Cao Dai is a religion that comes from Vietnam. It has its roots in the incorporation of religions and honors saints from many religions and schools of thoughts (namely Joan of Arc, Victor Hugo, Confucius..etc) 

More about Cao Dai can be found here and here. It would have been super useful if I knew more about Cao Dai or if our guide had the time to let us know abit more. All in all, I just wanted to see the temple cause it looked great in the pictures I saw (ITS PINK) and because I'm all for a religion that believes in more than 1 god/divine presence and I'm super glad Jasmine indulged me.

Worshippers are given the option to pray at 4 masses daily. 6am, 12pm, 6pm and midnight. Our guide tells us that followers are not required to attend all the masses nor are they required to attend temple daily (the worship service is really called a mass btw).


The temple is a work of art. Tao told us that each section is built to look like a house of worship from one religion (A Church, A Mosque and A temple)


The Cao Dai religion's symbol is the all seeing left eye. Tao told us that it was being the left eye was on the left side of our body, close to our heart and because everyone has eyes and thus it represents that we are all the same and no one is better than anyone else (paraphasing okay, this happened weeks ago)


The main entrance of the temple


Worshippers coming for mass. All worshippers are dressed in white from top to toe although some have black hats which signify that they have had a loss in their family within the year and come to the temple to pray for them.




Another Cao Dai formality incorporated from Catholicism. The religious structure of Cao Dai resembles the Vatican's. They too have a pope and bishops.


Females and males are supposed to enter from opposite sides of the temples however we were ushered in by the right side.










Jasmine and I felt a little bad being at the temple and seeing so many tourists (like us) romp around and take photos (some with DSLR cameras that made alot of noise). There were assigned people to tell tourists when and where to take photos and where and when they shouldnt but it was really hard to understand and I'm pretty sure many tourists did violate rules unwillingly (ourselves included) 

After the temple, we drove to a local place for a quick lunch before setting off to the tunnels of Cu Chi. 

Lunch Menu. I had sweet and sour pork to find out if its anything like the sweet and sour pork we get in Singapore. Its not, but it was still enjoyable.

There was a nice couple from Melbourne who we spoke to during lunch and it turns out they were using Saigon as the starting point for a trip around Vietnam. Very exciting stuff.

There were also three Malaysians on our tour that we didn't speak too directly yet were super friendly and excited about everything on the tour. They liked to crack jokes about how I was probably the only one in the group that could fit into the original tunnels. We saw them again at the airport and they looked really pleased to see us and even called out to us and waved.

The Cu Chi tunnels are famous for being used by the VietCong during the war. Vietcong soldiers lived and fought American troops from this network of tunnels. Alot of the time people focus on how small the tunnels are as a oddity but what really stood out to me -- apart from the size of the tunnels was how well planned they were. 

The tunnels are built in levels, kitchens were built with smoke routes leading 10m from the kitchen with a release system that was hard to detect. Airholes were also incorporated in the design as well as wells. Vietcong also used really innovative guerilla traps 

We watched a documentary (which was kinda like a propaganda video) on the Chu Chi region and about decorated soldiers that killed Americans and then listened to this guide (a friend of Tao's) tell us more about the tunnel system.

One of the funniest things I remember him saying was: "You know why Americans couldn't fit into the tunnels? Because not only where they bigger, they liked to smoke Marijuana and then they got hungry and ate more hamburgers and things, so they were too fat to fit in" 


I'm not sure how historically accurate that is but it was funny anyhow. Okay, actually I googled this little fact and even if the munchies didn't make them fatter, many historians do report that soldiers (both Vietnamese and American) did smoke pot during the war.

We also learnt about various ways Americans tried to flush the Vietcong out of the tunnels, some of these methods included flooding them out (failed because the tunnels themselves are connected to the river and all the water pumped in went straight back) and throwing snakes into the system (which failed because the Vietcong simply caught the snakes and ate them for food)




This is how well camouflaged Vietcong traps were. They even devised codes to inform fellow Vietnamese of how to watch out for traps, essential since the traps were well hidden and could come from anywhere.


An original entrance to the tunnel network. These are maybe 0.8 m x 0.8m and the Vietnamese have since built larger tunnels 1.3m x 1.3m for curious tourists to try out. In real life, I would have trouble squeezing my butt through this entrance yet the Vietcong went in and out with ease.


This is how well camouflaged the entrances were.


The exits of the tunnels were built to be behind raised ground so that soldiers had time to take a look at their surroundings before going out into the open.


Jasmine listening attentively to Tao


This was the military uniform of the Vietcong. Another amazing fact was that Vietcong soldiers did not wear boots during the war. They wore sandals made out of tires because they were easy to obtain and durable. Each pair of scandals are said to be able to last for 7 years. The First president of Saigon, Ho Chin Minh was also known to have wore these scandals often.


Some types of bombs that were dropped in the Cu Chi Area.


Vietcong soldiers would collect dropped bombshells and other weaponry to reengineer in makeshift labs around the area.


The smoke trap of a kitchen letting out smoke gradually. The Vietcong were smart enough to know that if they just let the smoke from their underground kitchens come up directly, American helicopters could locate them easily. Thus each smoke trap is built 10m or so away from the kitchen and smoke leaks out gradually.


Obligatory and tacky tunnel shot, I have one of me too, but its in Jasmine's camera. It looks big here but it gets so much smaller as you descend.

The new tourist friendly tunnels weren't too bad for me. At my size, all I had to do was a stoop to walk through them. However, they were hella stuffy and hot. Bearing in mind that in those days the Vietcong used oil lamps for light in the tunnels which would totally choke it up more, it made me really marvel at how resilient the Vietnamese were.

We ended the day hot, sweaty and super tired. But it really felt great learning about new things we didn't know about. Before coming to Saigon, the only inkling I had about the Vietnam war was from Forest Gump and bits and pieces of articles I read from my forced subscription of Newsweek in secondary School.

I had known about the use of Agent Orange and I had learnt about the use of children and women (by the Vietcong) to trick American troops. I had also read about the razing of whole villages and the shooting of innocent Vietnamese but I never really knew what the war was about or how the people suffered.

Okay, on to lighter stuff. We got back to our hotel past 7pm and decided to venture on the streets. Since Long had shown us how to walk to Ben Thanh from our hotel, we braved the infamous Vietnamese traffic and walked over to find the night market being set up. We settled for Pho 2000,  the tag line of the store is Pho for the President (which is named so because Bill Clinton came to Saigon and ate Pho at the owner's shop in 2000)



After gobbling up the pho, we walked out to find it was raining. We then had to stand around for a bit and wait for all the shops in the night market to open. Jasmine went on a mission to hunt for coconut jelly. And I mean REALLY hunt. She even the translation of it from a shopgirl and would show it to various storeowners. We didnt find it in the end. So we went home with packets of street food and ate in the lobby while talking to Thang before heading up to our room to shower and watch HBO.


No coconut jelly for Jasmine


This is a potato starch kind of snack. Its salty and sweet at the same time, very interesting.


And this is corn that I couldn't eat at all because it was too seafoody. It was cooked with fish sauce,little shrimp and spring onions.

Even though we really wanted to see Mekong Delta, we decided against it because we only had 4 days in Saigon and another day trip would have really tired us out. We thus decided to head to Chinatown and Dong Khoi on Day 3 instead.

Stay tuned!

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