«Trang Chien Khu» night programme at the Cu Chi Tunnels

   The Cu Chi Tunnels after dark are a different site entirely. «Trăng Chiến Khu» — «Moon over the War Zone» — restages night-time life in the liberated area around Cu Chi between 1961 and 1964, the period directly after the 1960 Dong Khoi uprising.

   The format's strength is the setting: rather than a stage built indoors, the programme moves through the memorial site itself, with the tunnel network underfoot. The organisers describe the aim as conveying how people there lived, worked and organised during those years.

   For visitors who did the standard daytime tunnel tour years ago, this is the version with atmosphere instead of queues; for families, it gives textbook history an actual landscape.

   Cu Chi is about 60 km from central Ho Chi Minh City and this is an evening programme, so arrange the return trip before you go — it is not an area with easy late transport.

   Tickets.

   A rare chance to see the site in the conditions it was actually built for.