Ho Chi Minh City: 30th October 09

Today we took a daytrip out of the city to visit the Cao Dai temple at Tay Ninh, and the Cu Chi tunnels.

The Cao Dai religion was formed in the 1920s and is a mix of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, with a couple of Hindu gods thrown in.

The temple is a mixture of Disney, Cake Icing, Fairy tale princess palace and drug induced hallucination, with a couple of Hindu god statues thrown on top…

Enough said.

The Cu Chi tunnels are where the Viet Cong used to hide out from the Americans and South Vietnamese Army. The network of tunnels stretched for over 200km, from Saigon to the Cambodian border and were built over a period of 30 years.

Firstly we were shown a documentary about the Vietcong and the local area. The most bizarre bit was when they showed a medal giving ceremony and made a 14 year old girl an official ‘American Killing Hero’. Yes, anyone who killed an American was automatically made a hero. The Americans sitting a few seats away from us looked slightly non-plussed.

We were then taken around some woods and shown the entrances to some tunnels, and some traps that the Vietcong used – all very gruesome and painful looking. Then we were invited to enter one of the tunnels. It was TINY – hardly any room to move – and apparently it had been widened to fit in Westerners! It was a really horrible experience being in there - really hot and claustrophobic - so we got out at an exit 20 metres along, rather than go the full 100 metres. I can’t believe people lived down there for years, but as the Americans were dropping Chemical weapons everywhere else I guess some people had no choice. An interesting and frightening experience!