After picking up the other two people on our group we made our way to Cu Chi. As with all tours we we first made an unannounced stop at a lacquerware factory staffed by disabled people.

We had a brief tour of the factory and were shown how the lacquerware is made which was quite informative before being herded into the shop to be stalked by sales staff trying to get you to buy their wares. We managed to get out of the shop fairly quickly so we could continue our drive to Cu Chi.

On arrival at Cu Chi the weather was overcast but extremely hot and humid. Even our guide was sweating and complaining about the weather! Our first stop was a film on Cu Chi and the tunnels which was shown in a dugout cinema with a roof over the top. It was stifling in there. The film was quite amusing as it was probably the most propagandic film I'd ever seen. Even more amusing was when a rat appeared in the cinema, we never saw it but we could see the ripple of people in the crowd moving and screaming as it ran about.

After the film we walked around the area with its old bomb craters, secret entrances to the tunnels, traps and mocked up rooms like the hospital and meeting rooms. We had the chance to stand in one of the tunnel entrances which we were told had been widened for tourists. It was still very small and you could barely fit in or, as it turns out, get out.

We also go to walk through a 20 metre section of the tunnels which had again been widened to allow tourists to fit through. Walking in a squat position for 20 metres was enough and the legs were hurting for days afterwards.

The last stop here was the firing range where you could pay to shoot various guns. The AK47 was the weapon of choice with the minimum ten bullets! We then walked back to the bus and drove back to Saigon.