Saigon takes on a glittering, sophisticated air at night, made more festive by the Lunar New Year’s decorations. We did an evening excursion which included a beautiful dance and music performance at the Majestic Hotel and a delicious dinner at another hotel. The Majestic’s balcony gave us great river and city views.
Music making became a group activity and Jeanne got to participate
Our next day in Saigon we saw more of locals daily life, including a visit to a Caodaism Temple, a 100-year old religion unique to Vietnam. This religion blends beliefs and symbols from Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, Roman Catholicism and local folk traditions. It combines them all into a theology that promotes unity, charity and and a life of balance and good works.
Looking down on the temple gate from its prayer hall.These women are doing their daily prayers in the temple. All members wear these simple light white garments for their prayers to emphasize their unity and equality. The large eye above the shrine is the god symbol they pray to. It is the left eye, because that is where the yin or father energy comes from.The structure on this dragon is a coffin, which is used for people who are too poor to pay to have their remains taken to cremation.In every Caodaism temple is a picture of these 3 men, the 3 saints of the religion. The western looking man is the writer Victor Hugo, representing compassion and Roman Catholicism. Left is Sun Yat Sen, leader of the Chinese revolution of 1911 and right is Nguyen Binh Khiem or Trang Trinh, Vietnam’s first poet laureate, who was famous for his prophecies.This smaller prayer room is dedicated to the female goddess energy “for balance.”
After our temple visit was a visit to the coffee shop below for a Vietnamese coffee. The coffee habit was brought in by the French and is now an essential staple of life here, both for the caffeine boost and as a place to socialize.
Newly energized, we took on the challenge of filling our own dumpling wrappers at this local Chinese restaurant. It wasn’t as easy as the women below made it look. But messy as some of them were, they were delicious when added to our lunch of dumpling noodle soup.
The woman in the center is the daughter in law of the original owner. She holds the closely guarded secret recipe for this family’s noodle soup.Don’t let Joel’s glum face fool you. This “I don’t like noodles” man loved the dumplings, which were made from the same special flour as the noodles.
J and J Travel 