You will be picked up from your centrally located hotel in Ho Chi Minh City and taken for an excursion to Cao Dai Temple and the famous Cu Chi Tunnels. An English-speaking guide will accompany you on this tour.
Leaving the hustle and bustle of Ho Chi Minh City behind journey 2½ hours into the countryside towards the Cao Dai Temple in Tay Ninh district. Your visit will be timed for the noon ceremony at the temple (which means ‘high place’ or ‘abode’) which provides an insight to this interesting religion. Founded in Vietnam in the 1920s, Cao Daoism borrows elements from Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Taoism and Confuscianism and blends them together in an effort to make the perfect religion.
Following lunch at a local restaurant continue to the Cu Chi Tunnels.
The Cu Chi tunnels were built by local fighters during the Indochina conflict as a base from which the Viet Cong could operate from close to the Southern Vietnamese capital. Life was difficult for the inhabitants and to protect against outside intruders bobby traps were laid throughout the complex.
Today the Vietnamese government has preserved approximately 75 kilometres of the tunnels as a memorial park. In some areas tunnels have been widened and low powered lights installed so that tourists can now fit through the complex.
Your local guide will take you on a fascinating trip around the Cu Chi Tunnels where you will learn more about the conditions the people lived in, the hardships they faced and the amazing ingenuity employed to maintain life in the tunnels.
Walk past huge bomb craters, evidence of the heavy bombing campaigns in the region during the Indochina conflict. Discover hidden entrances right beneath your feet, wander past tiny little chimneys in the ground that dispersed smoke from the underground kitchens. Sample some of the simple cuisine that local fighters would have survived on and have an opportunity to venture into the tunnels and explore the complex.
At the end of this memorable excursion, you will be dropped off at your centrally located hotel in Ho Chi Minh City.