Traveling day twenty-five - vroooommmm

Oh yeah.

We did it.

We hired motor scooters in Vietnam and zoomed around Hoi An all day. Although zoomed is quite an exaggeration of my cruising speed of 25 km an hour. It was my first time ever in control of a motorized two wheeled vehicle. I was great going in straight lines, a bit hesitant about overtaking (pushbikes), and quite nervous about turning left into traffic. I only forgot once today that they drive on the right not the left in Vietnam. The oncoming traffic gave me a clue. Both of the girls chose to ride with Chris. He was slightly more confident than me with the scooter.

Here's a (terrible ipad) photo of me with the black beast just before we handed it back tonight and paid up ($3 for the day).


We also visited My Son today - a site of ruined temples from the 4th century. Very interesting. Some of them were bombed during the Vietnam war, and others have just fallen down. There is a process of restoration happening and much archeology. We did some bush bashing through Vietnamese tropical jungle. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be a soldier here.

Late this afternoon we also picked up our tailor made clothes. Very happy with our silk dresses! Such fun.


Only three more days and we are home! I think we are ready to come home, but our trip has been awesome. Excellent time with family and visiting other cultures. What a blessing.

Chris' Cultural Tip - Money burns on the street.
You may think I could be about to talk about how quickly you go through Vietnamese dong when 1,000,000 is only $50. And that is true. But instead one thing that is just as noticeable is the mix of spiritualities in Vietnam.

Communism seems to have had no impact on the proliferation of religion in Vietnam. There are pagodas, temples and shrines everywhere. All a mix of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism. You will often see locals visiting them to burn incense and pray. Added to that is more folk-religion aspects of ancestor veneration, spirit worship and even deification of patriotic heroes. So most houses and shops I have seen have little shrines to burn incense for one or other of these religions.

One peculiarity is the burning of ghost money. You can often see little cans of burning things on the side of the streets. People get fake money and burn it. This is in the belief that this money will be sent to their ancestors in the spirit world, or to them in their next lifetime if Buddhist. They even burn other useful things like motorbikes, cars, houses, TVs. All in the hope that their ancestors will get the real thing somewhere else.


I can't help but feel like Isaiah - check out Isaiah 44:6-20.

In the end I am glad that I follow a God that knows the difference between fake and real money. A God who can declare "I am the first, and I am the last; apart from me there is no God.". A God for whom the pursuit of material things is far from the ultimate, and in fact nothing but a distraction from faith, hope and love. However until many Vietnamese discover the reality of Jesus I guess we will still see money burn on the streets.