Day two and three in Saigon City

I am not sure why my text is underlined and I can't seem to turn it off so I will just carry on.

FYI Saigon City is the older name for Ho Chi Minh City before the government changed it. Since my program does not start until Saturday and I finished in SA last Saturday, I chose to spend part of the week in SA and part here in Vietnam.

For my second day here I went on a tour to the Cao Dai Temples and to the Cu Chi Tunnels, the ones used by the Vietnamese Guerrillas in the Vietnam War. Below is our tour guide Hai with an American tank that was destroyed by a delay mine in the war. It is very strange hearing about the war from their perspective, tons of propoganda. They even say that soilders were awarded medals and thought of as war heros because they "killed many many Americans," very strange.



On the way out there we stopped at this war veterans art store, where they made beautiful art out of crushed egg shells (oh look at that the underlining has stopped, brilliant!). Anyway, they would condition the wood or stone and press the eggshells into it using knives and then paint a picture over it using the eggshells as texture. Pretty cool, I had to grab some memerobilia.


At the tour of the Guerrilla Tunnels I got to shoot an M60 rambo-like rifle that pretty much blew my ears off. A guy from Argentina and I were the only ones to do it and it was quite an experience.


This is a picture from inside the Cao Dai Temple. The Cao Dai religion is a mixture of Buddism, Confusianism, and strict Cao Dai religion. It is stange how they just throw around thei religions here, but I guess that is how it goes.



Me outside the Temple.


This is a bar right outside my hostel. The guy who owns it is married to the Vietnamese Prime Minister's daughter. He is also an ex-marine that probably faught in the Vietnam war, not sure how that all works out but oh well.


I met this guy Lennard from Holland and we went to the Saigon City Zoo. The animals were pretty cool, but I think the locals were more fascinated with us than the animals. This little kid came over to me and just stared at me for a while them we taught him how to hi-five.

We are heading out to dinner now, so I will hopefully get to try some of the traditional dog they serve here. Until next time, Ciao!