Day 19 - June 22 - Saigon

We took a half day tour to see the Cu Chi Tunnels and the Cao Dai Temple. The Cu Chi Tunnels were underground tunnels that the Ho Chi Minh guerillas used to fight US troops. The Cu Chi area was carpet bombed by the American during the War in hopes of collapsing some of the tunnels. You could see craters where B52 bombs landed. The tunnels were ingeniously built to allow smaller Vietnamese people to easily maneuver through the tunnel while trapping bigger American men (ex: look at Clint below).

We got the opportunity to go through one of the tunnels. You literally had to squat through most of the tunnel and even crawl on your hands and knees to get through other portions. It is completely dark. Thank goodness my brother had a flashlight handy because I may have missed some of the drops in the tunnel otherwise. I only crawled through for about 5 minutes and I was sweating and uncomfortable from being bent over. I cannot imagine spending several days in there!

Clint got to try out a machine gun! My brother took the picture because I was scared of the noise. Clint shot 10 bullets and it was over in a few seconds. He missed all the targets and didn't get me a prize.

Our next stop was to see the Cao Dai Temple. The temple intertwined the ideals of Buddhist, Muslim, Christian, and Taoist. Our tour guide said the temple was so regarded that no one dared try to destroy it during the War. We got there in time to see an afternoon prayer ceremony.

That evening, we got together with my dad's and mom's family for a Farewell Dinner at a local restaurant. I wonder when we will see each other again.