October 18, 2017
Rạch Gia: Sightseeing
I started feeling a lot better as yesterday drew to a close so we decided to spend another day in Rach Gia so that we could take in the sights we had hoped to see yesterday. I felt like a human being again when I woke up this morning so it was a pleasure to be able to taste and enjoy my breakfast which was a large bowl of bún thịt xào heo (vermicelli noodles fried with pork) which is a pretty standard Vietnamese breakfast dish. Washed down with a great cup of iced coffee, it was a great way to start the day.
Our first port of call was the Tam Bao Pagoda. This is a standard Vietnamese Buddhist temple and there seems to be a small monastery attached to it. There was a service on the go when we got and the gates to the temple were closed so we couldn't go inside but we did manage to enjoy the interesting exterior.
Then it was onto the Nguyen Trung Truc Temple. This temple provides a venue for worshiping Nguyen Trung Truc, a Vietnamese revolutionary of the mid 19th century who is famous for his burning of a French battleship as well as handing himself over to the French authorities for execution - the French weren't able to capture him so instead laid their hands on his mother until he surrendered.
After that we made a call at the tiny but interesting Kien Giang Museum. It is housed in a beautiful old building and has a small number of artifacts from Oc Eo. Oc Eo was a relatively sophisticated kingdom that flourished in the Mekong Delta between the 1st and the 6th century.
Today's ride: 5 km (3 miles)
Total: 6,833 km (4,243 miles)
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