Ho Chi Min City

We are in Vietnam now! We arrived in Ho Chi Min City (HCMC) a couple days ago. So far the trip has been very interesting and educational. Yesterday we spent the day checking out the city's three main museums. We started at the History Museum, where we learned about the history of Vietnam since the days of early man. The first humans to inhabit the land were Homo Erectus, half a million years ago! As we wandered through the museum, we saw the evolution of the culture from the stone age, to the bronze age, to a 1000 year occupation by the Chinese, and to their independence from the Chinese and later from the French in 1945. After learning about their history, I have really gained a new respect for Vietnam's national pride and persistence. They were able to fight off every super power that has tried to occupy their country. They were even able to stop the Mogul Empire from expanding into their borders.

The next stop was the Ho Chi Minh Museum. It covers the history and culture of the southern capital and gives a brief introduction to the many minority cultures of Vietnam.

Our last stop was the War Remnants Museum, which covers the US and Vietnam war. Learning about the war from the Vietnamese perspective was definitely eye-opening! My American history textbook barely had two pages on the US - Vietnam War and I was shocked to learn about some of the horrific war crimes committed by the United States. Through pictures taken by brave photographers who gave up their lives to document the war, I was given a very visual lesson of just how destructive America was in Vietnam. Not only did US soldiers often attack and dehumanize whole villages, including women and children, they destroyed entire ecosystems with their chemical warfare tactics. The dioxin-based chemical, Agent Orange, that they used to wipe out Vietnam's natural resources is still responsible for many unnatural birth defects and diseases seen in Vietnamese children today. And the United States has not taken responsibility for it. My visit to the museum left me disillusioned by America's military motives and leaves me wondering if the same thing is being repeated in the Middle East today.

War Remnants Museum

Today we went on a tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels, an extensive underground tunnel system (200 km long!) used by the village of Cu Chi during the 20 years that the United States had their soldiers stationed in and around HCMC (then known as Saigon). The villagers hid out in these tunnels, and used their strategic position of being below an American military camp, to stage guerrilla attacks on the enemy soldiers. The villagers were very clever and creative in keeping their secret tunnels hidden. They had three levels, the bottom which reached down 20 meters. When the US soldiers tried to burn them out of the tunnels, they just went down to a lower level until the smoke subsided. When the enemy tried to flood their tunnels, they went to the upper level, and let the water drain down to the lower level of the tunnels and into the nearby river. They also set up some pretty debilitating booby traps for the tracking dogs and soldiers who tried to penetrate the tunnels. Overall, the Cu Chi tunnels played a strategic role in breaking the American offensive in South Vietnam.

Getting stuck in the Cu Chi Tunnels

One of the many ruthless booby traps. Stepping on the trap causes the barbed spikes to pierce and hook your leg

Rash emerging from a fox-hole, used by villagers to avoid passing patrols

The tour also took us to the temple of the Cao Daism, an bizarre religion that combines the philosophies of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Christianity (go to www.caodai.org to find out more). It was founded in the 1926, and at one point had thousands of followers, its own semi-independent state, and an army of 25,000 strong! The temple that we visited was possibly stranger than the religion itself. It looked like a picture out of a child's coloring book, decorated with primary colors, dragons, clouds, and silver stars. Their symbol is a human eye, which very similar to the eye on the back of a dollar bill. We got there in time to see the noontime prayer, which consisted of mainly elders dressed in white robes sitting in rows and chanting. Frankly, I was pretty weirded out by the whole thing.

Look at the fluffy white clouds!

Entrance to the Cao Dai Holy See Temple

In HCMC we also learned how to cross the congested and chaotic streets of Vietnam. Leslie equates it to an extreme sport as one just steps into the intersection and walks slowly into passing traffic. If you walk slowly, you will most likely not be hit because vehicles will make an effort to go around you. But if you walk quickly (as instinct tells us to do), you have a higher chance of being hit because drivers have a harder time anticipating your where you are going. But don't worry...we have now mastered the technique!

Sampling sea snails...rubbery!