in tunnel

These pictures show me in the tunnel, this was the very largest part of the tunnels, and with the flash it looks nice and bright, but the 50 m of tunnel that we crawled through were mostly in pitch dark and had been widened for us tourists. Even in the wider tunnel I found it hard enough to go the 50 m, while the average distance covered in any day by the Viet Cong was 10 km. There were over 250 km of tunnels and kitchens, meeting rooms, hospitals, sleeping quarters and much more all underground. In fact the first American army base was built over a part of the existing tunnels from the time of the French. It took the Americans a long time to figure out why they were being shot at during the night from inside their camp. The one picture of me in a crater is a hole from a single B52 bomb. The craters were used to hide the dirt from the new tunnels that were being built. The tunnel war was so successful in this area that the Americans had the rule of dropping any unused bombs into this area at the end of any bombing mission. During the war 16 thousand people lived or operated underground, only 6 thousand survived the 10 thousand day war.

In any village and even family there were those who supported the Americans and those that supported the Viet Cong so at meetings everyone wore masks so they would not know who else was there. In fact I kept a good eye on Aja while we were there, but I am sure she is on the same side as me.... or is she?

Pictures at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26080359@N08/sets/72157623542659287/