After the journey from hell we arrive 10hours late at our hotel hoping they still have our room, any room will do. Fortunately they do and even more fortunately it's a better room than we booked and we get it for the same price. We catch a quick bite to eat and hit the hay.

After a late-ish start we set off for a wander around Saigon. We visit a park, catch a movie (Eclipse)... i know what your thinking - what are they doing going to the cinema but it was a nice rest from visiting things which can tire you out after a while! We also visit the market and the Notre Dame cathedral then the rain starts and we make our way back to the hostel. We really like Saigon. There is hustle and bustle like most cities but there are also a lot of friendly people here and the vibe feels good. Like Hanoi the pedestrian is the lowest class citizen. Pavements are for parking scooters, street vendors with plastic tables and chairs or shop owners to spread there wares and lounge about on. You have to take your chances with the edge of the road.

The next day we take a tour to the Cu Chi tunnels, we are picked up at 7.30am and then spend the next 90 minutes going around Hanoi picking up other tourists for the trip. Finally we head off and our guide who is a bit loopy tells us to call him John Wayne and talks a bit about the histroy of the tunnels and this is reinforced at Cu Chi with an old video that is very informative but also feels a little dated in its heavily anti-American commentary. We're taken off in our group into the jungle and were asked to find the entrance to a tunnel and so a trap door was eventually found under the leaf litter that was about 30cm by 20cm. We had a go at lowering ourselves into the tunnel - you had to line your self up so the hips could go in the along the long side of the entrance and then lower untill your feet touched the ground and then raise your arms over your head and you were in - it was warm, humid and dark in there. We struggled to get out in reverse of what we had just done and headed off to see fighting trenches, sunken rooms with scenes of people disarming B52 bombs and making land mines out of them. We then looked at the traps that the geurilla forces had made, most were in the ground covered by leaf litter/ grasses and a trap door. The traps all would cause you serious damage with metal barbed spikes that would stick in you one way or another. Some were designed to kill, others were designed to severely injure. We were then given the option to shoot some guns... An AK47 or a machine gun for the Rambo in us.. RAAA! Then just as we thought we were not gonna get to go into the tunnels properly we were shown to the entrance. The tunnel was big enough for you to walk along with you torso bent forward, in Andrews case his torso was bent horizontally. Specially added for the tourists were dim lights every 10 metres and also ways to escape the tunnel every 20 meters. We kept going and the tunnel got smaller, so much so that i had to shuffle along on my bum and lean backwards. By the time we covered the 100m of tunnel we were very sweaty and quite tired.

The next day we set off for a two day trip around the Mekong Delta.

Helena + Andy

Croc watch = 0