Ba Den Mountain, Cao Dai and Cu Chi Tunnels Tour from Saigon, Private

A private car for your group alone

Private, 1-4 guests, and nobody outside your party is added to it

Your own licensed local guide

Fluent in English and explains the Black Lady legend and the Cao Dai prayer — to your group alone, not twenty strangers

Collected at your own hotel

Anywhere in Saigon. No tour office to reach on your own at seven in the morning

Every entry fee and cable car prepaid

Both cable car lines are booked for you. Nothing is collected from you at any gate

No shop stops, in writing

No detour to a lacquerware showroom that pays to have you delivered

The tunnels at opening time

Ben Duoc at eight, before the coaches, and still at the Holy See in time for noon

Cu Chi Tunnels at Ben Duoc

08:15 · about 90 minutes · on foot, tunnels optional

Entry fee included

4 photos · tap to enlarge

Ben Duoc was the command base of the Saigon–Gia Dinh region inside the Cu Chi network, and it sees far fewer coaches than Ben Dinh, especially at opening time. You can drop through a hidden trapdoor, walk or crawl a section of tunnel widened for visitors, and see the smokeless kitchens that hid cooking fires from the air. Your guide explains how people lived and fought underground for years.

Cao Dai Holy See and the noon prayer

11:45 · about 50 minutes · on foot

No entry fee — watching the prayer is free

4 photos · tap to enlarge

The mother temple of Cao Dai, a faith founded in Vietnam in 1926 that honours the Buddha, Confucius, Laozi and Jesus under one Divine Eye. At noon the faithful file in by rank, in white, blue, yellow and red robes, and pray to live music while visitors watch from the upper gallery. Your guide explains who each figure is and what the colours mean, which is what turns it from a spectacle into something you understand.

Lunch: dew-dried rice paper

12:45 · about 50 minutes · local restaurant

Lunch and a soft drink included

1 photo · tap to enlarge

Tay Ninh’s own dish: banh trang phoi suong, rice paper left out in the night dew until it turns soft, rolled at the table with boiled pork and a basket of wild herbs. Vegetarian and other diets are easy to arrange if you tell us when you book.

Van Son summit, by cable car

14:00 · about 70 minutes · cable car and paved paths

Cable car included — both ways

4 photos · tap to enlarge

The Van Son line lifts you from the plain to 986 m in about eight minutes, over the forest paths that pilgrims still climb on foot. At the top stands Tay Bo Da Son, a 72-metre bronze statue of the Bodhisattva of Compassion, and on a clear day the plain runs flat all the way to Dau Tieng Lake. Your guide explains why this one mountain, alone on the plain, became the holiest peak in the south.

The Lady Pagoda

15:25 · about 40 minutes · cable car and stone steps

Cable car included · no temple fee

1 photo · tap to enlarge

Halfway up the mountain, at about 350 m, stands Linh Son Tien Thach Tu, the pagoda where the Black Lady is worshipped alongside the Buddha. It has been here for around 300 years, and on festival days pilgrims still climb the stone steps from the plain with offerings. Your guide tells the legend of Ly Thi Thien Huong and shows you how people pray here.

• Private car with driver, pickup and drop-off at your Saigon hotel
• Your own licensed local guide, fluent in English
• Cu Chi Tunnels entrance at Ben Duoc
• The noon prayer at the Cao Dai Holy See
• Return cable cars on the Van Son summit line and the Chua Hang line
• Lunch of Tay Ninh dew-dried rice paper rolls, with a soft drink
• Bottled water all day