Cao Dai and Cu Chi

If yesterday’s tour themes were social and economic, then today’s is religious and military. First a few words about egg shells. We visited an artisans’ factory yesterday and another one today. Fundamentally, it’s a government sponsored outlet employing disabled people to make objets d’art using paint, tiny pieces of eggshell, or bits of sea shell. The result is an incredibly intricate and labour intensive process of making plates, pots, wall pictures or large murals featuring representational scenes of Vietnamese culture. Once you understand the process the results are strangely moving (and expensive – not that I begrudge the price; it’s just our humble abode is not big enough to display the produce). We bought a modest picture for the front room.

Onward to the Cao Dai Holy See at Tay Ninh. I wanted to see this ever since reading the Rough Guide. Apparently, the Cao Dai religion started on Phu Quoc in the 1920s and now has anything from 2 million to 8 million Vietnamese adherents, depending on who you listen to. The interesting thing is that it portrays itself as a sort of meta-religion (my words, obviously) that attempts to incorporate all the good stuff about Far Eastern religions such as Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, but also adding cause-and-effect elements from the younger and more volatile religions of Christianity and Islam. Most interesting is the acceptance of “spirit intermediaries” (as the Rough Guide explains) in place of controversial (i.e. the other Religions got upset) “earthly messengers” such as Lao-tzu, Confucius, Christ and Mohammed. The former apparently include recent historical notables as Joan of Arc, Louise Pasteur, Napoleon Bonaparte, Shakespeare and Winston Churchill. After a write-up like that, I had to go and have a look. Unfortunately, the tour coincided with one of the four daily Mass services so there was no one I could question further. Suffice to say the Holy See was flamboyant, as perhaps you would expect a cult religion to be (do 2 million+ people constitute a “cult” or an “organised religion”?). The best way to describe the temple is by quoting Graham Greene who described it as “a Walt Disney fantasia of the East, dragons and snakes in Technicolor”. Curiously, we were allowed to take a picture of the highest altar where Buddha normally sits only to find a large globe the centre of which is a single eye surrounded by a triangle. Yeah, I know, I’ve read Dan Brown too.

A more macabre theme park awaited us at the Cu Chi Tunnels. Set up to commemorate the underground (literally) resistance fighters of the American War, our tour guide showed us remnants of the tunnel entrances that were as small as 80cm x 80cm. There were some artificially enlarged tunnels suitable for Western tourists but the experience was a hot, sweaty, claustrophobic affair, even with the installation of electric lights. The most amazing thing is that these tunnels ran for 250 kilometres and extended many metres underground in a warren of sleeping areas, kitchens, ammo dumps, and the like to protect the inhabitants from the constantly falling American ordnance. Even gorier was the demonstration of bamboo and iron spike traps. Nasty! Some of the more vicious had men clutching their groins with virtual tears running from their eyes. For fun you could buy some ammo and fire off an AK47 or M16 at a firing range.

And that was Vietnam in around 12 days. A fantastic place when you consider the loss of life from the French war, the American War, Reunification, Chinese incursions, Cambodian incursions and general economic collapse. Although still Communist run Saigon portrays itself as a thriving capitalist culture, made possible by the doi moi economic reforms of the 80s and international acceptance in the 90s. There's been a lot of development in a couple of decades. Fascinating place! Now it’s back to Bangkok for a rest before the next stage of the tour.