Here there is no noise or bustle like a "check-in" point, nor is it ostentatious with dense information boards, but it is enough to retain people with the feeling of history's presence. Ben Duoc is located in the Cu Chi Tunnel complex (Ho Chi Minh City), once a "fortune in the ground" throughout the fierce years of the anti-American resistance war for national salvation.
The small road leading to the tourist area is covered with shade of trees. Sunlight shines through the foliage, falling faintly on the red soil, where visitors' footsteps slow down naturally. In front of them is not only a "tourism project", but a living space that once existed for thousands of people with Hoang Cam kitchen, shelter, field hospital, meeting place... At the beginning, visitors can watch a black and white documentary about the Cu Chi guerrilla, followed by a guide presenting the structure system of the tunnel, with convincing numbers and a vivid map.
The remaining artifacts, from bullet fragments, bomb casings, tank wreckage, armored vehicles of US soldiers to household appliances, rudimentary labor tools of the Cu Chi guerrillas, are like an interesting contrast. Just looking at them is enough to imagine the unbalanced struggle, but only the will and strength of the people's war can help the Cu Chi guerrillas stand firm and overcome it. Tourists can hear explanations, experience directly, crawl into a small "tunnel" that fits a person, to taste a strange feeling...
The space of Ben Duoc forest today is strangely green and peaceful. However, hidden under the leaf carpet is a network of underground tunnels that have endured bombs, bullets, toxic gases and fierce sieges. This contrast makes the sightseeing not only stop at the level of "watching" but also force people to "think". Think about human endurance, about how war turns the earth into a place of life and death, about the choice of survival of a generation.
What is precious about Ben Duoc is the way this place does tourism without excessive commercialization. Tourists are slowly guided, both listening to stories, observing, and feeling with their senses. Some people step out of the bunker with a relief because... they are no longer suffocated. Some people become silent because they cannot imagine how their ancestors lived, fought and survived in such a narrow space. For international tourists, Ben Duoc is a destination that helps them understand Vietnam not only through food, streets or beaches, but through a thorny and resilient historical layer.
For domestic tourists, it is a quiet meeting with collective memories, where the past is not framed in museums, but is still vivid and present here through bomb pits, wells, health station tunnels...
Leaving Ben Duoc, visitors bring the feeling of the fragility of peace, of the value of every meter of peaceful land today. In the middle of the lush Cu Chi forest, old tunnels are still there, like a soundless reminder: peace is not natural and memories, if preserved properly, will always know how to speak up.
