Cao Dai Conversion

Today was an unbelievably amazing day. It started with the regular 6 am wakeup. We had breakfast downstairs in the guest house and ran outside to grab ca phe suh da (iced coffee with condensed milk) before all getting onto a coach bus. That was weird, since I felt like a complete tourist with everyone staring into our bus full of Americans. We traveled for about an hour through the contry-side of Vietnam, which was something new for us. We've only been in the Ho Chi Minh City so far, so the change was abrupt and stunning. We passed cows, rice paddies, and small children playing with sickly-looking dogs in front of their run-down front porches. I took many pictures and the colors are amazing.

We finally reached our first destination, the tunnels at Cu Chi. This was interesting because we had the opportunity to venture down into the small tunnels that the Northern Vietnamese (Viet Cong) used to defeat America. We walked through some jungle to get to the tunnels, and I let my imagination run free. I quickly decided that I definitely would have peed my pants if I had been a soldier sitting there in that jungle brush, waiting to receive gunfire at any time. Then it occurred to me that the exact same thing is currently happening in Iraq. By the way, a lot of Vietnamese people have already highlighted the glaring similarities between the former situation in Vietnam and the current situation in Iraq. Hmmmm.....

Before we entered the tunnels, we were shown a short movie about how small Vietnamese women used to get certain commendations and medals for killing certain numbers of American soldiers. It was all so ironic, as we were walking through the very tunnels that fooled our troops for so long. This is the true meaning of "behind enemy lines." All around us in the forest, there were termite hills that were actually disguised air holes down into the tunnels. There were trap doors that led to punji, which are sharpened bamboo sticks covered in poop. Basically you'd be screwed after getting stabbed, since the poop was a sure-fire way to cause infection and death. I just kept thinking how smart they were to set up all these ingenious things. They even had a 50 meter well and outlet to the Saigon River that they used for escape. We were led down into the tunnels and I had brought my head lamp. Everyone else thought it was funny at first, but then I think they got a little jealous. The tunnels were small and extremely dark. We went through a part of one tunnel system that took 20 minutes. It was 300 feet long and about 9 km under the ground. My headlamp illuminated the scorpions, frogs, gigantic centipedes, and spiders on our way there. I decided not to scream about it, since I thought panic and pandemonium might not be the best thing for our group at that time. I also don't scream unless I see puppies or zoo animals. :) The tunnels were more than amazing and I'm now a tunnel rat, as they called them.

Dripping with sweat, we boarded the bus. I drank some water and fell asleep for about 45 minutes. We arrivedat a Cao Dai temple just in time for one of their four daily ceremonies. IT WAS AMAZING. No one else onour trip seemed to be all that excited, but this is a new and synthetic religion that is based in Vietnam and its people. To read more on it, the outline and important facts can be found here: http://www.religionfacts.com/a-z-religion-index/cao_dai.htm . It's basically incorporates ideas and figureheads from Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. We entered the gates and people in our group immediately started taking pictures. I took a couple, but felt it was inappropriate to take pictures of them and their temple during their ceremony. Instead, I ran ahead, took my shoes off and left them under a small umbrella outside the temple, and entered the worship space. It was extremely colorful and filled with people all dressed in white milling about before the ceremony. I went up the stairs to the balcony and sat down in a small side room next to an old woman and a small girl who must have been her granddaughter. They were extremely friendly and I was able to have a small converation with them in Vietnamese before they whipped out their English. They let me take their picture in their ceremonial garb, and then music started. Everyone was ushered through a door into the main worship space, which was a long and colorful hall with an ornate tile floor. Since we were on the balcony, we watched the other participants file in in straight lines and sit down like in a mosque. When all the participants had been seated, the older woman I had been talking to before looked at me and patted the small space next to her. I took this as my formal invitation to pray with her. Needless to say, I was more than excited. The rest of my group was peering over the balcony in order to take better pictures of these people praying, but I felt included. This lady proceeded to take my hands and mold them into the correct shape for praying (left thumb into your fist, with your right hand latched onto the side of the left hand's fist). At certain times during the music, which everyone was chanting quietly along to, something like a gong would go off. At this time, everyone would put their hands slowly to their forehead (with the formation of what looks like bird in sign language) and then hold it there until the next gong sound, where you'd bow down with your hands flat on the ground. I got used to it and it was very helpful. I just hummed along, tried to make sure my right foot was getting enough blood while sitting in the indian style position, and thought about one unified Go. I considered pluralism as well as thanked Him for the awesome opportunity to be included in the rituals of a fairly new religious sect. I also stopped to notice the rituals of the leaders and the fact that women and men seemed to be sitting wherever they wanted, as equals. This was the case with children and elderly as well. Both men and women were the leaders as well. After half an hour, I mouthed "thank you" in Vietnamese and left with my group. I am pretty sure most of them got pictures of me praying with the lady and now they all think I'm really off the deep end. The Vietnamese friends that came along for the field trips today were confused with my behavior at the temple as well. Oh well. It was one of the most amazing things to ever happen to me.

After getting my bearings and leaving the temple, I boarded the bus yet again. We stopped for lunch and there was a lot of food. I practiced my Vietnamese with the locals and named and fed two small cats that we found wandering around the restaurant. Boarding the bus yet again at about 2 pm, I thought we were going to go back to the guest house. I was wrong. We traveled through the countryside for even longer and ended up in Trang Bang. It's not said how it's spelled, though. Sorry to let you down. :) Our bus stopped on the side of the street and we were told to look down the road, which was pretty empty before rush hour. It turns out that we were looking at the site of the famous war-time picture taken of Kim Phuc, a small Vietnamese girl running naked and burned from her village and the napalm bombs. If you're not sure which picture I'm referring to, visit this site quickly: http://www.kimfoundation.com . We ventured into a small roadside restaurant, where I met Kim's brother's widow. Kim's brother died about two years ago, but his wife and daughter still run the family restaurant. They were almost silent as they led us to the newspaper clippings and photos hung on one wall. As we finished looking and taking pictures of it all, they pushed a "play" button on a VCR/TV mounted in the corner of the room and we all had a seat to watch the 30 minute movie on Kim and her life and healing in Canada. It was sad, as the Vietnamese government made her quit school (effectively quashing her dreams to be a doctor) in order to work as a figurehead victim for the country. It was rough for her, as you might imagine. We said goodbye and got on the bus for the last time today.

It took another two or three hours to get through rush hour traffic in Ho Chi Minh City, and we got back to the guest house at 6 pm. I took a much-needed shower, as I was still covered with dirt from the tunnels and many layers of sweat that had dried and then reappeared throughout the day. I got dinner with ZeeZee and some others. We came back to the guest house at about 9 and Brian and I set off on his bike for our favorite spot, Acoustic. We got a bit lost (mostly because of huge trucks in our lanes and one-way streets) until I spotted a guy on a moped that we knew from Acoustic a couple of night ago. We finally found it, I ordered my usual watermelon juice, and after about an hour or two some others from our group came to check it out. The live music ended at 11:30 and then Brian and I rode the bike back to the guest house. I've been trying to process my day and my pictures ever since.

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