Vietnam - The Rough Guide to Southeast Asia on a Budget - page 902

and 80cm high, and were sometimes four
levels deep; there were latrines, wells,
meeting rooms and dorms here, as well as
rudimentary hospitals, where operations
were carried out by torchlight using
instruments fashioned from shards of
ordnance. At times inhabitants stayed
below ground for weeks on end, and they
often had to lie on the floor to get
enough oxygen to breathe. American
attempts to flush out the tunnels proved
ineffective. hey evacuated villagers into
strategic hamlets and then used defoliant
sprays and bulldozers to rob the VC of
cover, in “scorched earth” operations. A
special GI unit known as tunnel rats was
faced with the task of infiltrating the
tunnels themselves, which involved
crawling in complete darkness with a
partner, facing all manner of booby traps,
as well as bombs and fire from the Viet
Cong. Some sections of tunnels were
deliberately flooded and the casualty rate
was very high.
Today, the tunnels have been widened
to allow passage for tourists, but it's still a
dark, claustrophobic experience, as it's
very warm inside the tunnels and you can
go down as far as the third level during
the 50m stretch of tunnel that visitors are
allowed to access. To unwittingly add a
touch of authenticity, there are occasional
power cuts that leave you briefly in
complete darkness. Before entering the
tunnel, you are led around by guides in
army greens who demonstrate various
crude but effective pit traps used by the
Viet Cong, as well as a bomb crater and
an M-41 tank. here are two sites - Ben
Duoc and Ben Dinh, the most popular
being Ben Dinh (daily 7.30am-4.30pm;
80,000VND), around 50km from
HCMC and easiest visited on a tour
organized through your lodgings.

of the Catholic Church, Cao Dai is
primarily influenced by Buddhism,
Taoism and Confucianism, and looks
to hasten the evolution of the soul
through reincarnation.
he cathedral's central portico is topped
by a bowed, first-floor balcony and a
Divine Eye, the most recurrent motif in
the building. Two figures in semi-relief
emerge from either side of the towers:
Cao Dai's first female cardinal, Lam
Huong hanh, on the left; and on the
right, Le Van Trung, Cao Dai's first pope.
Men enter through an entrance in the
right wall, women by a door to the left.
Tourists can wander through the nave as
long as they remain in the aisles and don't
stray between the rows of pink pillars,
entwined by green dragons. he papal
chair stands at the head of the chamber,
its arms carved into dragons. Dominating
the chamber, though, and guarded by
eight silver dragons, a vast, duck-egg-blue
sphere, speckled with stars, rests on a
polished, eight-sided dais. Services are
held daily at 6am, noon, 6pm and
midnight, and tours usually arrive in time

11

INTO CAMBODIA: MOC BAI
At present, the main overland entry and
exit point between Cambodia and
Vietnam for foreigners is at Moc Bai ,
northwest of HCMC. The Moc Bai border is
open daily 7am-5pm. Sinh Tourist, Kim
Travel (see p.901) and a number of other
operators around Pham Ngu Lao run daily
a/c buses to Phnom Penh from their
o ces, leaving hourly from 6am-2pm
($14; 6-7hr). Some, such as Mekong
Express at 275F Pham Ngu Lao
( W catmekongexpress.com), also have
direct daily services to Sihanoukville ($26;
10-11hr) and Siem Reap ($26; 13-14hr).
Bus tickets can be bought in advance or
on the day. Another option is to sign up
with a tour operator for a share taxi in
Pham Ngu Lao ($30-40 for a full car); this
will take you as far as the Moc Bai border
crossing, from where you can walk over
the border into the duty-free shopping
zone and negotiate onward transport to
Phnom Penh. One-month Cambodian
visas are available on the border for $25
including the “processing fee”.

The Cao Dai Holy See
Northwest of Cu Chi at Tay Ninh lies
the fantastical confection of styles that
is the Cao Dai Holy See (open 24hr;
free). he Cao Dai religion was founded
in October 1926 as a fusion of oriental
and occidental religions. hough its
beliefs centre on a universal god and it
borrows the structure and terminology