Ho Chi Minh City

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Hi people, sorry about the delay, small case of bloggers block I think as it has taken us ages to write about our brilliant trip to Vietnam, and already it seems like ages ago. We arrived in India one week ago and are now living it up in Goa. Caz and Mark should be getting to Gatwick airport as we speak which is too exciting.. More about India later though as here are some pictures from Ho Chi Minh City, in Vietnam, a fantastic city well worth a visit. Vietnam is beautiful and we wish that we had left ourselves more time at the end of our trip to explore it properly; I suppose we will just have to come back again soon as it was we only made it to a few different places but here goes..

Our arrival in Vietnam was by bus from Cambodia and this was the usual excuse to try and make us spend money at various uninspiring road side cafes, and of course road side toilet stops - the general principal being that the more disgusting the toilet the more likely you are to have to pay for the privilege of having to use it. The border was pretty uneventful, although as Tom stepped up to hand over his passport he got bitten by a small army of ants. The immigration control seemed surprisingly unconcerned about his jumping up and down and swearing and waved him through.

Having already bought our visas then getting through customs is a breeze and when we were across the border we were herded onto a minibus to Ho Chi Minh (formally known as Saigon) which dropped us off in the Pham Ngu Lao area. This is generally described as being the 'back packer area', but unlike its counterparts in Bangkok and Thailand's major cities it seems to have retained some of its Vietnameseness despite the number of tourists so it is a pretty cool place to hang out, eat Vietnamese food and find cheap accommodation. We spent three days here pottering about and eating tasty noodle dishes and exploring the museums and markets. Ho Chi Minh is a brilliant city with lots of different areas to explore, we both really liked it as it is busy and exciting with lots of nice Vietnamese food which is always a bonus. We found the city a little frustrating as we managed to get lost about ten times even armed with copious maps and also there are far too many motorbike taxis in the area which can get a little bit old. With Chinese imported scooters and motorbikes for as little as $200 there are literally millions of scooters on the roads. This makes crossing the road into an adrenaline sport but the secret is to move very slowly so that everyone can scoot around you. As we learnt eventually.

When we weren't eating amazing noodles and shopping in the markets we spent some time to visit the Caodaist temple outside the city which is the largest temple of this colourful and interesting religion, amazingly colourful and one which seems to be making lots of people in Vietnam very happy. It was a really interesting trip out of the city and we learnt loads. The End

ps some small indian children dressed in santa outfits have just come into the internet cafe singing christmas carols (ok it was 'Merry Christmas Everyone' by Shakin Stevens..) amazing.

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Photos

Temple
Cao Daism is the third largest relgion in Veitnam with 6 million members. ‘Cao’ means high and ‘Dai’ place and Caodai refers to the place of god. Cao Daism was founded in Vietnam in around 1919 by a man named Ngo Minh Chieu who recived revelations from Cao Dai (ie God) about a new ideal religion which combines aspects of Buddhism, Confucianism, Taois, Christianity, Islam and Vietnamese spiritualism. Important Cao Dai figures include Buddah, Mohammed, Confucious, Jesus and Moses whilst the spirits of Joan of Arc, William Shakespere and Victor Hugo, Louis Pasteur and Lenin have all become important parts of the Cao Dai belief system. The temple reflects architural styles from across the world relgions – and a few more they made up.

At the Cao Dai Temple
The service looks incredibly relaxing, the worshipers remain seated the whole time and at the sound of a gong lower their heads to the ground in unison.

The priests
The colours of robes that the worshippers wear depends on their rank and gender: all women and lay worshipers wear white whilst men with the rank of priest and higher wear colours representing Buddhism and Virtue (yellow), Taoism and Pacifism (Blue) or Confucianism and authority (red). Men and women are also separated as they worship with men on the right and women on the left.

Choir
One of the best bits of watching the service was the amazing music and singing from these guys who stood at the back of the temple. One of the worst bits is the amount of tour groups who piled in after the service had started and people talking over the worshipers, tourists are invited in and allowed to take photos but the amount of people moving about talking and seemingly forgetting where they are is a little embarassing..

What a view!
FRom the top of our HCM hostel