Fortunately, Ho Chi Minh City got much better the second day. We ate breakfast and switched to a better hotel. Today we focused our learning on religion in HCMC (Ho Chi Minh City). We visited a huge Hindu Temple, the Jade Emperor Pagoda, and the Saigon Mosque.
Hindu Temple: Brilliantly painted and very bustling. Many Vietnamese Hindus were worshiping at the temple and offering up incense, oil, and lavender flowers to the gods. We may have been involved in a possible incense scandal. Oooh, scandalous!
Jade Emperor Pagoda: Can you say incense? We can. Every person in the temple had a fistful of incense sticks, and believe us, there were over a hundred people in the Pagoda. Each room of the pagoda was packed with worshipers. This is an active religious location complete with ponds, multiple floors and monks performing rituals. People were putting so many incense sticks in some of the pots that every few minutes the pot had to be emptied. Despite our burning eyes and ash covered skin, the experience of visiting this active temple was worth it.
Saigon Mosque: We were confused at the washing rituals at first, but after engaging in conversation with a few knowledgeable Muslim men, we learned a lot. It was interesting to learn about Islam from the perspective of not only a Muslim, but one that was engaged in helping us. Elliot and Sean saw the Mosque's imam, and everyone got a picture with a potentially crazy "brother". A worshiper singing Lionel Richie... Ohh. It was interesting.
That night following our religious exploration we went out for dinner for Caya's birthday at Le Jardin, a french restaurant in the French Culture Center, removed from the lights and noise of the city street. Afterwards we went out for ice cream and relaxed with it while watched Scrubs in the guy's room.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment