There's a light at the end of the tunnel -- literally, some three yards ahead. My thighs are aching and I'm crawling on all fours, caked in mud, with sweat pouring down my face.
"Ready for the third level?" Tien teases me over his hunched shoulders. "Sure," I lie, wheezing, as we emerge -- finally standing again -- into an underground sleeping chamber where hammocks of pilfered U.S. parachute nylon have been left as wartime mementos strung between bamboo poles driven into the clay floor. Tien -- my rail-thin, lizard-nimble, 22-year-old guide -- has led me through 35 yards of a twisting, water-pipe-like tunnel whose claustrophobically low and narrow earthen sides facilitate only an undignified crouching crawl.
"We're lucky, you know," he assures me as I stretch my legs back into service. "During the American War, these tunnels were only half as high, so people crawled on their stomachs." Nor were there, I reckon, lanterns placed helpfully along the route every so often. Yet even with such luxuries, and without the danger of lethal booby traps and enemy combatants lurking around bends, it's still daunting enough to pick your way through these tunnels.
There's a light at the end of the tunnel -- literally, some three yards ahead. My thighs are aching and I'm crawling on all fours, caked in mud, with sweat pouring down my face."Ready for the third level?" Tien teases me over his hunched shoulders. "Sure," I lie, wheezing, as we emerge -- finally standing again -- into an underground sleeping chamber where hammocks of pilfered U.S. parachute nylon have been left as wartime mementos strung between bamboo poles driven into the clay floor. Tien -- my rail-thin, lizard-nimble, 22-year-old guide -- has led me through 35 yards of a twisting, water-pipe-like tunnel whose claustrophobically low and narrow earthen sides facilitate only an undignified crouching crawl."We're lucky, you know," he assures me as I stretch my legs back into service. "During the American War, these tunnels were only half as high, so people crawled on their stomachs." Nor were there, I reckon, lanterns placed helpfully along the route every so often. Yet even with such luxuries, and without the danger of lethal booby traps and enemy combatants lurking around bends, it's still daunting enough to pick your way through these tunnels.
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