Ho Chi Minh City Off the Beaten Path Tips by Aidy_p

Nui Ba Den is situated near the Province of Tay Ninh. The place is now a far cry from what it was in the past. Currently, there's a temple that's located near the entrance to the mountain's nature park. There's even a chair-lift to bring you up the mountain, and a toboggan that let's you slide down it.

In the past, the mountain was a North Vietnamese hideout and gathering point before they attacks on Tay Ninh. Heavy battles were fought there and the mountain had been occupied by both the Americans and the North Vietnamese. Nui Ba Den was also the end of the Ho Chi Minh trail as supplies were sent from the north to support the work of the guerillas and the people of Cu Chi who sympathised with the North.

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Cao Daism is all about bringing together the world's religion. Both the temple and the priests and priestess were decked in very warm colours. Among the worshippers, those wearing Yellow represented Buddhism, Red represented Confucianism, and Blue represented Taoism.

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The Magnificant Cao Dai See Temple is located in the Tay Ninh Province and what wows me was the large area of the temple ground. The roads looked clean and well maintained. The building looked a little "old school" but definitely outstanding with it's unique architecture, bright colours and a ceiling with painting that try to replicate the sky.

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There were quite a number of older folks within the congregation. But there were also the young ones that were raising their voices and music to their Gods. What caught my eye was this little boy that was barely 10 years of age but was already in their musical instrument team.

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At Cu Chi, you can get to try your hands on most probably a China-made AK-47. Each bullet will cost you USD1.30, and you'd need to purchase a minimum of 10 bullets. I did not want to spend USD 13 on just firing bullets. So it was fortunate that there was this German girl, Patricia from Koln, Germany, who wanted to try out as well. So we split the bullets among ourselves. It's loud even with mufflers. Truthfully, plugging in your fingers into your earhole work much better. That is if you're not the shooter!

Well, if you are a weapons afficionado, then you might like to read on.

I had tried out various weapons like the American-made M-16 and the General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG) that fires 7.62mm rounds, shot-guns and Singapore-made SAR-21 and Ultimax-100 to name a few.

I was pretty excited to try out the AK-47 as I've heard so much about it. Moreover, this weapon was an icon of the communist nations while the M-16 was the icon of the allied forces.

I really love the feel of the M-16 and it was my "wife" for 2 1/2 years of my life. Easy to handle, extreme accuracy to more than 500m.

Wrapping my hands on an AK-47 felt really great. cocking the weapon, I co-ordinated my aiming using the front-side and rear-side aperture. Took aim, and fired one round. Estatic! It was really smooth and you could see the dust rising up as the bullet struck the target board and ploughed into the sand pit behind. Cool!

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The title was not meant to be anything derogatory, but the Viet Congs were much feared by the Amercian soldiers as they did not know where the Viets would be and after a swift attack, where they'd dissappear to.

This was a massive problem for the Amercians as the Viet Cong was just at the backyard of Saigon. Located at Cu Chi (Pronounced as Ku Chee), the tunnels stretched for kilometres and the thing the makes me shake my head in amazement was the fact that the Viet Congs were such a hardy group of people.

I walked through the tunnel for just a couple of minutes and I was already wondering when I'd be out of it. Can you imagine the Vietnamese people living in the tunnel structure for years?

Worth taking a walk, I mean crawl through the tunnel. You might like to fit into the little hole as well. I have a size 32 waist and it just fitted nicely with not much room for maneuvouring.

Entry Fee: 70,000VND

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A derelict shell of a M-41 American tank lays solemnly in the midst of Cu Chi jungle. I tapped on the metal of the tank and you'd know that with toughness, it was made to protect the personnel that were within. But with a small weapon like the Rocket Propelled Gun (RPG) used by the Viet Cong, the tank was totally vulnerable.

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I experienced the Mekong River when I was in Thailand. So this is the second time going down the Mekong River. We took a day tour of My Tho and Ben Tre to see how the Vietnamese people live along the river. Some parts of the tour was recreated for the tourist, but the experience was still great.

The Mekong river starts from Tibet, before snaking along China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and then to Vietnam. This is definitely an important river for many countries.

After a 2 1/2 hours on board the bus, it was nice to reach the town of My Tho where we started our Mekong River trip.

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Phone: 84-8 836 7338
Website: http://www.sinhcafevn.com/

Going down the Mekong river, we came across a boat with "eyes" on the front of the boat. It is believed that the "eyes" will help to get the boat and it's pessengers to their destination safely. This "eyes" on the boats is also practiced by bum boat drivers in Singapore.

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One of the stops that we made along the Mekong River was at a Ricer Paper making area. It starts from grinding white rice, processing the ricer paper, and then drying the rice paper.

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