VietBlog

Vietnam is home to a variety different religions.

Religious life in the public sphere, however, remains primarily secular as Jim pointed out last week.

Most are Buddhist, many are also Catholic from the many years of French colonial control of the country (The Vietnamese alphabet chu quoc ngu is also a legacy) .

The reach of Islam also makes its way to this corner of Southeast asia. The class took a trip this past saturday to visit to a Cham village in a border city of Vietnam, Chau Doc. The town lies on the border with Cambodia (where we will be heading to later this week!). Cham people have traditionally inhabited this region and once had a substantial empire.

Let’s go on a little journey through the village guided by our blogger-adventurers (Photos courtesy of Neal Newfield, Joey Bailey, and Andy Barnes):

We first stopped by the local mosque.

Young Girls learn to sew at the mosque.

Then we walked down the road a ways into the village and the real adventure started:

We ended up walking down a long monkey bridge that led us to the river.

We found some boats along the way… grounded and waiting for the upcoming rainy season.

We took a break from the hot sun to enjoy some sugarcane. Very sweet indeed.

A few of the neighborhood homes.

Here are a Few Friends we made on the way:



This family graciously invited us into their home.




Older Cham Man (I believe almost 95 years old!)