Jo fires an M16
This is where the Viet Cong had an underground network of tunnels stretching for about 70 miles. It has 3 levels and included hospitals and such like. You can go in the tunnels. They’ve widened them for westerners but even with that they are tiny. Darren went in but I chickened out at the last minute – in fact I was so big a chicken that I practically resembled the Chicken at the Chicken village.
There was also a small entrance that was the original size and the guide kept making the skinny Japanese tourists get in (us generously proportioned westerners didn’t stand a chance) for a perfect photo moment. They stood in it up to their shoulders which was all great fun for them – that is until he placed the last girl in, forgot about her and walked off with the group and left her stranded. Two men had to come and eventually haul her out by the armpits in a very undignified manner.
Despite the hilarity of this, The best bit was to come. We got to play with live ammo…….
Darren had a Russian AK47 and I fired an American M16. They wouldn’t let us do rapid fire though which I thought was a bit hostile. Not convinced of the ethics of having fun with something that is actually designed and has been used to kill lots of people we thought “Sod it” and had a great time.
Eventually we started to wander back to find “the guys”, we had seen many traps designed by the VC to kill and maim American GI’s in the jungles, now we had to get through the final one – the tourist trap. We had a good old look at the the souvenir tat and lingered until we were the only people left. we weren’t in any rush and the shop wasn’t closing, so we couldn’t understand it when eventually a guy kept following us about and sort of trying to gently usher us along. Eventually we just wandered along grinning inanely and nodding back at him. Then we got to THE BUS and he tried to make us get on it and we were going “NOOOOOO, biiiiike!” and he’s going “NOOOO, BUUUUS!” and we’re going “EASYRIDERSSSSS to the rescue”. We were suitably impressed that we had managed to keep a bus waiting for at least half an hour and we weren’t even on it!!!
