Our 7:00am alarm began beeping as we got out of bed for a trickling cold shower that did nothing to wake us up. We ate breakfast as we sat waiting for our tour guide to collect us for our 'Perfume River' boat trip. A man turned up and we were asked to follow him but after we crossed the road outside of our hotel he asked us to wait as he went into another hotel. He returned a few minutes later, alone, and we had to follow him once again as he led us to the boat wharf. He then pointed to a boat but there was in fact a whole row of boats that were identical so Andrew asked which boat he actually meant us to board. His response was simply the big one which I guess narrowed it down somewhat! We assumed the "big" one was the boat that already had a number of passengers on board so we got on and took a seat. It was already ridiculously hot even though it had only just turned 8am so we were hoping to set off straight away but of course we sat for a while as other passengers were shown to the boat. A woman who appeared to be in charge of the boat had a right strop and began shouting at other people on the river bank! She eventually began to steer the boat out on to the river whilst our "English" tour guide explained our itinerary for the day. Our first stop was a 'Garden House' where filming was taking place so it was a little difficult to actually tour the place. There was a lotus-filled pond in front of the house and the garden was full of fruit trees, including papaya, jackfruit and fig. We were asked to pay a 10,000 dong entrance fee but we later found out that it was a voluntary donation even though a lady specifically demanded the fee! The place wasn't exactly all that interesting to be honest so we were glad when we left and began walking to the 'Thien Mu Pagoda'. It was a sweaty walk but we finally reached the unmissable octagonal, seven-tier 'Phuoc Dien Tower' at the front of the complex. The pagoda was a really peaceful place to walk around although it was still rather hot. As we walked through the entrance gate we were confronted by twelve huge sculptures of fearsome guardians with "real" facial hair. A building near the rear of the complex housed the car in which the monk 'Thich Quang Duc' rode from his temple to Saigon on June 11, 1963. He stepped out of the car and sat down in the lotus position before burning himself to death in protest against the regime's violations of religious freedom. In another building sat a group of children huddled around a desk excitedly talking to a group of tourists to practice their English whilst avoiding their school work. We returned to our dragon boat and set off for our next destination which was the 'Hon Chen Temple'. This was a particularly old-looking temple which was confirmed by the damp, musty smell! Our tour guide explained the Kau Cim practice of fortune-telling. The temple altar had upon it a cylinder that contained fortune sticks, which we had seen people shaking in Thailand but had not known why! The shaking of the cylinder, which is usually tipped slightly downward, results in at least one stick leaving the cylinder and being dropped onto the floor. In most cases, if multiple sticks leave the cylinder, those fortunes would not count and must be shaken again. Once a single stick falls out, the number printed on the stick corresponds to a single sheet of paper that denotes a fortune. We then realised that we had stupidly chosen such a piece of paper incorrectly in a temple on 'Ko Samui' as we had simply chosen the number that matched our birthday! Anyway, it was quite interesting to discover the meaning behind such a traditional Buddhist practice.
We returned to the boat for our "light" lunch which was certainly light as it consisted of a bowl of steamed rice, green beans and tofu to share amongst four people! We enjoyed our meal as we drifted along the Perfume River. Our boat journey came to an end so we piled off to go and visit the 'Mausoleum of Ming Mang'. It cost 55,000 dong to visit each mausoleum and three were on the trip itinerary so we decided to skip the first one. We instead had a drink at a road-side shack where the Vietnamese woman was lovely. She even had a hammock strung up but it felt a little wrong as hordes of tourists walked past to the mausoleum so it wasn't exactly peaceful. We waited for everybody else to return before we were shown to a bus to complete the rest of the trip on land. The next stop was the 'Mausoleum of Khai Dinh' which was one hell of a monument! It was in a very tranquil setting on a hilltop so we had to climb a series of grandiose, dragon-ornamented stairways which led to a courtyard. There were a fair few mandarin statues facing each other across the courtyard. We climbed more stairs to reach the principal temple which had a blackened exterior but the interior was decorated to the hilt. It was so extravagant with glass and mosaic designs covering the walls, ceiling, furniture and pretty much everything else. There was also a life-size bronze statue of the emperor himself. We were quite overwhelmed by the detail and we were even more surprised to discover that it took over eleven years to build the mausoleum even though the emperor only reigned for nine years of his life. We walked back down the 130-odd steps to reach the bus before making our way to the 'Mausoleum of Tu Duc'. This wasn't quite as extravagant although the grounds were quite peaceful the buildings looked pretty much like every other temple we had seen so Andrew wasn't one bit interested in looking around the place. It also started to rain so after a quick loop which didn't involve finding the tomb itself we returned to the bus. We had to wait for everybody else to return before we were driven back to the city centre. The rain had become really heavy so the bus driver kindly dropped everybody off outside of their hotel. We asked to be dropped off at 'DMZ Bar' so we could get something to eat as our "light" lunch had worn off. I couldn't resist eating a Vietnamese beef curry, which I had eaten the previous day. We had a beer but then retired for the night as we were completely worn out.