The last day of 2004! I can't believe this year has gone so fast, but then again I say that every year!

Today we went on a day trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels via a Cao Dai Temple in Tay Ninh. Ah yes, you say! It was pretty cool. The temple was pretty amazing, very colourful and kind of magical looking. I can't remember much about the religion, but basically it has taken elements of Eastern and Western religions such as Taoism, Confusionism, Buddhism and Christianity.

After the temple and lunch we headed to the Cu Chi Tunnels. These are some of the tunnels which Vietnamese built during the war are used for hiding out, and living in. They're pretty amazing and supposedly architecturally genius. So after watching a video that was entirely propaganda and referred to the Americans as "a crazy batch of devils", we went on a tour of the tunnels and weapon building area and saw traps which the Vietnamese caught enemies with. Then it was our turn to go thru a tunnel or two. It was terrifying, for me at least. I don't care much for small enclosed places. So I was about to go through among to others, then I decided I'd wait for the others to go before me. So in they all went. I figured I might as well do it, since I was there and it couldn't be that long. But it was awful. I ended up crawling through, and the man in front kindly took my bag, as I kind of continued through freaking out, and beginning to hyperventilate! Once thru, I came out and declared, "that was so awful", and began to cry! I'm sure there is a freak out in every group, well that's what I like to tell myself! Anyway, I did it, and became the official bag carrier for the other two tunnels!

At the end of the day people shot guns. Big, real guns. I didn't, but just hearing the banging of them and the loudness was pretty frightening. It's amazing and scary to think of people hiding out underground and navigating those tunnels for a long period. Listening to the constant sound of gun fire and warfare during combat. And to thing it's happening again now in Iraq. Very scary and I don't know how people are handle it.

So yeah that was the last day of 2004 a bit of excitement to end the year! We got stuck in a traffic jam on the way back to the City, with hundreds of motorbikes, buses and road works! So I saw in the NZ New Years at 6pm in the bus, not even a beer on hand!