of your blue liquid here, the scissors were in a coffee can. He used a straight razor, and right before he made the first swipe, he said, "New! New!" I'll assume he meant the blade and not my look. My camera and stuff were in my bag at my feet and completely out of my sight and control.

So, it was an exercise in trust and letting go.

And it paid off with a clean look and a comfortable face. I felt like a million dong afterward. I paid him $10 instead of $4 and he lost his mind. Pay attention, shoe shiners.

Sidewalk haircut!!

I looked like I was ready to read at my Bar Mitzvah.

It actually entered my mind that my host family would appreciate my clean, new look. It's funny how folks you'll never see again become important to you. Our manners are how we show respect for other people.

Got some chicken fingers and coffee and made my way to the bus station. There was the usual half hour of collecting folks from hotels and then the trek to the Surrounding Environs.

There was an articulate guide who gave us a quick capsule history, and it was noticeably more sanitized than the one Lics gave on the way to Ha Long Bay. In this version, the Japanese "left" after WWII, no mention of the bomb.

Some things came into better focus. Like, it makes sense the Communist portion of the Vietnamese Army was in the North, since that's closer to China and Russia, the Communist countries sending them weapons and support.

Down South was where the Euros and Americans had their base, but they were constantly being harried by a rogue guerrilla force called the National Liberation Front. These guys were based in Cu Chi and lived in a sort of ant farm safe from the bombs.

                                             
Down there, they planned attacks on US bases and coordinated with the actual army up North and generally made life difficult for the invading Americans. Like, the US soldiers would be camped out when, suddenly, the ground would open up and, Cu Chi Cooo, they'd get tickled with AK47 bullets.

Then the attackers would slip back away and pop up somewhere else.

As we pulled over for a rest stop, we were reminded that some of the US bombs found their targets and, by the way, Agent Orange caused birth defects and here we are at another craft shop populated by victims of napalm poisoning.

And, like everything else in comparison to Hanoi, it was clean and expensive. The workers had all their limbs, which is not to say they weren't victims, but the presentation was so much "cleaner" than up North, that it felt like they thought they were making a more "dignified" appeal.

Up North, kids were painting with their flippers and sculpting with chisels in their twisted mouths. Here it was artist-looking folks making duck-egg mosaics and doing delicate brushwork. Everything was a zillion dollars.

I bought a dragonfruit smoothie outside.

                                               

Then we were way out in the country and entering the National Park-type area where the tunnels are, and it was supremely interesting. First, you pass by a giant collection of weapons they took off of dead US soldiers and then they show you an old propaganda film about a brave country girl who learned how to fire a gun and set traps to kill nineteen-year-old boys from Nebraska.

"She carried a rifle in one hand, and a plow in the other."

I try to be a thinking, curious, open-minded person, and it's always surprising to me that I get a chill when I hear "anti-American" stuff or stories where the Nazis win or whatever. That visceral, knee-jerk patriotism shit is deep, man.

Like, the American flag is basically the Yankee Swastika and means trouble, but... it's my country. So conflicting. Like, the rational side of me is like, "We didn't belong here, the Vietnam War was an abortion, we deserved to have our asses kicked," but then you see triumphant villagers with captured American rockets and weapons all trussed up like pigs on a motorbike and the smoking wreckage of a US Army truck, and you're like, "Fuckers, you killed that sweet Iowa boy! He asked Suzy to wait for him! They were going steady!"

                                                 

Then you get taken to a display of trap doors and spike traps and booby traps, which the tour guide gleefully sets off. Hee hee, look how this would have mangled someone. Haw, Chad sure got his banana split when he stepped into this one.

It's gross, like going to a medieval torture museum is gross. It's just easier to separate "ye olde days" from modern times. Like, "Oh man, that rusty thing sure messed up that witch's thumb three centuries ago," is so different than "The drunk with the limp in my neighborhood probably fell into this thing right after high school, and now he pees out of his elbow. And the guy who drove me to the river yesterday probably loaded the spring that set it off."

Just watching the guide dancing around and triggering the various traps like some murderous Chip and Dale was making me sick.

But, I sure took advantage of the photo op to lower myself into the tunnel entrance and pretend I was a guerrilla.

I'm 5'10" and weigh 180 pounds, but I had to go into the special tunnel that had been "widened for Americans." And it was scary. Hard to get into, and of course I put myself in the position of the villagers who would be fleeing bombs and bullets. Like, it was painful to lower myself in, I can't imagine running or jumping in. Though, of course, a banged-up knee is better than a hat full of Agent Orange.

We snaked through the tunnels, and the walls were scraping my shoulders, and I had to walk in a three-quarters crouch, and my neck and back started to hurt. Can't you make this thing taller, and maybe serve iced coffee?

I got sweaty immediately, and there was a "chicken tunnel" off to the side where you could punk out, and most of the tour did, but I stuck it out for one more leg. Then I started getting acid reflux and I could sense that I was suppressing actual panic, so I took the next chicken tunnel.

Squeaked out gasping and heard loud gunfire in the near distance. Easy movie plot, right? Guy goes into the tunnel, gets dizzy, emerges in the past.

I was near the firing range, which was the next stop on the tour. But first, some tea and cassava root. Tea was nice. Cassava tasted like a sad potato. Then the gift shop, where I bought a (probably fake!) stamp collection and turned down the opportunity to fire vintage weapons.

They have all these crazy things from the war. M16s, AK47s, M30s, etc. You buy a clip of bullets and go to a range to mess up some targets. Cu chi cooooo. Most of us said no, but three British boys were way up for it.

When I asked one later what it was like, he said he wanted to do it because he felt like he'd never have a chance to hold a gun again. "No guns in London, never fired one, no shooting ranges. It's not like America."

I said it was the equivalent of me going falconing in Wales, and he was like, "No, it's not really."

Then a quiet ride home. School was letting out in the village and it was like a Sailor Moon convention. Everyone wore those cute uniforms with the white shirt and the red tie. Hundreds of kids running home. It was sweet to see and also like, "Your grandfathers lived in caves so that you would have this chance."

Folks napped or read in the bus. I slogged through Dog Years. The Brits didn't know one another before the trip, and it was interesting to hear them discussing different neighborhoods back in Blighty.

We got back to Saigon at rush hour, and you've never been to a party like this one. Tens of thousands of motorbikes. It was overwhelming and fascinating, like seeing pulsing schools of hammerheads following magnetic signals from the Earth's core. Endless waves of them, colorful helmets, tight facemasks.

It took two weeks for me to put together that it's probably like this because there's no public transport infrastructure. Then I made myself laugh thinking I'd just been crawling through the closest equivalent to a subway.

When the traffic broke, we made our farewells and I went back to one of those "piles of army crap" stores and bought a Tunnel Rat patch probably salvaged from Wisconsin Billy's hacked-off arm. I figured I'd earned it from having made it past the first chicken tunnel.

Then, you know, that was it. The sun was almost down, I had a 6am flight back to Blighty, and the trip was done. Had a last meal in a little courtyard and drank a local beer. I watched a bunch of conger eels twisting in a tank and ordered a second beer, and then I was buzzed.

The town was really hopping now with young people running around in fountains and doing that two-straws-in-one-glass thing and holding hands. Just a big, easy early-evening public party with cosmopolitan locals. Nice to see.

So then I went to a club called Apocalypse Now to see if they could help me miss my flight, but it was too early, the pimps were still sorting the pills, so I escaped without any trouble. I reckon I was lucky it was closed. From whence sprang this sudden destructive impulse?

There was a sign on the door that was like, "no pictures, no weed, no tank tops, and no... getting killed?" I couldn't figure it out.

Took a cab home to show my naked face off to the host family. We had a pleasant farewell and they arranged a 4am cab for me. Total sweethearts. Showered, packed, slept.

In the morning, they had a bag of sandwiches for me to take on the flight! Highest rating.

Cabbed to the airport and kicked off a 22-hour flight (with layovers). They had a little picture in the airport souvenir store of a boy in Sapa and I got immediately nostalgic for... a week ago. It really was very beautiful up there. They had some toys like Poor Lost Snitchy, though no water buffaloes. I bought a rag elephant to replace him.

Then, you know, planes and airports and lines and planes and passports controls. I slept a lot and watched Straight Outta Compton. The flight landed before the movie finished, though, so I'll never know what became of Eazy-E.

The plus end equals the end.

It was a great trip, a fantastic opportunity to learn, and explore, and challenge myself. I loved it.

I had hoped to come back bragging about how the pho is better in Vietnam, but we pretty much get it exactly right.

Thanks for reading, fooooools.