Kick the Bucket and Go to Heaven

Yesterday was the day Patricia and I had set aside to go to the Cao Đài temple and the Củ Chi Tunnels. We had purchased the tickets in the backpacker district the day before and had debated about whether to do the whole-day trip or just the half-day Củ Chi Tunnel portion. In the end, although we still had many questions about the Cao Đài religion and wondered about the notion of umpteen bus tours unloading hundreds of tourists to witness their noon service, we did decide to go to both places.
The day did not start out auspiciously ... our trip was delayed by 45 minutes as the bus was ‘caught in traffic’ which is a common euphemism for who knows what. Then when we were led to our bus, it was almost full with only seats next to sleeping backpackers available. In fact, I think the tour company shops around the number of tourists and sells us to the lowest bidder. But I should not focus on the negatives ... while we were looking for our tour company, we saw a very cute little puppy ... I have been taking a lot of photos of dogs and cats lately.We also came across a man of God who was waving a Bible and approaching people, saying, ‘ Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ ... kick the bucket and go to heaven’. It was quite the early-morning message! I have to say, I couldn’t fully embrace it as I was in a bit of a pissy mood ... put off by the delay. Let us just say I had some doubts about the tour before we even left Phạm Ngũ Lão, which is the name of the backpacker district ... apparently he was a general in the Trần Dynasty. I wonder what he thinks of all the goings on in the district named after him.
At any rate, we set off to Tây Ninh, which is where the Cao Đài temple and the seat of the Cao Đài religion is located. We passed more and more Cao Đài temples, the closer we got to Tây Ninh. The buildings are extremely ornate and very colourfully decorated and their main symbol is the eye. Various aspects of Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Taoism, and Confucianism are included in the Cao Đài religion, which was founded in Vietnam in the late 1920s. We got to the Cao Đài compound at about 11:50 and had to be back at the bus by 12:30, so we had very little time to wander around. We were shepherded into a stairway that led up to a narrow mezzanine that went around both sides of the sanctuary. We saw a small altar being set up before the prayers started.After a few minutes, a procession led by several elderly men and one woman entered. There must have been a couple of hundred worshippers ... in the sanctuary along with people behind the main sanctuary and some musicians and other clebrants upstairs. We were permitted to take photographs but asked not to make noise. As it does so often in houses of worship that are also tourist attractions, it seemed so jarring to see folks rush in, take their prerequisite photos, and leave, without regard for what may be happening spiritually in the service below. Granted, the photo ops were pretty good, with the carved and painted columns and rows and rows of men and women dressed in white ao dàis and robes, with some senior celebrants in vivid yellow, blue, or red robes.The chanting and exotic music only added to the very interesting and confusing mix. And in the end, we also left in mid-service, as we had been asked to regroup at the bus by 12:30, before the service ended. I kept thinking that losing 45 minutes at the beginning of the day resulted in our having much less time at the temple... Moral of the story ... go with a driver if there is to be a next time.
We travelled on to Củ Chi. Our guide told us that 80% of visitors to Vietnam visit the tunnels, which were so important during the war. They are an immense network (maybe like 250 km?) of connecting underground tunnels. They were one of the bases of the Viet Cong in resisting American operations and an immense source of pride for the Vietnamese people. The documentary we saw was pretty amazing for its anti-American rhetoric ... this after my assuring Nicky, my young American bus seatmate, that I hadn’t noticed any overt anti-American feeling among the people I had met here. So we saw some of the spider tunnels and some of the other tunnels that people used along with trenches where they shot at aircraft and then retreated to the tunnels. It was a bit difficult to hear everything the guide said, as it was a large group and hard to see everything. You can imagine this improved my overall mood quite considerably. In addition, we saw examples of workshops where weapons were fashioned along with various traps the National Liberation Front guerillas would set for American military personnel ... and other instruments of destruction (along with more than a few large craters created by B52 bombs). It was very hot and quite depressing; the woods we walked through had all been defoliated by Agent Orange or burned down. It seemed to still reek of war and chemicals.The place where we were walking was cleaned up and all tunnels and traps clearly marked but our guide told us other parts of Vietnam, especially the DMZ is still extremely full of mines and unexploded bombs.And then we got to the place where we could have a cold drink - and people could line up to shoot various forms of assault rifles, some of which were left over from the war. And they did, with alacrity. Heee hawww! The noise of these weapons was so loud and jarring and people’s love of shooting stuff up was so at odds with what the tunnels represented to both of us that we just left. That forest where so many people lost their lives and took the lives of so many others juxtaposed with the people lining up to shoot guns was just too much. Oy. We walked out of those woods and waited at the end of the tour for our group. When the bus came, we got on it, but the engine quickly shut down. Patricia got off, as the bus immediately got hot, but I was too tired and wanted to stay in the sauna. A Vietnamese woman sat down behind me and we struck up a conversation. She was such a nice lady ... Anh. She heard someone say in Vietnamese that the bus was going to take a bit of work and so she suggested we get off the bus. It was cooler outdoors and we waited for a while. Everyone on the bus just stood around. Our guide said nothing ... Anh said she heard that they were trying to rent a couple of local buses from the town nearby, as the tour bus was very broken. Someone had gone on a bicycle to see about renting some buses. Then the next thing I knew she was taking her things off the bus and she came over to tell us that she and her nephew were leaving. She said she had heard they were sending a bus from Ho Chi Minh City and it would take an hour to get to Củ Chi and so she and her nephew were going to take the local bus and go home by public transit. I impulsively asked if we could go with her, and she agreed. It felt great to leave the broken down bus and the non-communicative guide and the big group of people behind. A bus came after about 5 minutes of waiting. It was my favourite part of the day ... we drove along country roads and it was so interesting. It felt like we were on an adventure. The area actually looks quite prosperous today, with lots of new houses and the light was late-afternoon wonderful, so the rice fields were really sparkling and verdant-looking. We changed buses after about an hour. That first ride cost 12,ooo VND for two ... around 40 cents each and the second ride was the usual 3,000 VND each. Anh was so lovely ... I will always remember her taking Patricia’s hand and leading her across the parking lot at the bus depot. We luckily got the last bus to the city and arrived in Hồ Chí Minh City at about 7:00. We took a taxi back to Phú Mỹ Hưng and were both glad to see that Nathalie’s, the Thai restaurant next door was finally open after Tết and so we polished off a very strange day with some cashew chicken, pad thai and a spicy green mango salad. Although the day had its challenges, it also had some memorable moments and we were both glad we didn’t kick the bucket, heaven or no ...