13
February, Ben Luc to Go Dau, 61km
Thanh Nhu Guesthouse 200,000VND
Everywhere
people are preparing for Tet and the Lunar (Chinese) New Year, which falls this
year on February 19. Spring-cleaning homes and tidying graves, shopping for new
clothes and cooking special meals, paying off debts and planning family visits,
buying and displaying peach, kumquat and orange trees, and potted plants
bearing yellow and red flowers. Our flat road brought us to Go Dau in time to
find a hotel, take a shower and catch a local bus to Tay Ninh in order to visit
the Cao Dai* headquarters. Lonely Planet: “The Cao Dai Great Temple at the sect’s
Holy See is one of Asia’s most unusual and astonishing structures. Built
between 1933 and 1955, the temple is a rococo extravaganza blending the
dissonant architectural motifs of a French church, a Chinese temple and an
Islamic mosque.” Back in Go Dau, just 11km from the Cambodian border, we had an
excellent meal, our last in Vietnam, dining on barbecued fish and glazed
chicken wings under a thatch roof on the edge of a small lake. We often shop
for dinner by picture, when the menu offers this option to a
linguistically-stranded foreigner. Sometimes by drawing pictures of our own,
such as a fish, or by flapping our arms to illustrate chicken wings.
*
www.religionfacts.com: “Cao Dai ... is a syncretist Vietnamese religious
movement with a strongly nationalist political character. Cao Dai draws upon
ethical precepts from Confucianism, occult practices from Taoism, theories of
karma and rebirth from Buddhism, and a hierarchical organization (including a
pope) from Roman Catholicism. Its pantheon of saints includes such diverse
figures as the Buddha, Confucius, Jesus Christ, Muhammad, Pericles, Julius
Caesar, Joan of Arc, Victor Hugo, and Sun Yat-sen.” The religion was founded in
1926 following “a communication from the supreme deity during a table-moving
séance”. Caodaism has two to six million adherents.
Between Ben Luc and Go Dau
Between Ben Luc and Go Dau
Cao Dai temple in Tay Ninh
Cao Dai temple in Tay Ninh
Cao Dai temple in Tay Ninh
Cao Dai temple in Tay Ninh
Cao Dai temple in Tay Ninh
Cao Dai temple in Tay Ninh
Cao Dai temple in Tay Ninh
Cao Dai temple in Tay Ninh
Cao Dai temple in Tay Ninh
Cao Dai temple in Tay Ninh