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Details: Vietnam War Cu Chi Tunnels visit
Hospitals, latrines, cafeterias, meeting rooms, hallways -- all underground. Anti-colonial forces began digging these tunnels in the 1930’s for resistance maneuvers against the French and Japanese, and continued to expand the 75-mile network during the Vietnam War. To escape American troops, they would stay underground for days or weeks at a time. Frustrated, American soldiers carpet bombed the entire area; large holes show the site of these explosions. Squeeze down the tiny tunnels, now a major tourist attraction.
Details: Ho Chi Minh City guided sightseeing tour
An elegant city built on marshland, the economic center of Vietnam, a metropolis of heavy Soviet architecture and sprawling American-style hotels. Ho Chi Minh City (still often called by its former name of Saigon) comfortably -- and profitably -- combines Vietnam's competing colonial influences. See French symbolism at the Notre Dame Cathedral and City Hall, either of which would look right at home on the Côte d'Azur. The War Remnants Museum looks unflinchingly at the wars with both the French and the Americans, and at the damage inflicted on the country and its residents during the wars. You can almost step back into that time at the Reunification Palace, preserved as it was on the morning of April 30, 1975, when South Vietnam surrendered to North Vietnam.