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Possibly one of the most interesting tour experiences you might come across in Vietnam is a visit to the Cu Chi Tunnels. The tunnels here are part of a larger network of tunnels in the region which extend for thousands of miles. It’s hard to believe that people would spend hours or days underground in these tiny, claustrophobia-inducing holes. Or that they have now become a major tourist attraction. But for anyone visiting Ho Chi Minh City, a Cu Chi Tunnels tour is a must-do activity.
Where Are The Cu Chi Tunnels?
Although classed as being part of southern Vietnam’s largest city, the ever-growing Ho Chi Minh City, the tunnels are outside of the main urban area. It will take about an hour driving North-West from HCMC to reach the Cu Chi Tunnels, which is are surrounded by countryside.
The typical Vietnam tourist route either starts or ends in Ho Chi Minh City, making your way from one end of the country to another. Plan for at least two full days in HCMC, and put aside a half day for this tour.
Booking A Cu Chi Tunnels Tour
An hour’s drive from central Ho Chi Minh City, the Cu Chi Tunnels can easily be done as a day trip. In fact most tours are offered as either a morning or afternoon activity so you can plan other things around your experience. The Cu Chi Tunnels tour I took picked up at 8am and we were back in HCMC before 2pm. That gave plenty of time for an afternoon food tour.
Since the Cu Chi Tunnels are popular, and because transportation is needed, it’s recommended to book a tour in advance. Either through a tour booking site like Viator (which is what I did), or your hotel. The Cu Chi Tunnels tour usually include a hotel pickup so it’s best to wait until you’ve booked your accommodation before securing a spot.
The guided tour, including hotel pick up and drop off, will typically cost around $25 per person. And English-speaking guides make the tour really easy to follow. We booked a small group tour (there were 15 people) which I highly recommend. It’s a busy place and easy to get lost in a crowd if part of a bigger tour.
Who Will Enjoy This Tour
Any history buffs out there? If so, you’ll probably be really fascinated by this place. Even if you don’t know a lot about the history of the Vietnam war this is still an interesting place to visit. Plus it’s interactive enough to keep kids and adults engaged.
For Americans, the only additional thing to note is that the Vietnam war is referenced in ways not always favorable to the United States. Given the nature of this activity and what the tunnels were predominantly used, if you are sensitive to this subject it might not be the best for you.
When it comes to accessibility, almost the whole experience is wheelchair-friendly. The most obvious exception would be the tunnels themselves as getting into the tunnels is an offered activity. Although there are a lot of people who don’t like small spaces and also opt out of this part of the tour. There are some narrow paths with a few tree roots but it is mostly flat. Also the underpass to get from the entrance has a ramp to help wheelchair users and people with strollers.
What can you see on the tour?
The tour will take you on a route through the heritage site that avoids overlapping groups. All groups take the same route so you all get your chance to see everything. There are chances to get a bit more up close and personal with some of the exhibits than you might expect, but it’s a really interesting tour.
Cu Chi Tunnels backstory
The tour starts with a weirdly awkward communist-esque propaganda video depicting life in Vietnam before and after the Vietnam war. Even if the video is a bit biased, there’s some useful information about the war and why the tunnels were used.
The creation of the tunnels
After watching the longer-than-necessary video explore some of the information panels, diagrams and interactive maps. They show how the tunnels were constructed, what they were used for and how they remained hidden. It’s actually a very impressive notion that there were so many of these tunnels around.
Historical sites and tunnels
It might depend on which Cu Chi Tunnels tour guide you get as to how in detail they go with their history. But either way, you will see a lot of historical sites including bomb craters, hiding places, and of course, tunnels. The good news is they are all clearly marked in Vietnamese and English.
There are a couple of opportunities to enter the tunnels. The first includes getting into a ridiculously small hole and being covered with a lid and leaves, then breaking out. The other involves entering the tunnel at one end and crawling to emerge at the other end. If you’re not great with tight spaces perhaps give this a miss, but I’d recommend taking part if you can.
Cultural learnings
One thing that might be unexpected about a tour that centers around war is the focus on cultural heritage. From learning about the traditional homes in the area to demonstrations on how to make rice paper. There’s also a shoemaker’s hut where you can find out some interesting facts about the shoes the Viet Cong wore.
Traps and weapons
One of the weirdest, and most graphic parts of the Cu Chi Tunnels tour was the booby trap demonstrations. Each one ended with an explanation of how the American soldiers succumbed to the trap (again, remember the subject matter of this site). You can also learn about the bunkers and military weapons used in the war by the Viet Cong army.
Speaking of weapons, there’s an opportunity on the tour to shoot guns including an AK-47. If you’ve ever desired to shoot automatic weapons, or live out your own personal Scarface moment, this is the time. For those who opt out of firing live ammunition, there’s a concession area next to the shooting range. With ice cream, drinks and snacks, it’s a great place to sit and relax to the sound of gunfire.
Should you book a Cu Chi Tunnels tour?
There aren’t many places you can get this close to seeing how it was for soldiers at war. Or discover such a collection of historic memorabilia. The graphic depictions of events and the fact the tunnels only existed for attacking and killing soldiers means isn’t for everyone. If you are interested in history though, and can push past some communist propaganda, you’ll really want to take a Cu Chi Tunnels tour.
If you have time in Ho Chi Minh City, another interesting place to check out is the War Remnants Museum. US Army tanks and helicopters and US Air Force fighter planes are all on display. And the museum itself has comprehensive information about the war as well as other artifacts.
If you’ve enjoyed this post leave a comment or share using the social media buttons below. Have you taken a Cu Chi Tunnels tour? What were your thoughts on it? If you haven’t yet visited Vietnam, is this something you’ll want to check out?
This article brings back memories of my wonderful visit to Vietnam a few year ago. The Cu Chi tunnels give you a real taste of how people survived in Vietnam during the war….it’s good to remember these things and definitely worth visiting. Thanks for sharing!
Wow, what an interesting read this is. I had learnt about these tunnels at school but to actually see them is so interesting and makes you realise how horrific war can be. I would love to visit when I get to Vietnam.
What an awesome post! I visited Ci Chi Tunnels 2 years ago and what a fascinating place. The tunnels are so small that it is hard to believe they could spend so much time inside them. Your post is extremely useful for anyone visiting the Tunnels, I wish I had seen this prior to my trip.
Do you think this counts as Dark tourism as it is from such a sad moment in history? It’s really mad to see the boobie traps and bomb craters. But they pretty scary when you think of people falling into them or being in those blasts!
I would definitely count it as dark tourism. I’m sure a lot of crazy things happened around there, and yes I agree the traps were insane – the fact that someone thought them up as a way to maximize hurting someone.
I’m a history nerd, so this is very appealing to me. I’m also a political junkie- I’m very curious to learn more about the war from the Vietnamese perspective. The war was extremely controversial here in the states. Thank you for sharing!
Interesting! I love learning about history from other countries’ perspective, it can be quite eye opening. I’d love to do this tour.
Wow this is a unique place to tour, I had no idea this was something you could visit. Thanks for sharing more about the history of this place.
As an American, I always think it’s interesting to visit other countries and learn about American history through the eyes of another culture. I think this would be an experience that I would really enjoy for that reason! Thanks for sharing this detailed guide 🙂
Wow what an interesting day trip. I never know how I feel about dark tourism type destinations but it looks informative.
I would like to visit Vietnam someday. Your post reminds me of concentration camps in Germany and Poland and also of the Lynching Memorial in Alabama.
This is a great resource and guide to the Cu Chi Tunnels in Vietnam. Greatly appreciate your review to help manage expectations from the potential claustrophobic aspects and the purpose of the tunnels and booby traps. I’m intrigued as I love all things history and would be interesting to hear from their perspective.
Awesome! I have never heard of Cu Chi tunnels. I would love to visit Vietnam and do this tour. It’s always interesting to learn about history and how people survived during the war. Bookmarking your blog. 🙂
This was such an eye opening post! Never heard of these tunnels but wow, I might be a little nervous visiting but thank you for sharing this!
Very interesting. Definitely something to visit when in HCMC.
Such a beautiful post on Chu chi tunnels, it takes you back to some dark moments in history and why war should be avoided!
But I’m so happy to see you have captured all the quaint details and settings so finely!Loved reading it! Thank you for sharing ❤️
Both interesting and sad at the same time. Thank you for sharing this. History is important. Even the parts we may not like.
Fascinating! I also appreciated what you said if you are from the USA. It is really important to hear both sides, because there are always two sides to every story, especially in war 🙁 So hard to believe sometimes. Thanks for sharing this day trip idea.
Both I and my husband love history so we are definitely doing the tour when in HCMC. Thank you for this informative guide.
Wow this is scary but really cool. Would love to visit
What a unique tour! I like to learn about things even if it is a bit difficult to hear about. I think it’s important to learn history from all standpoints. I’ve only learned about the Vietnam War in the U.S. so it would be interesting to hear about it from the country it happened it.
Don’t know if I could do those tunnels! Yikes!
I love learning more about the history of different places. The war was really controversial here (understandably) and it would be really eye-opening to see this from Vietnam’s perspective. Thank you for this post–I wasn’t even aware that this was something that you could visit!
I savoured every word of this interesting post. The tunnels are clearly an important feature of the war, and the war itself having far-reaching ramifications for the region. It’s definitely a tour I would take. Thank you for such a detailed description.
When I was in Vietnam, we didn’t have time to visit the tunnels and I didn’t think we were missing much but this sounds much more interesting than I thought! I’ll definitely have to add them to my list for when I re-visit Vietnam.
Wow, this is super fascinating! I really regret missing this when I was in HCMC a few years ago. I thought the whole experience was in the tunnels, and I don’t do well in small spaces. But great to hear there’s so much to see and hear outside of the tunnels too. And awesome that it’s accessible to wheelchair users!
Great article. Enjoyed reading about the site despite missing it when I was in HCMC. There is more to it than I thought. I primarily skipped it as reviews kept talking about the very tight-spaced underground tunnels and being 6 feet 1 inches tall (1.88 metres) I just felt I wouldn’t fit into them and thus miss out on the experience. Now I see there was more to the site that would have made it interesting for me, other than the tunnels. It’s on the list if I revisit Vietnam,
I did this tour a few years ago and you have summarised it perfectly. Reading your post really took me back and reminded me of how much I learned in Vietnam.
How interesting- eerie and but a necessary part of history that is worth knowing about. This would be something I would be interested in definitely. I’m glad you are sharing this.
This sounds like such a cool and amazing experience to do in Vietnam! I absolutely love learning about the history of places and any activity that enriches that history knowledge, I’m all for it! I’ll keep this activity in mind for when I visit Vietnam
Cannot wait to visit Vietnam one day soon and HoChi Minh looks awesome! Not sure if I could do those tunnels though LOL