Saigon, The Cu Chi Tunnels and Lots of Cocktails

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Next stop on our tour of Vietnam was Ho Chi Min City itself, formally known as Saigon and fondly still called Saigon by all the locals, in fact we think it is only tourists who call it good old HCMC!!!! Anyway we had a couple of days here to potter around, it is so much bigger than Hanoi and takes a lot longer to get to all the sights. We only took in the War Remnants Museum (Formally called Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes), this museum was amazing, and we must confess brought a lump to our throats, it depicts in a rather one sided way what the Americans and South Vietnamese did to the North Vietnamese throughout the American War, the photography was extraordinary showing the audacity of what the Americans got up too. Well worth a visit for anyone who goes HCMC.

The next day we headed off to firstly Tay Ninh where there is a massive temple called Cao Dai Holy See Temple, founded in 1926. This is a small sec of people who practice the Cao Dai religion, after the reunification of Vietnam the Government ‘borrowed’ some of the property around the temple more likely to keep an eye on them.. We got to watch the midday prayer service which was full of chanting, bowing and kneeling, very interesting to watch. The devout ones pray 4 times a day and apparently for 3 hours a day, that’s a lot of praying!!!!

On the way back we stopped off at the Cu Chi Tunnels. Over the years throughout the American War the VC (Viet Cong) developed these tunnels with trapdoors and booby traps. They were much smaller than the Vinh Moc tunnels near the DMZ as they were mainly used for fighting. After having a crawl around the tunnels, much to many people’s dismay we had a go on the firing range with an M16, G wasn’t happy with the noise level but T loved it.

Back to HCMC for plenty of cocktails and a BBQ on our table for dinner, sweet!!!!

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