5th Day

I met the girls at 7:30 am at Ben Thanh Market and we went together to the tourist stand where we had booked our day trip to the Cao Dai Temple and the Cu Chi Tunnels, and at 8:30 we were leaving Ho Chi Minh City. It took us about three hours to reach the Cao Dai Temple (Cao Dai is a syncretist Vietnamese religious movement that incorporates aspects of Buddhism, Taoism, Conducianism, and even Catholicism), and we arrived just on time to see the midday ceremony ! In the afternoon we went to see the Cu Chi Tunnels (an immense network of connecting underground tunnels, who were used by Viet Cong guerrillas as hiding spots during the Vietnam War, as well as serving as communication and supply routes, hospitals, food and weapon caches and living quarters for numerous guerrilla fighters). It was really interesting. We could also crawl into one of these tunnels, and I must say, I couldn't imagine staying there for more than 10 minutes ! It is so warm and humid, and the tunnels don't even have 1m diameter. We also saw some traps they did at that time against the US military, and it was really ... impressive. We were back at about 6 pm, had some dinner and then went home, exhausted ! Good night !