Today we booked a tour to the Cu Chi tunnels which are around 45 miles from HCMC - we had a really good tour guide who spoke excellent English so he gave us a good bit of history on what happened before we got there.

History
These tunnels at their peak covered some 250km, they were dug out with only basic tools and they managed to put in kitchens and bathrooms made in ways to prevent any smoke being seen above ground . Some 26,000 people lived in these for years during the war to hide from the enemy - the tunnels are tiny - the ones we climbed through had been made specifically for us tourists sizes so you can imagine how small the real ones are !!! Of course it was full of booby traps incase anyone got in, they also cleverly designed it so if any smoke bombs came in they could close off sections and move down to the different levels till the smoke cleared - ingenius designing. 

We got to learn of the different types on booby traps they used and how they made their flip flops heel/toe shapes the wrong way round so that when they left the tracks it looked like they were running in the opposite direction.

At the end you get to fire machine guns, AK47 or M16's which was really cool 

War Musem
After the tour we got dropped off at the War Remnants Musem which has tanks and guns and jets outside where we giggled at getting our pics taken with them all .  The mood soon changed though as we wandered inside, we were shown the tiny cages that the prisoners were kept in (see pics) sometimes up to 8 people in one and they cannot stand up. Inside were more horror pics of bodies, families and villages blown up. In another room shows the pics of loads of children after the war who are SEVERELY disfigured due to the effects of the chemical bombs used by the americans, I mean literally legs and arms in places you cant imagine, there were preserved foetuses of babies that were soo disfigured, there were so many pictures of them and also of the kids today and stories of how they manage in life. It was truly horrific and so sad defo not a place for the faint hearted - it seems for the people of Vietnam the effects of war kept going even after it finished. with generations of people still being born disfigured due to the chemicals used in the war.  

We left there in silence it was hard to take in what we had seen and read about - the suffering of the Vietnamese people was huge. Wont forget some of those images in there - I have attached one picture that I found myself compelled to keep staring at - god knows what is going on in this guys head !!! This was just one of so many torturing horrific pics we saw.
 
I read this ,,,

 "America dropped 8 million tons of bombs on Vietnam between 1965 and 1973. This was over three times the amount of bombs dropped throughout the whole of the 2nd world war and worked out at approximately 300 tons for every man, woman and child living in Vietnam"

Costs
Tour costs for bus & guide - £2.91 per person
Entry fee to Cu Chi - £2.33 p/p
Cost for 10 bullets to fire in guns - £10
Entry to the war museum - £1