Our quick getaway from Saigon landed us in the heart of the Mekong Delta, also known as the great rice bowl of Vietnam. We stayed in the city of Can Tho, in a small homestay tucked behind one of the main streets. To get to the front door we had to squeeze our packs through a narrow alley, maybe a metre and a half wide, past the neighbours living rooms, while our arrival was announced ahead of us. Despite the modest accommodation, the owners of the homestay were ...

Ho Chi Minh City, which is the official name under a communist government, was a big city full of energy. Twice as big as the northern capital (Hanoi), there is twice as many motorbikes, which means twice the chance of being run over whilst crossing the road! You know when you've entered a city frequently visited by Australians when even your Vietnamese waiter has an Aussie accent, and on realisation of your nationality, excaims 'oh, you Aussies! Perth? Sydney? ...

We've just arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) with aching bums but smiling faces after three days riding a couple of motorbikes from Dalat in the central highlands. A few days ago we arrived in Dalat after an exhausting 12 hour bus ride. We were immediately greeted by a skinny, smily and familiar looking man offering to take us into town to his 'cousins' hotel. His name was Sau. This translates to Star, which everyone in town seemed to know him as. For a good ...

Although we enjoyed the beach and the company of other travelers in Hoi An, we were keen to step away from the tourist trail again and decided to head inland. We braced ourselves for another bumpy bus ride, and followed part of the Ho Chi Minh trail through beautiful lush valleys as we climbed towards the central highlands. We arrived in Kon Tum in the middle of the day and decided to book into the first hotel that we stumbled upon in order to avoid sun stroke! ...

The train ride from Dong Hoi to Hoi An is a beauty! For the first half of the trip we passed through typical rural villages and rice crops. For the second half of the trip, the train was the only artificial object between the lush green hills on our right and the picturesque ocean on our left. That is if you turn a blind eye to the piles of rubbish littering the train tracks. The train line curved inland towards the end, and for the last part of the journey we h...