If you had asked me before where I would be celebrating my 30th birthday, I think Ho Chi Minh City, heck Vietnam, would have not been even on my mind. It was a strange day. The strangeness didn't have anything to do with me being 30, it was just what we were exposed to today. We were picked up at the hotel and we drove the 1.5 hours trip to the Cu Chi tunnels northwest of Ho Chi Minh City. The people of Cu Chi village started digging these tunnels in 1945 (right after Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam's independence from France) and stopped in 1965. Over 200 km of tunnels were dug out and it, like the other tunnels, had three levels. There were even booby traps installed to catch the "enemy." These tunnels were one of the many hiding places for the Viet Cong. Because the Viet Cong lacked sophisticated weapons (all they had supposedly is bamboo polls), the had to be clever and use guerrilla warfare and surprise tactics. All of this just made me sad because again I was getting exposed to a different point of view, one that I didn't like knowing about. There was a gun range where you could shoot several different weapons including an M-16 and an AK-47. Neither of us shot anything. We also saw how rice paper and rice wine were made. We then walked and sometimes crawled 150 meters in a level one tunnel.
Before we left, we saw a propaganda film which was really difficult to watch. Basically it showed how the Cu Chi villagers protected their land by killing the enemy, Americans. What a tough thing to watch and what made me really upset was there were people from all other countries and I hated knowing that they were watching this probably thinking that the Americans, at least during that time period, were horrible people. We then drove another hour to the Cao Dai Temple.
Cao Dai is a Vietnamese based religion that combines all kinds of other religions. We saw a service while we were there. I couldn't quite figure out what was going on, but it was a lot of bowing and chanting and music.
After we got back to Ho Chi Minh City, Ben and I sent to the Museum of Vietnamese History. It was pretty interesting and it had it's own water puppet show, but we didn't stop to see it. We then walked to an Argentine steak house for my birthday dinner. It was really good. We had a late flight to Seoul, which ended up being delayed until after midnight. It was a long day, but I was so glad to be able to spend my birthday with Ben.
If you had asked me before where I would be celebrating my 30th birthday, I think Ho Chi Minh City, heck Vietnam, would have not been even on my mind. It was a strange day. The strangeness didn't have anything to do with me being 30, it was just what we were exposed to today. We were picked up at the hotel and we drove the 1.5 hours trip to the Cu Chi tunnels northwest of Ho Chi Minh City. The people of Cu Chi village started digging these tunnels in 1945 (right after Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam's independence from France) and stopped in 1965. Over 200 km of tunnels were dug out and it, like the other tunnels, had three levels. There were even booby traps installed to catch the "enemy." These tunnels were one of the many hiding places for the Viet Cong. Because the Viet Cong lacked sophisticated weapons (all they had supposedly is bamboo polls), the had to be clever and use guerrilla warfare and surprise tactics. All of this just made me sad because again I was getting exposed to a different point of view, one that I didn't like knowing about. There was a gun range where you could shoot several different weapons including an M-16 and an AK-47. Neither of us shot anything. We also saw how rice paper and rice wine were made. We then walked and sometimes crawled 150 meters in a level one tunnel. 
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