Today I took a tour to the Cao Dai Temple in Tay Ninh and a tour to the Cu Chi tunnels in Cu Chi (obviously lol).

The start was usual, bus running late, however the journey to Tay Ninh more than made up for it as we had a slightly random tour guide. First off he kept singing in Vietnamese and then translating into English for the group and he then insisted on having all of us tell everyone our names and what country we were from. I almost felt like standing up and saying 'hello, my name is Sarah...and I am an alcoholic'...I'm just being mean now. It was a nice way to meet everyone and it helped him a little bit with our names. Apart from two other British people, everyone was from either Indonesia or the Philippines. The journey to Tay Ninh was long and I wish I had some breakfast before we set off. We arrived just in time to see the midday ceremony in which the local people (from 3 slightly different religions) get together and sing and pray in the Temple. It was nice to watch, foreigners and tourists etc have to be put into the balcony area away from the centre. The guide had told us that there were monkeys in the woods near the Temple, I thought he was kidding and on about the weird Monkey statues near the Temple until I saw a mummy monkey carrying her baby across the road!

Lunch was next and this was so cool. 3 of us acting like little kids decided that we wanted to eat in the Tree house at the restaurant. It meant slower service as I think they forgot about us but it was very nice.

Onwards to Cu Chi, I am glad we did a 2 part tour as it meant the tunnels weren't so busy in the afternoon rather than the morning. The guide showed us about the site and it was amazing to see how all these people lived underground whilst fighting the Americans. The video at the beginning was a bit random...detailing how people were given medals for killing people....

I learnt quite a bit about the tunnels but wasn't really paying too much attention, I just wanted to get down there and get underground like some little sewer rat! The guide gave us the opportunity to get into one of the original unwidened tunnels and since no one was up for it, I jumped at the chance! I have never felt so claustrophobic in my life! It was so small and dark I seriously thought you could suffocate in there! Other people soon followed suit though and went inside. (Got some funny pictures!) We made it to the tourist widened tunnels and 3 of us went running through every length of tunnel on offer. It was a good laugh, I had a really good day today and got some random pictures. Our group all got on top of an original tank and pulled some random poses for a couple of shots! It was rather funny, every time the guide asked who wanted to try something, everyone looked at me as I kept volunteering myself for things!

Tomorrow sees me travelling across the border to Phnom Penh in Cambodia. Only a fly by visit to Cambodia so should be back in Thailand in a couple weeks.

The picture is of me holding the hatch to one of the original tunnels before going inside. It's a little random as I was laughing so much!