After yesterday's visit to one of the big markets, cocktails with the weird food-smelling Canadian at the Rex Hotel (where foreign journalists hung out during the war, and where one can now get some of the most expensive drinks in Vietnam) and dinner with the group (cute place, terrible food), I was not thrilled to have to wake up at 6:30 to visit the Cu Chi Tunnel. I should have slept in.
What should have been a war memorial was handled more like a war amusement park, complete with a high-priced shooting gallery for people itching to try their luck with an AK-47. To start, we watched a short film about the American devils who indiscriminately killed women and children in a war fought several thousand miles from their country. It also introduced us to the tunnels, where heroic Vietnamese guerrillas hung out while awaiting their chance to kill Americans. I think there were prizes given for those who killed 100 or more. Not really feeling the love, but who can blame them?
After that super-fun film, we started our tour of the area. First, there was a guy in army uniform demonstrating lowering the lid of the tunnel after covering it with leaves. Many of my fellow travelers thought this would be a good photo op. Other good photo opportunities: sitting on a captured tank, in a crater made by a B-52 bomb, and with mannequins dressed as North Vietnamese Army soldiers and guerrillas. All very weird and unsettling. So off-putting, in fact, that I suffered from nausea for a good hour after we left. My question: what's wrong with a tasteful memorial to those who lost their lives, and to the heroes of the war?
Back in Saigon now, having just walked around a little (very little. It's around 100 degrees and humid). Looking forward to touring the Mekong Delta tomorrow, and to Cambodia (day after tomorrow, after a 7 hour public bus ride that I am NOT looking forward to).
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