How to Get to the Cu Chi Tunnels on the Local Bus (Less Touristic Section!)

Instead of going on one of the many, many tours offered by the hostels to the Cu Chi Tunnels, my friend Maddy and I decided to brave the local bus and do the journey alone. This was for primarily three reasons:

1. Tours suck! Ok, they are super convenient and stress-free, but I always, always feel rushed on a tour. I am a slow traveler, what can I say.

2. The tours all go to a certain section of the tunnels but there is a different, cheaper, more extensive, and less crowded section that I wanted to explore.

3. You learn the most about a country taking public transportation! We definitely were keeping it local that day.

We started out early, hoping to beat the heat. An impossible task. Meeting at the bus terminal at 8 am sharp, we hopped onto bus 13, receiving many a bemused look from some of the elderly ladies, the buses most common patrons. We were supposed to ride the bus line to its end but had to brave HCMC traffic. Two hours later, with one sleepy Maddy, we arrived to the terminal. We switched buses and waited in the sticky heat until we were on our way again. For this shorter trip, about an hour, we were accompanied by the cutest little boy who kept staring at us. Keep on being cute, little man!

After three hours we had finally arrived to our bus stop, wahoo! Sadly, it was time to walk. We trekked through the forest and hunted for a long time to buy tickets. At this point we were both thoroughly overheated. We ended up joining a group of mismatched travelers for our tour of the tunnels. I was excited to finally be seeing them, after months of anticipation. Boy, was I in for a surprise. I knew they were small but I still was blown away. Our guide had us start out with just a ten meter section of the tunnels. It was insane! Even that short distance was hard to bear and extremely claustrophobic. The whole group exited that first section pretty overwhelmed. The next section we saw was a hidden entrance so small you had to shimmy down into it. Not everyone could do this part and even I thought it was hard. Granted, I am bigger than most Vietnamese, men and women. The last section we adventured through was the longest of them all, it was 50 meters of hell. I started out like the guide, hunched and walking, slowly switched to a squat jump, until I gave up and crawled the rest of the way. When exiting the tunnel, I was sure I couldn’t have done more without a small anxiety attack accompanying me. I was also sweating more than I ever have at one time in my life NOT in a sauna. The guide looked like he had just had a massage, he was so chill. Bastard.

Maddy and I treated ourselves to lunch and then, we did our whole journey in reverse. It was pretty uneventful except that I got screamed at by a woman to give her money to use the bathroom. This is common in Asia but I was the only person she insisted on getting money from and she hit me when I initially resisted because all the other women were getting in for free. How did I know this lady was even legit? I chose not to fight her because I really had to pee.

I would really recommend going to see the tunnels for anyone visiting HCMC!

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