Sizzle in the city And so we were in Ho Chi Minh City/Siagon. This place has had 4 different names, picked by the Cambodians, French and Vietnamese. Most people especially inside the city still refer to it as Saigon but the north renamed it a year after the south was won over and reunified. The temperature here is in the low to to mid 30's so it doesn't take much to become a sweaty mess! We didn't know what to expect on arriving. We had heard it was must more ...

Tour D' Hoi An We had some time to kill so we grabbed the bikes from the hotel and decided to go for a cycle. The bikes here look like they came out of the 70's, they have a basket, a bell and are made for people at the maximum height of 4ft 5" - My knees go above the handlebars when I peddle! It doesn't take much more than 10 minutes of cycling before you end up away from the town. We chose to find a coconut plantation that was shown on the map we had, as you...

Failing at Bartering You can buy a ticket that allows you to visit 5 of the 30 or so sites around the old city. The weather had a been a bit glum since Monday, so it seemed like a good time to go and have a wander around. We checked out an assembly hall and community meeting place. I can't tell you what the difference is, both looked like some variation of a temple to me! The ancient house we went to after was much more interesting, on the second floor (away fr...

Cooking with Ngan One of the plans of the trip is to try a cooking course in most of the countries we end up visiting. Tash had found 'the waterwheel cooking class' as number one on trip advisor. You of course have to take these things with a pinch of salt. The number one curry house in my home town is horrendous and has been rated by people with no mouth. We met our guide Ngan who had us cycle down the road to the local market to buy some produce and also poin...

Gecko vs Cockroach Today we went to Cua Dai Beach. We had read a lot about it being very busy and touristy on some parts but we didn't find that, maybe as our hotel took us to a quieter bit. Towards the end of the day we walked up the beach and it was deserted, as if we had the whole of it to ourselves. We got chatting to a couple from Vancouver who were staying in the same hotel, they splashed out on the honeymoon suit just for some luxury but the hotel staff k...