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Today began with the sounds of someone puking -pleasant i know! Three people down left Liam and i as the only members of our family that were going on a day trip tour to Cao Dai Temple and Cu Chi Tunnels, so we left the sickies at our hotel and set off this adventure on our own.
I didn't really know where we were going or how far we were going for that matter, so imagine my surprise when i was showed a map with a dot close to the Cambodian border and the words "about six to seven hours in the bus today" but all was well, a little bit of bus sickness and some English tourists that thought that rice was a root vegetable, like a bulb that you opened up and the rice spilled out...oh dear!
Apparently they felt 'betrayed' when they were told otherwise. Anyway we finally got to Cao Dai Temple in time for the midday prayer. Cao Dai temple is a temple where people who follow the religions of Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism all come together and pray as one, which i though was really interesting and beautiful. The Buddhists wear yellow, Taoists wear blue and the Confucianists wear red, and you could tell from their headwear how highly they were regarded.
After the temple we set off to Cu Chi tunnels, which is where communities of Vietnamese lived underground during the Vietnam/America war. They had literally built communities underground with tunnels that reached 100km between them, it would take about a month to get from one end to the other. It was very well set up, so that sometimes the Americans would be camping on the land above these communities without even knowing that there were people living underground. Of course living underground for fifteen years had its dangers such as lack of sunlight, insects, disease and snakes (!) and many people died.
Tomorrow we're off to Phu Quoc Island for a few days before i head off to Thailand!
Fun fact for the day, the five points on the Vietnamese star stand for: Intellectuals, peasants, workers, traders and armymen.
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