Not Busy, Just Thai'd Up

And so the blabbing continues. I must say that I've been listening to the soundtrack of Good Morning Vietnam while writing this blog, so all of the titles are things that have come out of Robin Williams' mouth. Anyway, the NgocThao Guesthouse offers to set up several day trips to places outside of the city, and all of them are really cheap! Each of my day trips cost about $10, with transportation, English tour, and snackage included. 

My first day trip was to the Cao Dai Temple and the Cu ChiTunnels. It was on this trip that I was the only American in a tour group for the first time ever. I was surrounded by about 20 Filipinos, 1 Canadian, 3 Spaniards, and 2 people from somewhere else in Europe.  It was odd to be the only one from the big ol’ USA.

Anyway, the Cao Dai Temple is a very interesting bugger.  This is where the religion of Cao Daism is worshipped.  Here are some quick and dirty facts about Cao Daism, the third largest religion in Vietnam after Buddhism and Catholicism:

This is only a basic layout, and there is much, much more to know about the religion, for sure.

Inside of the temple is an impressive display of dragon pillars, decorated ceilings, and a cluster of golden objects at the far end of the temple where the altar lies.  There are several depictions and statues of their saints, as well.  I must say, I was very surprised at their choice in saints.  There was a sea of followers worshipping- all clad in white.  The women entered the temple on the left where they sat on the ground in a perfect grid, while the men did the same on the right side of the temple.  In the front, closer to the altar, were figures with a higher status- they were wearing red, yellow and blue to signify their higher status.

 

The musicians would play their music and sing in a chamber on the second floor, much like the choir does in several Catholic churches.  The temple itself shows the mixture of beliefs, taking influence from each of the religions’ temples.  It was really neat- I wish I had more time to examine it all.  Anyway, at certain points during the music, everyone in the room would bow three times at the same time- that kind of unity is rather impressive.

Outside of the temple, there was a road that I accidentally stepped on because I was unaware of the danger.  At the front of the temple, there are important religious figures buried; during worship, the ghosts walk around outside of the temple, so one is not supposed to step on the road in front of the temple during prayer time.  There was a pillar not too far away decorated with a dragon at the top, and a lotus at the bottom to symbolize the name of the town, which means “Dragon Lotus”.  Also at the bottom were four unicorns at the bottom, facing each of the cardinal directions in order to ward ghosts away. 

 

There’s a lot more information I could provide about the decorations of the temple and what they mean, but I’m sure you are bored of this rant already.  So to conclude, I’m really fascinated with Cao Daism- of course, I would be since I’m a Religious Studies major.

The next stop was the Cu Chi Tunnels.  These were the tunnels in which the Vietnamese guerilla warriors would hide out, and surprise the American soldiers.  To begin, we entered a little underground hut where we were given a brief history of the tunnels and the Vietnam War.  Afterwards, there was a question session.  Let me tell you what- even though English has become the common language of the world, accents are a great barrier.  It took forever for questions to be understood and answered correctly because the Vietnamese lecturer could not understand the accent of the Filipino people and the Canadian dude, and vice versa.  I found it quite amusing.

We then watched a movie made in the 70s, given a very biased and propagandistic account of the guerilla soldiers.  A proud woman narrated the history of the war while proudly proclaiming certain people to be national heroes.  Approximate quotation of narration: “Bruce was a young soldier whose parents were killed during the war.  He was very stealthy and became really knowledgeable about where to place bombs and how to disguise them in order to fool the Americans.  He killed 35 Americans and became a national hero, the American Killer.” Simply amazing.

The tunnels are 250 km of complex and winding structures that all interconnect.  It’s really rather impressive that these were built.  We explored how tiny the entrances to the tunnels were.  But this extended to the tunnels themselves- the soldiers had to crawl through them, and they even slept inside of them.  We got a chance to go through 20 meters of tunnel, widened for tourists to use.  But even though it was widened, I still had to bend in half in order to get through them, and I’m pretty small.  It was very stuffy in there with just a few people, so I can’t imagine how people were able to sleep inside of tinier tunnels with more people inside.

 

We were also given a tour of different traps that the Vietnamese set up, and we were given a chance to shoot old guns used during the war, but the price of the bullets is a ripoff.  After seeing so much history about the terrors of war, the thought of shooting a gun was not appealing to me anyway.

We headed back to the city shortly afterwards.  During one part of the trip, we were stopped in the most horrific traffic I’ve ever seen.  Our bus was stuck for over 30 minutes.  I wish I had sufficient internet to upload the video I took of this traffic, but the picture below should give you a decent idea.  All of those heads are motorbikes, which can swerve in and out of traffic, and congest any free space that may be available.  While we were waiting, I got to enjoy watching a man eat an entire bowl of pho before traffic police came to control the flow.

That night, I ate at a street restaurant.  Don’t order sandwiches with bacon on them in Vietnam- you will only be disappointed with flabby, fatty bacon.  But this is not why I bring up dinnertime.

After I had finished my meal, two kids at the ages of 10 and 12 sat across from me, and the British lady sitting next to me. They asked the British woman if she would speak English with them, so that they could practice- it was adorable. They were having trouble understanding her accent though, so I piped in and talked to them.  It was fun until I was made to answer what my favorite color is fifteen times, and thrice whether I like cats or not.  It was very hard to make different conversation because I was unsure about the limits of their vocabulary.  It was fun, though.  They apparently do this every Monday night, which is just awesome! I wish I had that dedication to learning languages.

Their teacher came up to me after they left, and made conversation with me.  She thanked me for talking with her students, and admitted that she told them not to talk to me because she thought I was Vietnamese (victory). Of course, my ethnic origins were brought up.  The best part of the conversation was when she asked if I looked more like my mom or dad- I said I don’t look more like either one of them- I think I’m a rather good mixture.  She said “you don’t look like your mom…and you don’t look like your dad…you look like a STRANGER! HAHAHHAHA!”  She suggested that I look like a stranger because while my mom was pregnant, she would often look at a handsome stranger.  I liked her a lot.  Day 3 ended on a good note.