10/10 Saigon: Magnificent Cao Dai Temple & Cu Chi Tunnels

The 2 most popular day trips from Sai Gon are to visit the Cao Dai Holy See Temple and the Cu Chi Tunnels but many combine them as we chose to do.

The largest Cao Di Temple in the country is located about 100 kms away and it took us about 2.5 hours to get there. A major attraction in visiting the Temple is attending the noon service.

 Photo of Sai Gon from bus: 

Very common to see tall, skinny buildings because space is
 such a premium commodity in a populous nation like Vietnam.

 It's the norm to see locals eating on sidewalks on short plastic chairs or stools throughout Asia. We haven't tried it yet because of the often overwhelming noise sitting right next to or virtually on top of  the fumes from car and motorcycle traffic and the far less than ideal sanitary conditions. Plus, Steven always has to very careful eating street food because of his severe nut allergy and there's no way of knowing what may be in the foods when no menus are present.

En route to the temple, we stopped off at The Handicapped Handicrafts Shop for 20 minutes to see plaques being made that were inlaid with mother-of-pearl and eggshells.

Photos from Handicapped Handicrafts Shop:

The design is carved first, then cracked eggshells added and then mother-of-pearl. The painting step must come in here, I figure! Finally everything is smoothed out before being polished.

 I don't think I will ever look at eggshells again as simply garbage to be
tossed down the disposal after seeing the exquisite work done here. 

This unfinished (i.e. unpolished) plaque costs $72; if finished and polished, it would then cost $90. 

I would have liked more time to look at some of the beautiful products but the 20 minutes we were allotted by the guide was too short a time to view the step by step process as well as shop. 

Every vehicle in Vietnam larger than a car has its license plate number enlarged many fold on either the back of the vehicle or on the side as in the above photo. I took this photo so we could check back and know which of the many tour buses was ours in the parking lot!

Photos of Cao Di Temple:

The Cao Di Temple which means high holy place is used only for praying; unlike other temples, no monks live there.  

Tao, our guide, said that 3% of Vietnamese follow the Cao Di religion, with almost all of them 

living in the south of the country.

The Cao Dai religion is less than a 100 years old and is a broad, inclusive faith that sprang from Buddhist origins to embrace Jesus, Muhammad and other non traditional saints such as Louis Pasteur, Martin Luther King and Victor Hugo. 

Services are held every 6 hours beginning at midnight and followers choose which service to attend. Tao explained that followers can also pray at home instead of going to the temple.

In the 40 minutes allotted to us in the huge complex or compound, we only had time to see the main temple, i.e. the one in the first photo. Since it had taken us 2.5 hours to get there, we wished we could have left Sai Gon earlier and thus had adequate time to fully discover more of the Cao Di Temple area. No idea what the above was for instance unfortunately. 

We got dropped off at the the temple literally 5 minutes before the noon service was to begin, a little tight for us.

Our guide had told us this too but it turned out that all visitors had to enter from the right side which just added to the confusion!

It wasn't til later that we realized the power and/or responsibilities the women with the golden armbands had.

The procession of monks and followers was about to begin so all tourists needed to leave the entry space to allow for the elders to proceed and the service begin. We were all quickly ushered upstairs to watch from the small balcony. That's why the next photos are from the top down!

Notice all the women wearing their beautifully coiffed hair in buns or chignons.

3 main colors represented in the Cao Di religion, each having a different association: yellow for Buddhists, red for Taoists and blue for Confucianists.

Having a bird's eye view really gave us a good perspective of what was unfolding below.

A gong sounded many times throughout the service. Each time it did, people all bowed down. 

It was evident the women we had seen earlier wearing gold armbands are the senior members in charge. We saw one tell a woman she was sitting improperly. 

Women were on the left and men on the right. Don’t know why some women wore head coverings and what they signified.

Fixing the woman's hair as her bun was no longer in place. 

The orchestra/musical accompaniment  was also located on the balcony.

Leaving the balcony to walk back downstairs.

I followed Steven downstairs a few minutes later; we stood in the entryway and watched more of the service unfold in front of us.

The Divine Eye is the most recurrent motif in the temple

There are 2 major festivals a year in the Cao Di religion, in January and August. In the Vietnamese calendar, there is only 1 week a year that people don’t pray and that is the week before the New Year.

We read information about the religion and some of its famous followers or adherents in the entryway.

We decided to walk around the outside of the temple before the service ended.

The tile was very hot to walk on shoeless so it was great having this runner 
to connect the temple and the shoes!

Once the monks have finished ‘conducting’ the 40 minute service, they return to their everyday lives and jobs, our guide explained.

What an extraordinary experience witnessing the beautiful Cao Di service. We were back on the bus by 12:45 after waiting for 2 young Englishmen to finish their cigarettes!

Lunch at the restaurant was included in the day tour.

After stopping for a quick but satisfying lunch break a little later on, we then piled back in the bus for another 75 minute drive to Ben Dinh to view a section of the Cu Chi Tunnels. On the way Tao explained that Vietnam is the third largest coffee producing nation in the world, after Brazil and Columbia.

Rainy season here in southern Vietnam so the rice fields are all under water.

He said we were only 25 kms from the Cambodian border here. As no betting is allowed in Vietnam, Vietnamese living close to the border cross over to gamble in Cambodia to the casinos built exclusively for them as there is no Cambodian city near the border, Tao explained. He commented on how smart the Cambodians were to construct 8 casinos so close to the border. He said that there are 9 casinos in Vietnam but they are only open for tourists. 

We arrived at Ben Dinh, located within Sai Gon's city limits, about 3:30 to visit the Cu Chi Tunnels used by the North Vietnamese to hide against the Americans during what we call the Vietnam War. Here in Vietnam, the war is referred to as the American War.

Photos from visit to Cu Chi tunnels:

About 2,000 people a day visit the tunnels, Tao told us, that were 250kms long and built by 4,800 people. Some of the tunnels were as small as 80cm wide by 80cm high and up to 4 levels deep. More fresh air was present in the top level of tunnels but that area was also the most dangerous because the bombings obviously affected the top level most. Vent shafts to disperse smoke and aromas from underground ovens were camouflaged by thick grass and termites nests.

The guided tour of the tunnels began in a thatched hut where Tao showed us a map of the region and then played a short movie.

Original tunnel entrance

Tao said an ax was used to dig the dirt and a basket like the one 

above to haul the dirt away. I read the soil was disposed of by spreading it into bomb craters and scattering it into the river under cover of darkness. 

Tunnel entrance

Photo of Tao entering tunnel.

Tao joked that Vietnamese are very small people and they don't eat at the Subway, McDonald's and KFC restaurants as he implied all Americans/Westerners do so they could easily get down AND out of the tunnels! He said his job depended on remaining small enough to still be able to climb into tunnel entrance! Of course, that was a challenge to some on the tour who tried it too!

 Even a 6’4” guy from England tried it and was able to get through!

Tao felt that part of the reason the Vietnamese won the war was the people were very small and presented more difficult targets for the Americans; they could sit on their haunches all day and easily shoot their rifles with little recoil.

Tao said 24 tons of Agent Orange was sprayed in the jungle.

Sandals made of recycled tires lasted for 7 years and were great to wear in the jungle. I was surprised how heavy one was when I lifted it up later.

How disquieting to hear the sounds of machine guns and rifles blasting away when we were at this spot in the jungle. 

According to Tao, 121 tanks were destroyed by the Vietnamese.

2 of the 6 traps, each covered with grass, Tao showed us; any more would be too many.

 Military 'workshop' where bombs were recycled into other weapons.

 Sign showing costs for tourists want to shoot various types of guns.

B52 bomb crater measuring 3 m deep by 17m wide.

After the preceding tour, we all had the option of visiting a short stretch of the tunnels. The ‘original' tunnels were 25% smaller and obviously only built for small Vietnamese bodies. These were enlarged to accommodate Subway loving, McDonald's loving, KFC loving tourists, Tao stated! He added if we get stuck when crawling through, the one day trip might just mean we stay one extra night for free!

I believe everyone on the tour chose to enter the tunnel for an insight into life as a tunnel-dwelling resistance fighter. Going in we knew there were escape holes if the extremely narrow and short spaces got to be too much.

Only one section of the tunnel had light. It was, as you might imagine, a dark, sweaty, claustrophobic experience having to go through on our hands and knees. The experience is not recommended for those who might worry about a subterranean freak out.

Seeing the light of day had rarely looked so good.

Beginning at lunchtime Steven and I began chatting with 2 great guys, both doctors, traveling together from near Wroclaw in southern Poland. Tadek, on the left, shares an internal medicine practice with his mother while Michal is in family medicine. Tadek mentioned that his parents, 57 and 55, visited 53 countries in 5 years so that his mother understands when he wants to take some time off to travel! I hope that we'll see them one day in the not too distant future when they visit the US.

We left the tunnel area at 5ish for the 90 minute journey back to Sai Gon.

Photos of Sai Gon's horrendous car and motorbike traffic:

Steven sure needed his mug of beer at the end of the day!

Posted on 10/19 from Hue, Vietnam.