by Sissy Mallard
I had only been in Saigon for 5 days when my mom called to tell me my Daddy had been taken to the Emergency Room and then admitted to the hospital. Talk about a wake up call, that news hit me like a ton of bricks but what could I do from halfway around the world?! While I wanted to go straight to the airport and catch the next flight home, and after crying for about 30 minutes, I caught my breath, said some prayers both for my Daddy and me to be strong, then I went on the Vespa Adventures Insider’s Saigon tour. What a blessing this turned out to be!
My favorite part of taking the tours is meeting new people but on this morning I was uncharacteristically quiet as I was anxious and worried about my Daddy. The first stop on was the Thich Quang Duc Monument – aka Burning Monk Monument which encouraged me to think about loyalty, faith and renewal. Who sets themselves on fire to die for their beliefs?! A strange feeling of calmness washed over me and I began to worry less about the situation back in the US and be more present in this place to memorialize such astonishing bravery. As our tour continued, the next stop would prove even more amazing and make me feel even better.
We entered the Chinese pagoda through these beautiful gardens with fountains, statues and ornate altars with burning incense that immediately made me feel peaceful and prayerful. I spotted hundreds of yellow, spiral-shaped cones hanging in one courtyard area, each one with a red tag. After explanation from our tour guide, I was invited to write down the name or intention that I wanted to be remembered, attach the tag to one of the incense cones, light and hang it. No need to guess whose name I wrote down, of course I was crying but doing this gave me confidence that all would be okay and I appreciated this opportunity. This is one reason that I love Vespa Adventures tours-finding these out of the way places where there are few other tourists and distractions.
Our tour continued with a stop at the Temple of 10,000 Buddhas which was also an astonishing place filled with reverence and respect, especially for the dearly departed. I’m learning more and more about the mix of Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity that is ever present in Vietnamese culture, always jubilant in life while celebrating death because when you really think about it-this is when life really begins.
