Cu Chi tunnels and Cao Dai temple

---

This morning we took the 1 day Sihn Cafe tour to first the Cao Dai Great temple near Tay Ninh. It is a beautiful temple with birds flying in and out. At the end of its great length is the huge blue speckled globe witht the divine eye painted on it. As we were one of the first groups to arrive we got to look around and take photos prior to the arrrival of the rest of the tourist masses. They broke the peace with their chatter and I felt embarassed and their ignorance as they roamed whilly nilly with their cameras clicking, Cao Dai clergy did their best to herd them all back into the walking areas.

We also made a stop at a factory where people were making beautiful laquered mother of pearl, painted and egg shell murals and boxes etc.... Kyle and Ty were quickly pulled aside and given a lesson in making the egg shell murals. The work here was amazing quality and unfortunatly this early into our trip I could not buy any of the peices though I easily could have spent a small fortune. We think we got some good video coverage of the process too. We then took a bus ride of about 70 km to the Cu Chi Tunnels. This tunnel network was built - or rather, started to be built in the 1940's. There is quite a history to these tunnels built in the red clay soil and apparently there are over 250 kms of them. The tunnels housed the Vietnamese army and contained everything needed to live (hospitals, kitchens, living quarters) and fight the war from. During the American/Vietnam war the US troops actually built one of their base camps right over top of some of these tunnels. It caused them great stress when the US troops could not figure out how they kept getting shot at in their own camp. They were unable to find the tunnels, hence the use of chemicals, defoliants, fires etc to clear the surface of the land to find the source. We seen a B52 crater while on our tour and James, Kyle and I shot a M30 machine gun. I had heard from Shaun ahead of time that despite the provided ear protectors his ears rang for quite a while so we came prepared with foam earplugs too for double the protection - worked great - and thankful we did as damn those guns are LOUD. We also got to crawl through some tunnels that had been "enlarged" for tourist bodies. Ty and Reegan were just barely able to walk through standing straight up so you can imagine how crunched over the adults were. I was surprised at their reaction as I thought Ty in particular would be scared of the dimly lit tunnels, but they all loved it so much that they went throught twice. This was a long but fun day. I guess b/c of the popularity of the tunnels there is great road and bridge reconstruction in the area to accomodate the tourist buses that will only increase in numbers over the years as more people discover this country as a tourist destination. Arrival back in Saigon was about 6:30 PM so we grabbed a yummy supper at a Indian food restaurant in the tourist area before picking up our laundry. I was able to find the "house" where I left it and it was all clean and dry for under $1. Back to Madams for a sleep.

Thoughts: a group such as ours would proabably enjoy the tour more if we hired a car and driver for the day instead of taking the tour. I don't think it would cost much more

cheers

---