Ben Dinh Tunnels

Picture yourself walking out of the cinema after “Địa đạo: Mặt trời trong bóng tối” — literally “Tunnels: Sun in the Darkness” — director Bùi Thạc Chuyên's film about the Củ Chi tunnels, released in April 2025 for the 50th anniversary of the Liberation of the South. Then, one morning, you are standing on the real ground at Bến Đình, and you are invited to climb down. The director has said that before making it he had no film about the Củ Chi tunnels to look to for reference; former Củ Chi guerrillas served as advisers to the production. Half a century on, to tell it right, people still have to ask the guerrillas themselves.

Bến Đình Tunnels: a secret kept down to the last blade of grass, now lit for visitors

Bến Đình is one of the two sites of the Củ Chi Tunnels Historical Relic Site; the other is Bến Dược. From 1968 to 1975, the Huyện ủy — the district Party Committee of Củ Chi — chose it as the base from which it led and directed Củ Chi's troops and people. In wartime this was more than 100 hectares of forest on high, firm ground that rarely caved in, lying alongside the Sài Gòn River — so when the area was swept, there was a way to fall back toward the river. Have you ever wondered how people dug tunnels without leaving a single handful of earth to give them away? With hoe blades and baskets woven from bamboo. The dug-out soil was poured into flooded bomb craters, shaped into termite mounds, or spread over the fields and ploughed in. Around a tunnel mouth, even a blade of grass that was broken or smeared with earth, or a leaf torn in an unusual way, had to be put right. According to the relic site's own account, American soldiers called Củ Chi the “Underground Village” and a “Dangerous Secret Zone”; in 1967 the district of Củ Chi was awarded the title “Đất thép thành đồng” — roughly, “Land of Steel, Citadel of Bronze”.

Today Bến Đình is still open to visitors, and what once had to be hidden is opened up for you to see. The tunnel sections for visitors have been widened and fitted with lights. Bến Đình has one detail of its own: a tunnel that passes beneath Provincial Road 15. You will find air vents disguised as termite mounds; a Hoàng Cầm stove — a kitchen that hid its smoke underground — with its smoke chamber and smoke outlets; the bunker where the Secretary of the district Party Committee lived and worked, and the meeting-hall bunker at the heart of the base. In the middle of the forest lies the wreck of an American M41 tank, hit by a mine the guerrillas laid in 1970. There are also reconstructed areas showing guerrillas at rest and tunnel digging, and a recreated craft-village house for making rice paper, distilling liquor and milling rice.

The gunfire is still here — but now it echoes from a national-defence sports shooting range, where visitors can try firing. The visit ends at a souvenir area with objects made from shell casings and dép râu, sandals made from old tyres; on the Sài Gòn River, a restaurant on the water serves country dishes of Đông Nam Bộ, the southeastern region of southern Vietnam. And the place still does the work it was kept for: teaching those who come later about the revolutionary tradition. A tunnel network that survived because no one could see it is now lit so that everyone can. When you climb back up to the surface, what will you carry out of a place where people once kept a secret down to the last leaf?

Enough to decide whether to go

What it is

Base of the Củ Chi district Party Committee (1968–1975); one of the two sites of the Củ Chi Tunnels Historical Relic Site — the other is Bến Dược

Where

Nhuận Đức commune, Hồ Chí Minh City · on Provincial Road 15, beside the Sài Gòn River

Status

National relic since 2004; together with Bến Dược, a Special National relic since 2015

Don't miss

The tunnel under Provincial Road 15 · the Hoàng Cầm stove · the district Party Secretary's bunker · the M41 tank wreck

Can you visit today?

Open to visitors, in the daytime, every day of the week; admission is charged