Cu Chi and Cao Dai Holy See

Yesterday afternoon, after we got the ATM card thing worked out, Larissa and I managed to get some things arranged for the next few days of sightseeing. For today, we arranged a tour to the Cao Dai temple in Long Hoa, and the Cu Chi tunnels in Ben Dinh.

It is really easy to get tours to just about anywhere in Vietnam or Cambodia at various tour agencies in this area of Ho Chi Minh. We are staying in the backpacker's district around Pham Ngu Lao road. The tours are very reasonably priced. The full day tour we took today usually runs about 4-5 usd, but because of the Tet holiday, we had to pay 7 usd per person. Still not a bad deal.

So, as our tour was to leave at 8:00 am, we got up early enough to go get some breakfast. I had a breakfast burrito, and Larissa had french toast and a grilled cheese sandwich. We came out with a bill of about 3.50 usd. Sorry I keep using usd instead of a dollar sign. Unfortunately on this combined language keyboard, I cannot figure out how to insert certain symbols.

I nice big airconditioned bus picked us up just a few minutes late. We took the front seat and thus had a prime viewing station for the ride ahead. Our first destination, over 100km from Ho Chi Minh City, was Long Hoa, the site of the Cao Dai Holy See and Temple. As we drove along, we saw all sorts of interesting sights. We saw water buffalo pulling loads of sugar cane down a 4-lane highway, mopeds with families of four riding along, and cylcos piled with watermelons, among many other things. Larissa was frantically trying to shoot pictures from the bus window, but grew frustrated. We have decided to stake out a position on a busy street to photograph the interesting sights as they go past.

We didn't know much about the Cao Daism before today, but as our tour got started, our guide named Slim Jim, started giving us the run-down. Apparently in the 1920s, a French guy living in Vietnam was cantacted by a superior being called Cao Dai, or "high place." This spirit, or whatever, was kind enough to communicate to this Frenchman thate basics of the Cao Daist creed. In this communication, the Divine Eye was told to be the tangible representation of the existence of the spirit, or the religion, or what have you. Since that time, revelations from the Cao Dai have added to the religion. Currently, it uses vehicles such as Christ, Mohammed, Moses, Confucius, etc. to tailor belief systems to various individual cultures. Thus, Cao Daism is viewed as the manifestation of the combination of many other religions. This religion is indigenous to Vietnam, and it enjoys around 2 million members here. We are not sure how many people are part of the church in other parts of the world.

About an hour into the trip we stopped for a bathroom break. This particular rest area had many varieties of snake and scorpion wine available. My favorite bottles had cobras posed in the position of biting scorpions. A good sized bottle of snake wine can be purchased for under 2 usd. We'll try and post a good picture of some snake wine when we get a chance.

We then continued on national highway 22 toward Trang Bang. This is the town of the famous photograph by Nick Ut of the naked girl with her back in flames running from a napalm attack. The girl's name is Phan Thi Kim Phuc, she is still alive and living in Canada. You could probably look up the photo using google if interested. In route to the temple, we came within just 10 km of Cambodia. We are already wishing we had more time to spend around here because of all of the exploration opportunities.

Then we arrived at the Cao Dai Holy See. The area has twelve gates, the main one of which is never used. Apparently it is for the Pope of Cao Dai. This was confusing to us because the Pope is dead, and the agreement is that there will never be another pope because people today are not suited for the role. We entered one of the side gates and came within site of the temple.

It is a very colorful, unique, and impressive structure. It has very asian styling, and it is colorful. We toured the area a bit, and then made our way inside the temple to observe one of the 4 daily services. Each day at 6 am, 12pm, 6 pm, and 12 am, there is a forty minute worship service in Cao Dai temples. It is not obligatory for members to attend these services. According to Slim Jim, it is mainly older people who attend the services because the younger people are working or sleeping.

I am going to have to make things quick here. Front and center in the temple is a giant eye ball, the divine eye. It is on the ninth step, the most holy step. There are seven seats on this step as well, but no one ever sits in them. They are for saints or something. The service was interesting. Worshipers in white robes, and church officials in colored robes, ascend the steps of the temple while bowing and praying. Each of the colored robes represent a different aspect of the religion, like the Christian aspect for instance.

We then stopped for lunch. We were accompanied by a nice Australian couple at our table. We ordered vegetarian rice with vegetables, under 2 usd for both of us.

We then headed for the Cu Chi tunnels in Ben Dinh. For a little background, the Cu Chi tunnels were first constructed for a hiding place for resistance soldiers during the French occupation of Vietnam. They were then expanded greatly during the American involvment in Vietnam. Only 30 km from Saigon, the tunnels were very close to the main American bases during the war. In fact, some of the tunnels, which were occupied by Viet Cong Guerilla fighters, actually went right under an American military base. The fighters used the tunnels to hide from American bombing by day, and as a base of offensive attack by night. There were entire networks of tunnels. Today, many of the tunnels have collapsed, but tourists can still crawl through a few hundred meters of them; however there size has been doubled to accomodate western girth. This is an original entry hole:

This is the entry point for tourists:

Before we went into the tunnels we were exposed to an entirely one sided video about the Cu Chi fighters. It was interesting to see some propaganda at work. Slim Jim, a South Vietnamese, seemed to be fully aware of the bias, and made corrections often. We were also shown some booby traps devised by the Guerillas. Any one of these traps would be truly horrible to encounter for sure. Just knowing that such things were in the woods must have had a real negative effect on the psyche of the Americans. We were then shown some of the ways that that Cu Chi fighters crafted weapons from harvested U.S. bombs. Also, we were led to a shooting range, where, for a 1 dollar per bullet, one can shoot his/her choice of an AK47 or an M16. Unfortunately, the minimum purchase was 10 bullets. That is equal to a nights accomodation and a nice meal around here, so we passed up the opportunity.

Before the tour was over, we were lead to a picnic area to have some steamed tapioca. Larissa thought I should try the peanut and sugar crumb dipping sauce, but I was concerned with the shared dipping vats, so I passed.

We are about to leave to the train station to catch an over night train to the beach town of Nha Trang. We sprung for the air-conditioned soft sleeper compartment. We will arrive in the morning, to be picked up by Rainbow Divers for a day of diving in the South China sea. Depending on how we like it there, we may stay another day or two before heading further North to the town of Hoi An.

Thanks for all of your suggestions regarding our potential itinerary change. We are frantically trying to evaluate all options while planning our things in our current location. We will keep you posted on what develops. Thanks for reading!

Oh, here are a few video clips to correspond with the "Dive of a lifetime post." Matt, my brother, has been nice enough to host them for us. I will not be able to check whether I have entered the links correctly, so let me know if they don't work. If you have been emailed videos from us, you may have already seen these.

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3