|
The young American woman weighs the machine-gun lightly in her arms. "Try it," she enthuses in a southern drawl. "It makes you feel so powerful."
We politely demur. Somehow it doesn't seem right. After all, we are just a short distance from Cu Chi, where an estimated 18,000 Vietcong spent most of the 1960s living in 250 kilometres of tunnels, rising only to strike against United States soldiers and their allies. After a string of unsuccessful ground raids, the Americans dealt with the impasse by shelling the Cu Chi region, about 50 kilometres north-west of the southern capital Saigon, back to the Funan age. About 12,000 died. Less than 40 years on, the tunnels are a low-budget war theme park. Enthusiastic tourists like our American friend can pose for photos on top of the shell of a US tank, still standing where it was knocked out in 1970, and feel the red earth walls closing in as they crawl in near darkness through 100 metres of tunnel. For an even more visceral history buzz, they can pay $US1 a bullet ($A1.20) to blaze away with an AK-47 on a shooting range next to an outdoor souvenir stand. Earmuffs included. This is southern Vietnam, a tick over 30 years after the fall of the democratic south - now with a communist veneer that doesn't bother trying to conceal the flourishing zest for capitalism. It's an eyebrow-raising experience to see young men wearing Vietcong gear selling this rough but vivid war history to packs of touring Westerners, particularly Americans. The site, defoliated in battle, is barely developed beyond being reforested with eucalypts. There are huge craters in the earth where the tunnel-busting shells hit and basic demonstrations of Vietcong traps - false ground covering spikes crafted from bomb fragments was a favourite. A couple of original tunnel openings remain but the claustrophobic need not apply. In a couple of instances, tunnels have been widened by 20 centimetres to accommodate those grown on modern Western diets. Even then the dirt rubs against your back and shoulders as you crawl along on all fours. At the shooting range, The staff smile sweetly, or at worst look uninterested, as Westerners treat the weapons that caused so m uch havoc here like toys. Hardier Western tourists have been coming for years but it is only recently that Vietnam has fully opened for business. Australians are taking more advantage than most, being turned on to Vietnam at a faster rate than any other country. More than 11,000 Australians visited last year - a jump of 21 per cent on 2005.
 |
Show/Hide comments
Show/Hide comment form
