This man is making sandals from old tires, as part of a demonstration of the activities that took place in the network of tunnels around the Cu Chi area. These tunnels were built when the Vietnamese were fighting the French, but they came in handy during the American War as well. This area, near the end of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, was the scene of intense and prolonged fighting that destroyed most of the vegetation and left the landscape dimpled with bomb craters.

About 500 tourists per day visit the Cu Chi tunnels, and it's a well-organized and informative little tour. You start with an overview in a briefing room where they have a giant map on the wall and a scale model of a typical section of the tunnels. Then you walk to some tunnels, including both a section of the original tunnels and a wider tunnel that tourists can explore. The original tunnels are shockingly narrow, but the Vietnamese are tiny people compared to Americans.

The army has a gun range set up nearby where tourists can shoot the gun of their choice, so while we walked through the jungle trails there were occasional gunshots from nearby, even including bursts of automatic weapons fire. It was easy to imagine the war was still going on.