Siagon

The weather has broken and we are now having some sunshine, this does make life easier getting around and it does mean I can leave the trusty poncho mac behind for once. We have had a good couple of days. Yesterday we went to the Cu Chi tunnels and the Cao Dai Temple. It was an organised tour and yet again a marvellous mix of nationalities, with us the only British people. That is not exactly true, there was a chap who had lived in new Zealand for 30 years, he believed that he had lost his northern accent but all I could hear was a broad accent which just said the north of England. The rest were from the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand (or so he claimed), America and a very noisy group of teenagers from Singapore. It was an early start as our first stop was the Cao Dai Temple about 3 hours from the city.

The Cao Dai Temple, and the community which surrounds it, is, I understand, unique to Vietnam. It is a religion which takes aspects of Buddhism, Catholicism, Taoism and Confucian and was started at the beginning of the last centuary. The temple is highly decorated with dragons bright paintings, some of the worshippers wear robes which signify the religious root they follow; for example, white for Catholicism and yellow for Buddhist. We arrived in time for the midday service, music and singing was performed by some of the worshippers, this had a rythmic rather spell-binding rhythm which was clearly linked to meditation. At intervals a bell was sounded which provoked the worshippers to bow. It was fascinatinationg to watch and had a certain spirituality. The photo was taken from the balcony where we were able to observe the service.

From this peaceful episode in the day, we then proceeded to the Ch Chi tunnels from where the viet cong, and residents of the nearby village who supported the viet cong, hid out and attacked the American service men. It was amazing to see the tiny tunnels in which they made their way undergound. The ingenuity of some of the steps they took to remain secret was incredible. Of course, the Vietnamese are slight people, the entraces and exits to the tunnels were tiny, far too small for any of the Americans to use. There were a couple of boys in our group who were about 10 or 12 and they were the only ones who would have been able to go through most of the entrances. We were also shown some of the booby traps they laid, most of which were made from shrapnel from American ordnance, they were simple in their constuction but lethal in their impact, all rather scarey.

Today was our last day in Ho Chi Minh City. We walked for miles, really enjoyed the city. There is a beautiful Botanical Gardens, which has a not quite so beautiful Zoo. It was good to see that they were making changes to some of the compounds in which the animals were kept to make them more interesting and stimulating but there is still some way to go. The plants and trees were excellent, well established and it was apparent that there has been a long term commitment to ensuring this garden is kept well for the enjoyment of visitors.

Today we sent home some stuff we know we will no longer need, (cold weather stuff - sorry all of you in England!) it is good to empty some of our luggage to make way for a couple of new acquisitions on our travels (don't tell John!)

We are off on a boat tomorrow on the Mekong Delta so may be out of contact for a few days.