Cu Chi Tunnels and HCMC

[zoli18]

We will be arriving in Phu My beginning March 2016 at 0700 and departing at 2000. Have approached several private tours and am in the process of deciding what to do. We really wanted to visit the Cu Chi Tunnels but understand that it is a long car ride. Has anyone done this? Is it worth the long car ride or should we just visit HCMC. Your comments would be appreciated. Thank you.

[John Bull]

You have a drive of about 3 hours, that's a total of about 6 hours travelling. The tunnels (there's a lot more than tunnels) are worth about 2 hours.

 

So it can be done. But that leaves little or no time to explore Saigon (add a further half-hour basic travelling one way to go via the centre rather than the outskirts), and the city itself is well worth a full day or more.

And you'll only see Vietnam from a vehicle - you'll not "experience" it or be mixing with locals or the local scene.

 

I'm told that the drive from Saigon to Cu Chi is slow (about 90 minutes) & uninteresting - we did it by speedboat, eight of us fixed it up. Travel time was similar & the cost wasn't significantly greater than going by taxi or van. Great fun. :cool:

But our (small) ship ported in the city centre for three nights giving us two very long days, which allowed us to devote a long morning to Cu Chi.

 

Unless you have some over-riding reason to visit Cu Chi, on a single day (foreshortened by travel from the port) I'd suggest you concentrate on the city centre & leave Cu Chi til some future visit.

You'll need transport between ship & city - ship's transfer bus or private transfer or tour - but the centre is pretty compact and the main sights, Reunification Hall, War Remnants museum, HCM museum, Notre Dame, Ben Thanh market etc are all walkable.

 

For anyone considering the Mekong Delta, I take the same view - a waste of a one-day port-of-call, much better to stick to Saigon.

 

Just MHO as always.

 

JB :)

[zoli18]

Thank you. That is what I thought and the tour operators I contacted were also of the same opinion. So I think we will stick with Saigon on this trip. Pity to spend most of the day in a car. Always good to get another traveller's opinion. Many thanks.:)

[Haddonqueen]

Hi , we did the tunnels last year, I thought the tour was ok but I enjoyed Saigon more, it's great for shopping and a real eye opener, we had 3 days in Saigon

[Bpos]

If you want to visit some tunnels from the war period, there are some near Phu My.

 

Theese can be combined with a full day visit to Vung Tau without much travel time.

 

Have a look at

 

Longtannuidattours

 

This organisation is run by some Australian Vietnam Vets and they will help you decide what to do for the day.

 

An Australian vet will travel with you and all proceeds from the tours go to charities the group supports in Vung Tau and Nui Dat.

 

I have personally used them for a tour in 2014 and most of the group agreed it was one of the best tours on our cruise.

 

Include a seafood lunch in Vung Tau for about $12 per head including beer and soft drink and you will think you have died and gone to heaven

[CT Valley Cruisers]

John - we'll be docking in Phu My & have been contemplating the Cu Chi tunnels but would also like to tour HCMC. Is it possible to cut time by getting there & back by boat without a guided tour @ the tunnels leaving time for HCMC? If you think it's doable, where would we find the boats & aprox what can I expect to pay?

[Bpos]

John - we'll be docking in Phu My & have been contemplating the Cu Chi tunnels but would also like to tour HCMC. Is it possible to cut time by getting there & back by boat without a guided tour @ the tunnels leaving time for HCMC? If you think it's doable, where would we find the boats & aprox what can I expect to pay?

 

The boat would leave from Saigon and you would have to plan on a day to do the tour to Cu Chi, so really not feasible if just having a day in Phu My.

 

At the risk of upsetting some readers, I do not believe that Cu Chi warrants a visit unless you are doing a land tour in Vietnam and have a spare day to fill in or want to spend 10 minutes crawling through a tunnel enlarged and enhanced for the tourism dollar.

 

Why do I say this, I am a Vietnam Veteran and first visited Cu Chi in 1989 as part of an Australian group as Vietnam was just opening up to tourism. At that time I think our group was the only foreigners in the area excepting a French Foreign Leigonaire who was in the area and had actually served in the area during the French occupation - we had a very interesting conversation with him? At that time the complex consisted of just a few thatched huts where you received a short briefing on the complex, saw some old American war machines and then were able to enter some tunnels and actually spend some time down there, about 40 - 60 minutes as I recall.

 

I visited Cu Chi again in January 2015 with my son and a fellow Vietnam Veteran which took a full day from Saigon. It has unfortunately, in my opinion, become a typical tourism trap, people everywhere, rushed through the various points of interest (ie a booby trap, panji stakes etc then about 5 -10 minutes to crawl through a tunnel which has been enlarged/created for European visitors. Most of the time for the tour was spent at either a disabled pottery workshop for Vietnamese who have lost limbs due to landmines or affected by Agent Orange (which is commendable but not what I wanted to visit) and at a rifle range where for a price you can get to fire an AK47 or M16 and have a cold drink or buy a tacky T shirt etc.

 

At the end of the day both my son and mate said "why did you bring me out to here???"

 

I would estimate that about 30 minutes of time was worthwhile for those interested in the past history of the area, the rest of the time taken in travel and efforts to get you to spend money on things you would generally not be interested in.

 

So to summarise, if you only have one day then visit Saigon, I love this city and for one day you will be fully occupied in taking in the city, the French influence, great restaurants, food and a few sites to see to satisfy your curiosity about the war and see how much progress the Vietnamese have achieved in the past 20 years so so.

[John Bull]

John - we'll be docking in Phu My & have been contemplating the Cu Chi tunnels but would also like to tour HCMC. Is it possible to cut time by getting there & back by boat without a guided tour @ the tunnels leaving time for HCMC? If you think it's doable, where would we find the boats & aprox what can I expect to pay?

 

Our trip was back in 2010, all prices in Vietnam will have shot up since then but it's still a cheap place to visit.

 

http://www.bluecruiser.com/

At that time they didn't have a website - or at least not one in English.

We chartered a boat over the internet thro an agency in Saigon but I've since lost all e-mails from that time due to a computer crash last year.

We weren't asked to pay up-front.

 

The boat we had was fairly similar to those on the website, but had seating for four in the open bow and four in the open stern, plus the driver and ?6? seats in the covered section. We could've sold those empty seats five times over on the ship but due to poor communication from the agency we were only sure of there being at least 8 seats. But 8 was ideal, we all had the wind in our hair, and the day went brilliantly.

The cost spread between eight was around $550, including a short van hop from our ship's berth in the city (not out at Phu My) to the boat jetty at Ben Bach Dang - googlemap Riverside Renaissance hotel Saigon.

Admission to Cu Chi was $5 including guided tour.

Guided tour took mebbe 60 - 90 minutes, we then spent some time doing our own thing. I don't know whether you can skip the guided tour, but you would miss all the background information and possibly some of the sights.

 

Bpos' description of Cu Chi accurately reflects what's there, though it was a very much more positive experience for us.

Yes, going thru the enlarged tunnel was no different to digging a tunnel in my own back yard - few western adults would fit in the authentic tunnels, and none are allowed to try for fear of them getting stuck.

 

A little more detail buried in my cruise review at

http://www.cruisecritic.co.uk/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=63066

 

But I fear that all this is a bit irrelevant because although by speedboat was a great way to travel :cool:, the journey time - excluding stops we chose to make - was about the same as by road, so there's no time-saving.

Even if you only spent an inadequate hour at Cu Chi the round trip would cost you a bare minimum of over 4 hours in total.

 

If like the OP you have only one day, I agree with all posters on this thread - spend your day in Saigon.

 

JB :)

[CT Valley Cruisers]

Thank you for all the info r/t Chu Chi tunnels. I was hoping the boat would cut transportation time and allow us to also tour Saigon. Since we only have the day in port, it's not worth rushing around trying to do both.

[katiestan1]

John Bull,

You are always very infomative! Just curious about your use of the word "mebbe". :)

[John Bull]

John Bull,

You are always very infomative! Just curious about your use of the word "mebbe". :)

 

(Cu Chi) "Guided tour took mebbe 60 - 90 minutes......"

 

Mebbe (maybe) 60 -90 minutes is a guess, cos it was a while back and I don't recall how long.

 

JB :)

[rebecca91]

So lucky to find out this topic because I'm planning to visit Cu Chi an do not have any experiences. John Bull, I saw that you have a lot of experience in Cu Chi. How much did this trip take? Because my budget is limited and I consider to book a day tour in Cu Chi with fixed price at https://www.bestpricevn.com/Tour_Cu-Chi-Tunnel-Half-Day-Deluxe-Group.html. Is 36usd reasonable for the half day trip?

[Bpos]

So lucky to find out this topic because I'm planning to visit Cu Chi an do not have any experiences. John Bull, I saw that you have a lot of experience in Cu Chi. How much did this trip take? Because my budget is limited and I consider to book a day tour in Cu Chi with fixed price at https://www.bestpricevn.com/Tour_Cu-Chi-Tunnel-Half-Day-Deluxe-Group.html. Is 36usd reasonable for the half day trip?

 

!st time poster and from Hanoi - seems suss to me. Probably promoting the company shown in the quote.

 

We paid less than $10 per head from Saigon, included transport to and from hotel as well as entrance fee and a "guide" to explain the area.

 

Any hotel in Saigon can organise a trip depending on your budget.

 

We had to endure a visit to a pottery factory on the way out to Cu Chi and our guide was a ex South Vietnamese Army officer who had spent time in a reeducation camp after the war and had the worst case of PTSD that I have ever experienced. Felt a lot of sympathy for him but a lot of the others in the group put it down to nasty old man syndrome as they had no idea what he had experienced during the war and afterwards. His salary for the day was $7 US so perhaps that did not help either.

[John Bull]

So lucky to find out this topic because I'm planning to visit Cu Chi an do not have any experiences. John Bull, I saw that you have a lot of experience in Cu Chi. How much did this trip take? Because my budget is limited and I consider to book a day tour in Cu Chi with fixed price at https://www.bestpricevn.com/Tour_Cu-Chi-Tunnel-Half-Day-Deluxe-Group.html. Is 36usd reasonable for the half day trip?

 

That's a consolidation website, ie a booking service similar to Viator, City Discovery and Cruisingexcursions, and provides van transportation plus admission (guide included in the admission price) through a local operator

 

I read on the site that you're there for about an hour (no timings quoted on Viator), and that's pretty mean.

 

As Bpos' answer, the trip is easy enough to fix up locally by taxi or shared tour for less money. And sharing a taxi gives you the flexibility to extend your time at Cu Chi to about 2 hours.

But if you want the peace of mind of fixing in advance, I don't think you'll go wrong with any of the consolidators.

 

Out of interest, I checked out Viator - http://www.viator.com/ho-chi-minh-city-tours/d352-ttd?pref=02

On my computer, their prices are in sterling but this trip equates to about $39, with a current cut-price offer about $27, so the price on the website you've quoted is in the ballpark for a group tour. Locally-booked vans from about $10 pp, plus admission/guide about $6, but standards will be variable.

 

Part of the value of a consolidator is that your money / experience is more guaranteed - much easier to seek recompense from an organisation like Viator with an international reputation to maintain, than from some small outfit in a foreign land.

But that website looks very professional, certainly put together by folk whose first language is English, and seems kosher to me. Their reputation too is at stake, and whereas tour operators can be reticent about refunds, consolidation websites are more inclined to refund & with-hold payment to the operator.

 

BTW, the Viator website is also offering the trip out by speedboat (vaguely similar to the one I fixed up) & back by van. But at an eye-watering $90 or thereabouts.

JB :)

[Mellis2312]

We will be arriving in Phu My beginning March 2016 at 0700 and departing at 2000. Have approached several private tours and am in the process of deciding what to do. We really wanted to visit the Cu Chi Tunnels but understand that it is a long car ride. Has anyone done this? Is it worth the long car ride or should we just visit HCMC. Your comments would be appreciated. Thank you.

 

We have been there, wouldnt do this tour again.

 

Very good to go to the Delta de Mekong, beautifull tour, was one of the Highlights with Halong Bay we had in Vietnam. I really recomend the delta del Mekong tour, takes good 2h to get there, but we had enough time to get back to the ship.

We traveled with an old wooden boat in the jungle with big bambu tres and beautifull flowers, and it was just great

We had a tourguide for the delta de Mekong, but if you have enought time and a good organisation you can do it yourself.

[WaveSplasher]

Thanks to all the replies too..

 

We will also be visiting HCMC and contemplating whether we should go for the tunnels or the city itself. We have 2 days in Port so it doesn't really matter but after seeing what others have wrote about the tunnels etc time travel, tourist place.... I think its more worthwhile going to HCMC than the tunnels. Much more to do, eat and explore.

[John Bull]

 

We have 2 days in Port

 

 

If that port is Saigon itself (Azamara, mebbe Silversea, etc) then you may have enough time for both.

 

If that port is Phu My (which it will be for Voyager) then yes, better to stick to Saigon.

And give serious consideration to overniting in a Saigon hotel, which will avoid duplicating travel from the port & give you an evening in the city - restaurants, water puppet show, etc. Hotels are inexpensive, somewhere near the Rex Hotel (the Rex itself is not so inexpensive ;)) would be walkable to all the main sights.

 

JB :)