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SAIGON & MEKONG DELTA
Saigon
- Ho Chi Minh City
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Saigon, officially named Ho Chi Minh
City is a thriving metropolis with
an unavoidable western influence
offering quite a different
experience to Hanoi. Whilst Hanoi
seems a city to be savoured with
more traditions and obvious traces
of the red-tape, Saigon catches up
better and faster with the best and
worst sides of "doi moi" movements
(renovation of the country)
following the market economy rules.
This is commercial hub of Vietnam,
the industrial muscle of the nation.
This is the rendezvous of business
people and hustlers, whilst not many
of them carry visa-versus from
Saigon to other big cities in
Vietnam.
Towering developments start to break
the skyline as multinationals fight
for a seat on a plane into the
country. Doi Moi and the lifting of
the crippling embargo have opened
the floodgates to an unstoppable
torrent of foreign capital. Now
everyone wants to be friends, after
all, there is a lot of money to be
made. After twenty years of forced
sedation, Vietnam is now stirring
but Saigon is wide awake.
For many of the inhabitants of Ho
chi Minh City, nothing has changed.
The streets still swarm with life.
People buy and sell things, bargain,
cook, wash, sleep, eat, drink, and
live on the streets of Saigon.
Despite the large amount of money
being thrown around, the filter
effect is yet to manifest itself and
thousands of people have to survive
on virtually nothing. Cyclo drivers,
often unable to do other work due to
government policy, earn next to
nothing and are still being punished
for being on the losing side. As
they bed down for the night n their
cyclo, across the road at the La Lai
Hotel, the wealthy Vietnamese are
arriving in their Mercedes Benz for
a night of indulgence.
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In one word, Saigon is facing all
good and bad things caused by the
new movements of Vietnam. It
obviously promises lots of
interesting things to discover,
whilst remains an exciting centre
for shopping and hanging around and
somehow remind you of its one-time
name "the Pearl of the Far Orient.
Tay Ninh
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Tay Ninh is situated 95 km
north-west of Ho Chi Minh city and
is the original home of the Cao Dai
religious sect. It is from here that
Cao Daism has spread its influence
onto surrounding provokes. In time
past, this sect ran its own army, as
they had been ruthlessly oppressed
by Diem and his regime. The Cao Dais
denied support to the Viet Cong, and
after reunification, they were
punished for this intransigence by
the confiscation of their lands and
temples which were not returned to
them until 1985.
The central Cao Dai Temple is 4 km
from Tay Ninh in the village of Long
Hoa. Surrounded by a series of
schools and administrative
buildings, the temple contains an
awesome array of colors and
symbolism unlike anything else you
will see in Vietnam. Built entirely
with donations from its
parishioners, the temple is built on
nine levels and the inside is lined
with a series of pillars with ornate
colored dragons curling up them. The
ceiling of the temple is painted sky
blue and adorned with white fluffy
clouds, said to represent the
heavens. In fact, almost everything
within the temple holds some
symbolic value. At the far end of
the great hallway is a large
brightly colored globe upon which is
a large eye. This is the divine "all
seeing eye:, believed to represent
the creator of the universe and
similar eyes can be seen lining both
sides of the building within its
lattice windows. The temple always
looks like it has just had a new
coat of paint and is extremely
photogenic.
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Masses are held at 6 am, midday, 6
PM and midnight. It is worth timing
your visit to the temple for one of
these ceremonies as they are quite
spectacular to witness. Men enter
from and pray on the right side of
the temple whereas women enter from
and pray left. During festivals, all
the worshippers are dressed from
head to toe in white to add a bit
more formality to the scene. The
three colors you will see are those
of red, yellow and blue which
represent Confucianism, Buddhism and
Taoism respectively. If a funeral is
in progress, an icon is placed on
the central altar for each of the
deceased. Although you are not
allowed in the actual area of
worship during prayer, you are
allowed in the foyer, from where you
can take some great photos of the
mass. The Cao Dai do not mind having
their photo taken, though it is
always polite to ask first.
Cu Chi tunnels
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These tunnels are a symbol of
Vietnam’s continual fight against
foreign oppression and imperialism.
The tunnel system covers close to
200 km including under what was once
a US air base. The tunnels once
spanned an area stretching from
close to the Cambodian border to the
city limits of Ho Chi Minh City.
They can be seen to represent the
Vietnamese attributes of ingenuity,
loyalty, hard work and
determination. They were originally
constructed to fight against the
French in the 1940s, to give a
peasant army a means of
communication between villages
whilst remaining undetected. In 1960
the Viet Cong repaired and added to
the tunnels to fight against the
South Vietnamese and American
forces. The Commander of the
American forces in the region held
the opinion that the Viet Cong who
were responsible for digging them
were like human moles. Although the
tunnels were mainly designed with a
fighting role in mind they also
contained a wide array of chambers
including field hospitals, meeting
rooms and even private offices and
sleeping quarters for senior
officers. To repel attacks and
infiltration, the tunnels contained
many elaborate booby traps including
concealed pits with bamboo spikes at
the base, and mines and crossbows
which would be triggered by trip
wires. When you visit the tunnels,
your guide should point out some of
these traps, then look back over
your path and try to decide how many
of those you would have triggered.
Some of the tunnels went under
water, with a primitive S-Bend
effect where the tunnel would open
under the surface of a river, this
allowing the Viet Cong to leave the
tunnels virtually undetected.
Before entering the actual Cu Chi
tunnels, you may see a screening of
a propaganda film about them that
has some amazing footage. You will
then be guided around the tunnels by
an English speaking guide. You will
only visit some of the tunnels which
have been preserved in a state not
dissimilar to how they were during
the war including those areas used
as a field hospital, meeting room
and other official quarters. It is
also possible to fire an AK - 47 on
site for USD 1 a bullet. The firing
range closes at 4.30 PM, whilst the
tunnels close at 5 PM |
