Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

I recently spent a week or so in Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City as it is now known. HCM City is a sprawling city with somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 million residents (and about 3.5 million motorbikes!). I stayed in an area called Pham Ngu Lao, the heart of the backpacker ghetto, full of other travelers on their way to wherever, and bustling with action and energy. A week is not nearly enough to see everything of course, and my walks around the city were concentrated mostly on Districts 1 and 10 (out of 22). Some of the sights I saw included a very somber visit to the War Remnants Museum, the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Xa Loi Pagoda, the Jade Emperor Pagoda, a local art gallery, and many of the beautiful parks spread throughout the city. I also took a tour outside of HCM for a visit to the Cao Dai Temples. There are an estimated two to three million followers of Cao Daism worldwide, although the majority are in Vietnam. Cao Daism is an interesting fusion of East and West, born in 20th century Vietnam (around 1926), and incorporates elements of Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, native Vietnamese spiritualism, Islam, and even Christianity. It even includes the use of Mediums, or seances, to communicate with the spiritual world. I was very intrigued when I first read about this unique religion and found the temples themselves to be absolutely fascinating and very beautiful.
This trip to the Cao Dai Temples was also part of a tour to the Cu Chi region to see the Cu Chi Tunnels. The tunnels became legendary during the 1960's for its role in giving the Viet Cong control of a large rural area about 40 km outside of HCMC. At its peak, the tunnels stretched all the way from the South Vietnamese capital, Saigon, to the Cambodian border and in the Cu Chi district alone there were more than 250km of tunnels. The tunnel network, some of which was barely enough to crawl through, while other parts were several stories deep, contained living quarters and kitchens, storage facilities, weapons factories, hospitals and command centers. The tunnels made possible communication and coordination between areas controlled by the Viet Cong, which were often separated from each other by South Vietnamese and American air and land operations. They also provided a means for the VC to launch surprise attacks, often within the perimeters of US military controlled areas, and were responsible for a very large number of US casualties. The tour itself was quite interesting and provided the opportunity to crawl through some of the tunnels and even shoot various weapons used in the war. I opted to try shooting an M-60, a machine gun capable of shooting 850 rounds in a single trigger pull.
Overall I found HCMC to be a fascinating city and look forward to a time in the future when I will be able to explore it some more...