Cu Chi Tunnels Tour From Phu My Port

Overview of Cu Chi Tunnels shore excursion

The Cu Chi Tunnels tour from Phu My Port is a full-day private shore excursion built around one site — the wartime tunnel network northwest of the city.

Most of the day is the site itself: a guided walk through the grounds, a short crawl through a safe section and a close look at how the Viet Cong lived underground.

The drive each way is long, so this works best as a single, focused day rather than a packed city tour.

Pickup and return are arranged to fit your ship’s departure, so the long distance is no longer a worry.

Cu Chi Tunnels tour from Phu My Port Itinerary

Cu Chi Tunnel sits roughly 110 km from Phu My Port, about 2.5 hours by road.

The times below are a guide and shift with traffic and your ship’s schedule.

08:00 — Pickup at the port

The driver picks you up at the Phu My port gate in the Vung Tau area, around 500 m from the ship.

You either walk out or take the port shuttle to the gate, where the driver and an English-speaking tour guide wait with a name board.

The private, air-conditioned car leaves soon after for the route northwest toward Cu Chi.

The road runs out through the countryside beyond the city — rubber plantations and rice paddies, small towns and roadside stalls.

A short break can be made along the way for photos or fresh tropical fruit. This transfer takes about 2.5 hours, with the heaviest traffic usually near Ho Chi Minh City.

Phu My is the deep-water port for the region, since larger ships cannot reach the city’s own river berths.

The first stretch follows the Long Thanh–Dau Giay expressway before the road narrows into the Cu Chi district.

10:45 — Arrival at Cu Chi

Arrival at the famous Cu Chi Tunnels is normally around 10:45. The site sits in a patch of forest that was a stronghold during the war with the United States.

Two areas are open to visitors: Ben Dinh, the nearer and busier section and Ben Duoc which is quieter and more local.

Your tour uses one of the two, and the guide confirms which on the day.

The visit opens in a small room, where you watch a short introductory video showing how the tunnels were constructed.

The film sets up the background before you experience the underground network, how it was dug by hand and kept out of sight.

Time to explore the network above and below ground runs about two hours.

The Cu Chi tunnels formed part of an intricate system that once reached around 250 km, used by Viet Cong fighters as living areas, storage rooms, field hospitals and wartime command posts.

The guide points out the details that show how people held out in the underground tunnels for years. Work on the network began in the late 1940s against the French then grew through the 1960s into the system seen today.

The area around Cu Chi, once called the Iron Triangle, took heavy bombing during the war, which pushed daily life further underground.

The passages run on up to three levels, from about three to ten metres deep, linked by narrow shafts.

Hidden trapdoors, barely the width of a person, sit flush with the forest floor — one of the first things the guide demonstrates.

The Hoang Cam kitchen shows how cooking smoke was carried far from the cooking spot to avoid detection.

Weapon workshops, an ammunition factory and a small museum hold self-made tools and traps built from scrap metal and unexploded ordnance, a clear sign of the ingenuity behind the network.

A reconstructed booby-trap display explains the defences set around each tunnel mouth.

Air vents disguised as termite mounds brought in fresh air, and concealed wells supplied water, so groups could stay below for long spells.

Meeting rooms, sleeping quarters, and a field hospital sat deeper in, away from the entrances.

Much of this is explained at marked points along the trail, with sections opened up so the layout is easy to picture.

A safe, widened length of tunnel is open for anyone who wants to crawl through and feel the real scale of the space.

The passage is short, lit, and has exits along the way, so entering the tunnels is easy to try and easy to skip.

A shooting range also sits on site, where you can fire an AK-47 or M16 for an extra fee, paid on the spot in USD or Vietnamese Dong.

For most foreign tourists, this is the clearest view they get of Vietnam’s wartime history — the resilience and ingenuity behind an underground network that played a real role in the conflict up to 1975.

The visit is the main sight of the day, and the guide gives the context that turns a set of holes in the ground into a clear window on Vietnam’s past.

12:45 — Wartime tasting

Before lunch, a simple wartime snack of boiled tapioca with tea and peanuts is offered — the plain food that soldiers lived on.

The tasting is quick and easy to pass on. A small souvenir shop near the exit sells handicrafts and war-era reproductions.

13:00 — Lunch in Cu Chi

Lunch is served at a local restaurant in Cu Chi, close to the site, with southern Vietnamese food and vegetarian dishes on request, a welcome rest before the long drive.

This tour stays focused on Cu Chi and makes no sightseeing stop in Ho Chi Minh City, which keeps the return to the port on schedule.

14:00 — Transfer back to the port

Departure from Cu Chi is around 14:00, with the road running back through open countryside and a short comfort stop if needed.

The transfer back to the port takes roughly three hours, so the guide keeps track of the time for your cruise and reaches Phu My with a clear buffer rather than a rush.

15:00 — Drop-off at the port

Drop-off at the port is around 18:00, outside the gate near your ship. End of the Cu Chi Tunnels tour from Phu My Port.