Early next morning, Golan, the Australian couple & I boarded our tour bus to the Cu Chi tunnels. On the way there, we visited a small scale industry where handicrafts were being produced by handicapped people. The stuff on display was quite fantastic, but it was just another overpriced tourist trap, and nobody bought anything.

The whole experience at the Cu Chi tunnels was quite an amazing experience; one that I would highly recommend. The tunnels were made by the Viet Cong to escape from American bombs and to conduct guerilla warfare against the American troops during the Vietnam war. Portions of the tunnels that were still intact had been widened to allow tourists to enter them. Despite the widening, they were extremely cramped. We got cramps just walking/crawling through a 60m stretch. It was also quite unnerving because you could move only as fast as the people in front of you and there was no easy way out if you got a panic attack. Definitely not a place for claustrophobics to be in. I cannot even begin to imagine how the Viet Cong built these underground mazes and at times spent weeks within them.

One of the entrances to the tunnels

Can you spot the ghost?

When in Vietnam, you wear the trademark conical hat - even if you're in a dark tunnel

Golan, Lisa & Peter bringing up the rear

I had already spent more time in HCMC than I could afford to, because there was still so much more to see and time was running out. I had to be in Hanoi in about a week’s time to catch my flight to the USA. This meant that I now had two choices : rush through the central portion of Vietnam by road/rail and reach Hanoi just in time to board my flight, or fly directly to Hanoi and spend the week in and around Hanoi. I opted for the latter because there was no way I could do justice to central Vietnam if I were to rush through it. This only means that I have to return to Vietnam one day to cover what I missed.

In the evening, Golan and I met up with Lisa, the Italian couchsurfer and Johanna from Switzerland for dinner. All of us then went to the Cage Club, where a couchsurfing meet was to happen. It was probably the worst couchsurfing meet I’d been to, because there was no way one could have a conversation over the extremely loud music. We were out of there in no more than half an hour.

The crazy buffalo near our room - an ugly building, but a superb landmark if you're lost or want a rendezvous point