Thursday (05-17-2012)

Today we went on a day trip to Cu Chi and to Tay Ninh.  We had a long drive there, but I slept through just about all of it.  Cu Chi is in a jungle that homed many of the Viet Cong fighters during the war.  These Viet Cong were native to the jungle setting and adapted to the war by building a set of tunnels under the jungle.  The tunnels had three levels and we had a chance to go into the tunnels to see what it was like.  We also saw some of the traps that were used in the war and learned about the guerilla warfare that was used.  After we were done at Cu Chi we drove over to Tay Ninh.

At Tay Ninh we went into a Caoist temple after we took off our shoes.  We were able to see some of the ceremony in which everybody who was celebrating the service wore a white robe and they all bowed their heads in unison.  There was a group of people playing some type of string instrument and girls singing to the music.  After we visited the temple we all drove over to a street vendor to have dinner.

Once we got back to our hotel we met the UEF students and they took us to go to Ben Thanh so we could buy some more souvenirs after this we went to a t-shirt shop that sold shirts with Vietnamese slang on them.  Before we went to dinner a few of us drove over to the Adidas store.  I went because I figured that it would be my last time to ride on a motor bike.  For dinner we went to a European restaurant and I got ostrich, which was delicious.  We also all got crème bur le for dessert.  When we got back I decided to stay in the hotel tonight and get a little extra sleep.