From our base of Ho Chi Minh City, Dave, my sister Jess, and I booked a full day tour visiting the famous Cu Chi Tunnels and Cao Dai Temple.

We got picked up at 8am from our hotel, we transferred to Tay Ninh, near the Cambodian border, home to the unique Cao Dai sect, whose patron saints include Joan of Arc, Victor Hugo and Winston Churchill to name a few. The sect is famous for its Great Temple or Holy See, which is the centre of the intriguing small square. The religion itself is a Vietnamese religious movement that incorporates an odd mix of Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and Christianity.

The Cao Dai Temple (as it is more commonly known) was begun in 1933 in a unique architectural style that reflects its blended traditions.

Everyone had to leave their shoes out the front of the temple, before we made our way inside, and had a wander around – the inside was gloriously gold!  Then we all moved upstairs to hang over the balconies and watch the beautiful ceremony of the choir sing.  After visiting the temple and having lunch we then got back on the bus and made our way to the Cu Chi tunnels.

In the Vietnam War (1962-75),the tunnels were used by Viet Cong guerrillas as hiding spots during combat, as well as serving as communication and supply routes, hospitals, food and weapon caches and living quarters for numerous guerrilla fighters. The tunnel systems were of great importance to the Viet Cong in their resistance to American forces, and helped achieve military success. The booby traps and tricks they set up were quite ingenious, sickening and with a killer instinct – it was like venturing into another world to explore through the tunnels and see first hand the circumstances that Vietnamese and of course, our Australian soldiers also experienced. Very sad but touching.

We were also able to have a go at shooting an AK47 rifle – and let me tell you, those babies are loud! We wore head phones and it was still loud – the kick back on the rifle was also a much bigger shock than we were expecting!

 Cao Dai Holy See

 

 

Cu Chi Tunnels

 

All in all, it was a fabulous day – worth every cent, even though we did spend a lot of time on a bus! Seeing first hand the traumatic things the Vietnamese communities did, and saw, put my history learnings into perspective and reinforced the view that war really does leave more losers and no winners.