Cao Dai Temple & the Cu Chi Tunnels

It’s a little before 7 a.m., and in about 30-45 minutes, Jason and I will leave for our second day-trip to the Mekong Delta. Yesterday we went to Cao Dai Temple and the Cu Chi Tunnels. Caodaism, which is a unique religion that began in the 1920s combining the teachings of Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism, Christianity, Islam and other religions into one religion to promote peace, is the religion practiced at the temple. Imagine that! We were able to observe a mass at 12 noon, which was beautiful. Upon removing our shoes and leaving them outside, we entered the colorful temple. At the front, in the center, is the main alter, which has a large painted eye in the center of a ball. The people come to worship the eye of god, looking down upon them.

The religion is a mix of the east and the west. The organizational structure roughly follows that of the Roman Catholic Church with a pope, cardinals, bishops, and priests. There are several colors present in the temple. The common people, who come to worship, wear white. Women use one hallway/stairway, and the men use the other. Some of the worshippers had white scarves on their heads, others had black, and there were others who didn’t use any scarves at all. There are three main colors (other than white) represented by members. Red robes signify Catholicism, Christianity, and Islam. Yellow robes are worn by Buddhists, and Taoists and Confusionists wear blue robes. French writer, Victor Hugo, is one of their famous saints. At least that is what I got out of our guide’s information. It was sometimes a little hard to understand his English. We were able to walk around the temple about 15 minutes before the mass began and then observed about 20 minutes of their rituals, which consisted of a lot of chanting.

The next stop after lunch was the Cu Chi Tunnels. These tunnels were essentially an underground village used by the Viet Cong and one of the most famous battlegrounds during the Vietnam War. The Cu Chi Tunnels were an underground city with living areas, kitchens, storage, weapons factories, field hospitals, and command centres. In places, it was even three stories deep and housed up to 10,000 people who virtually lived underground for years.... getting married, giving birth, going to school. They only came out at night to tend their crops. Parts of the tunnels have been renovated and restored; it’s a major tourist attraction today. We arrived and watched a 15 minute black and white propaganda video. It was of very poor quality and difficult to hear any of the narration or dialogue, but the sounds of the bombs were amplified. It was more anti-American sentiment, and by the end, you got the point. The guide then showed us a map of the grounds and a model of the tunnels, which went down several levels into the ground, consisting of short, narrow hallways, weaving underground, connecting bedrooms, kitchens, and even a complicated chimney system to release the smoke slowly into the air to avoid bombing by the Americans.

We observed several of the pit traps, booby traps, gruesome bamboo spike door traps, and window traps the Viet Cong set throughout the jungles. The American soldiers fell through beds of nails. These traps were usually covered by leaves. It was even hard to find the entrances of the tunnels without our guide pointing them out. I really can’t imagine how horrifying it must have been to have been here during the 1960s and 70s. Today there are thatched roofs so tourists can see the structure of the kitchens, hospitals, and bomb/ landmine making rooms (which are all underground), but during the war, all the soldiers would have been able to see was dense jungle. The Viet Cong had camouflaged the air holes in large termite mounds. There were also ditches all along the path today where Viet Cong soldiers hid to fire at the enemy. There are rooms holding four soldiers, one at each corner, where there were small holes in the ground. The soldiers would fire at the enemy from there.

You could see a couple large holes where bombs were dropped. As we continued the tour, the experience became even more horrifying as we neared the shooting range. For a little more than a dollar a bullet, tourists can fire M 16s and AK 47s. The guns themselves appeared to be bolted down, but the sounds were deafening. I had to hold my ears even near the range. Most tourists, who chose to participate, fired a bullet at a time, but every once in a while, we’d hear a string of 5-10 bullets. It was one of the scariest feelings I have ever felt.

Toward the end of the tour, we were able to go through a part of the Cu Chi Tunnels with one of the guards working at the site. There are now steps to help people down, and at first it was hard to really see how small the actual tunnels are. But soon enough, I was on my feet, crouched as low as I could possibly go, waddling through 3 or 3 ½ by 2 foot tunnels. Parts had a small light on the floor, but most of them were pitch black. It was terrifying. It was hard to see the person in front of my and parts came to a Y. About halfway through, a little claustrophobia set in, and I was ready to be out. I can’t imagine how the families lived in these tunnels. They were so hot and tiny. The Viet Cong stayed in them all day and only came out at night when the Americans were sleeping.

After exiting the tunnels, we were fed some tapioca. Because a bowl of rice can only sustain a person for a couple of hours, the Viet Cong primarily ate boiled tapioca, dipped in chopped peanut. It was pretty good. The tapioca didn’t have much of a taste; it was much like eating a boiled, peeled potato. I’m sure the peanut helped give it some flavor.