A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
Tourism Objective #2 was the Caodai temple at Tay Ninh, about 40 kilometers away from the tunnels. It become clear very early that our driver didn't know his ass from a roadsign in terms of our direction. It was at this point that we began our endless asking-for-directions parade through the Vietnamese countryside. At practically every intersection we happened upon he would pull over and ask directions. Now I know it is kind of unfair to criticize a man for actually asking directions, but this was truly overkill.

Things soon began to go terribly wrong with our vehicle also. At first it seemed minor -- the air conditioning started cutting out intermittently as we went over bumpy roads (read: all roads). I was somewhat sympathetic at this point, since my crappy Honda Civic has a quaint habit of turning on the wipers every time the car is jarred in any significant way (like stopping or starting, for example). At any rate, due to my own car experience, I was prepared to be magnanimous about this, even though it was getting damned dusty in the car with the windows open in the endless construction zone.

Halfway to Tay Ninh, the minivan stalled at an intersection. Mind you, we were on a schedule here -- we were trying to get to the Caodai Temple for the noon service. So the driver pushed the vehicle down a hill onto a village sidestreet and had us get out while he fiddled with all the exposed wiring located directly under my seat. Ninh and I stood around watching for about 15 minutes while all the neighborhood dogs expressed their vocal displeasure at our continued presence.

We were on the road again fairly quickly, but with no electrical items whatsoever. Sadly, 10 km down the road it crapped out altogether, in the middle of a road construction area that featured one gravel pile after another and large trucks kicking up dust every couple minutes. Not the most salubrious surroundings for waiting.

Ninh and I waited in the car while our idiot driver headed up the road to see what could be arranged. After 10 minutes he returned and said he had arranged for a car to pick us up and take us to the temple, and he would meet us there later with the car. Seems he needed a new battery -- no juice whatsoever. We were directed to walk down the road about 50 yards.

It turned out we waited there for 45 minutes for the (I believe) non-existent second car to pick us up. Fortunately it was a fairly entertaining wait for me. We were seated on little wooden stools under a jackfruit tree in front of a very strange business. Maybe not as strange as the combination luncheonette/spay and neuter clinic in my hometown, but pretty odd nonetheless. It consisted of a basic red brick two-"car" garage-like building with a large metal-roofed lean-to attached. One third of the business was a Vietnamese-style minimart with dried rice flour snacks, cigarettes, motor oil -- pretty much the necessities of life. The second third was a motorbike repair shop -- these things are ubiquitous in Vietnam. The lean-to third of the building was a barbershop, complete with barber chairs and mirrors. During our time there we managed to see all three business in action.

By the time our driver had made a temporary fix to the car (including a push-start -- something I haven't seen for a long while), we were behind schedule, but managed to arrive at the temple at 12:10, at which time Ninh and I accidentally defiled the temple by going through the doors designated for men only.

The main Caodai temple is almost indescribable, though of course I will make the attempt. The Caodai religion seems to be mostly Buddhist, but has incorporated elements of many other religions and philosophies and has included some mystical aspects in which they speak to famous historical figures like Shakespeare, Descartes, Joan of Arc, and Lenin. The physical result of this melange of influences is a building that can only be described as over the top. Man, is that thing ever gaudy. Along both sides of the sanctuary, visible both inside and out, are huge eyes (symbol of Caodaism) surrounded by triangles of pink, blue and white flowers. The great part is that it's not just an eye -- each one has an enormous black eyebrow as well, giving them a very creepy appearance.

The building is constructed more like a Catholic church than a Buddhist temple, with tall towers on either side of the large front doors and a sloped roof. There the similarity ends, however. Two statues flank the entrance. On the right side is what looks like an Asian pope, complete with mitre. On the left a swarthy crazy-eyed long haired man wields a sword. He looked like he would be more comfortable at the helm of a pirate ship than greeting parishioners. Dragons snake up each pillar, and on the roof a huge globe, complete with continents, provides a jumping point for the strange horselike creature atop it. Tigers and other eoitic animals roam the higher reaches of the building, and many brightly colored flowers festoon the walls.

The interior is nearly as eye popping (no pun intended). At the entry end there is a small balcony where musicians and a small choir make music during the service. Tourists file past the mucisions and a few prostrate worshippers and onto long walkway balconies on either side of the sanctuary. Two rows of giant pillars go down the huge room, each featuring a variegated green dragon snaking upward on a background of pepto pinl. Red and blue flowers are liberally sprinkled throughout, and I'm not talking some nice navy blue here -- think of a cross between turquoise and pool-bottom-blue and you've got the idea.

The arched ceiling is painted with clouds and affixed with thousands of mirrored stars. Four different kinds of tile have been used ont he floor, slightly stairstepping to an elaborate altar/throne area very much in the Chinese style. The worshippers themselves kneel in straight rows, men on the right and women on the left. The priests and more important members are toward the front and wear colorful ao dais (Vietnamese national clothing) and pope-style paper hats. The rest wear all white. The whole setup was very odd to me -- tons of tourists milling about taking photos, pointing and whispering while people are worshipping. Those Caodais must hate the noon service.

After the service and a bit of wandering around, we began the Endless Hour of Waiting for the Damned Taxi to Be Fixed. During this hour I was absolutely parched with thirst, but as Ninh believes that you can't trust anyone, she wouldn't let me buy a bottle of water from a vendor. Clearly the vendors could sense how much I coveted that water -- they came around every 10 minutes to torture me. All in all, it was a very productive day, and the only really annoying part was that because we were running so late we couldn't stop to take photos on the way home. Oh well, maybe next time.


© 2002 Katy Warren

posted by Katy at 8:13 PM