I've learnt something not very surprising about myself on this trip - lack of sleep and long bus rides makes me grumpy!! I arrived in HCMC, Saigon, whatever you want to call it in the pouring rain. I immediately got scammed by a taxi driver who charged me an extortionate amount to take me basically round the corner and drop me off by a non-existent guesthouse. It was on a meter - just one of those meters that is set to go up stupidly fast! First error. I had been travelling about 12 hours and had arrived from a country where the people were lovely to a place where everyone I asked for help lied to me or tried to get money out of me. Initial impressions were not good. Shortly after being dumped from the taxi I found a random guesthouse and then set off to confront Virgin Media. I struggled for a while trying to add credit to Skype, then gave up and called them on my mobile - not looking forward to that bill! Ithen went to find Gerry who had arrived the day before. I found her in a great bar with nice food and a glass of wine - I copied and my mood was instantly elevated. She was not that impressed with Saigon either so we decided to get the night bus out the following day and I would fit in as much as I could the next day.

In the morning we both head off for a tour of the Cu Chi tunnels, where there is a massive network of tiny, narrow, hidden tunnels the Vietnamese used to hide out from the Americans and set traps for them. The traps they set seemed unncecessarily vicious, and inflicted a lot of pain and probably a very slow death, but I guess they were lacking in the number of guns and chemical weapons the Americans possessed. The bamboo spikes made me understand the design of my jungle boots - which were apparently designed for the American military in Vietnam. Understandably all the information at the tunnels was very biased and ungracious but was also in impressively bad English. Throughout the tour we both thought they were playing atmospheric shooting sounds but it turned out it was just another place where you can have a go at shooting AK 47s and machine guns.

After the tunnel tour, Gerry returned to town and I went on the city tour to see the War relics museum. This was really interesting, but unfortunately being a tour, we were rushed out too quickly. I managed to learn a bit though about agent orange and other American atrocities (obviously all one-sided again). We then set off for the palace which is definitely the ugliest palace I've ever seen, having been build after the old one was bombed in the 60's. For some reason the guide spent longer here than the museum, much to our disgust. We also got a bit confused when on the roof he seemed to be indicating that the red circles marked there were signals for where to bomb if you want to demolish the building. A long conversation later we realised the red circles were the points at which the old palace was bombed...makes more sense! After losing several of our group in various parts of the building we finally re-grouped and set off for Notre Dame Cathedral and the General Post Office - being a post office I tried to take the opportunity to buy stamps for Pete's birthday card, it was only later I realised the card had no envelope and I never went near another post office in Vietnam...doh!

Once I had found Gerry in a very cosy cafe - not-unlike something in London - and we had both indulged in a slice of very nice cheesecake, we set off for the markets. They were awesome, only unfortunately I was limited by what I could carry and what I can afford! If I ever come back here with a decent budget I will need to bring an extra suitcase! The heavens opened as we browsed looking for some interesting food options so we sat in a semi-covered outdoor restaurant with our Saigon beers and chilli/beef/rice combos while all the staff battled to waterproof the place. Then it was time for the night bus. We arrived at Sinh Cafe to find the huge double decker coach awaiting us. It was as good as I had hoped, proper seat/bed things with a cubby for your feat and almost completely reclining chairs. I was organised - Gerry was jealous - sheet sleeping bag, tooth brush, nytol, even Nelson, Wombat and Papua were there getting involved. Our bunks were at the top in the middle, which meant we had space either side of us to stick knees out etc but were occasionally bumped into on peoples way to the toilet. I slept really well, each time I was disturbed, falling asleep almost instantly. It made for a great start in Nha Trang the next morning.

We arrived in Nha Trang at 6am. After the normal argument/debate with the whole towns worth of tuk-tuk drivers, we ended up following one guy to a pretty nice high rise hotel not far from the beach. Then followed one of the most productive days ever... we found the "Same same but different cafe" - not great but it had to be done, then head to the beach for a few hours, on our way there passing a very reasonably priced gym. By 11 I was in the gym, having it all to myself, working up a great sweat and feeling horribly unfit, but still better for having been... We then headed out for a trip to the local mud pools, on the way to which we saw the most Vietnamese Vietnam yet, with small alleys and families hanging washing, kids playing etc.. brilliant! At the spa you are directed around starting with a shower, then the mud pool, then you bake in the heat for a while - like a pig after rolling in the mud - then rinse off in shower, then go to hot spring. This was so hot we couldn't last the whole 45 mins and ended up heading to the spray bit early where you are pummeled by water jets. The last bit was a hot and cool pool and a waterfall. The hot pool again was almost unbearable, but again it started to rain and then the hot pool became quite comforting! After feeling we'd thoroughly cleansed our bodies we head back to town, and I went back to the gym/salon for a much needed haircut (today my body is a temple!) . We'd met a couple of girls who had told us of a great place for dinner where you get a set meal, so we head off there and had amazing whitefish and other local food along with a much needed glass of wine (travelling with Gerry was definitely flash packing...). We attempted to drink at the yacht club but when it started to get busy the service was rubbish, so we head off to Red Apple instead, which is where Fran used to work. This was much better and we had a great time, drinking beer larue and meeting a guy called Justin who we later bumped into again in Hanoi. It was a more normal bar with good music and football on TV...

Our second day in Nha Trang we'd booked to go on a boat trip to some of the islands. This was truly one of the mist bizarre days ever as it was just one random event after another - thats what you get when you pay $6 for a day trip! After they finally found our hotel - it took a while - we headed off to the boat harbour where we all (literally) piled on the boat. It was a strange mix of people varying from serious looking Japanese in their best clothes, to a few westerners wearing bikinis or boardies and not much else, and then add into the equation a crazy Vietnamese skipper who had half his teeth missing and was drinking beer from 9am! We all packed in, every wooden bench crammed, and head off to to the first island to visit the aquarium. There was an additional fee to go in, but it beat sitting on the boat for 45 minutes so we paid up and went in. It was a horrible seventies looking structure, supposed to be shaped like a ship, and inside there were a few tanks of different kinds of fish, like clown fish.. It was really sad as they'd obviously made no effort to make the habitat natural and they just swam about in a glass box with no rocks or coral or anemone or anything. It got worse the further in we got as there were larger fish like groupers all crammed in a small tank together, barely able to swim and another tank with about 10 turtles who just swam along the glass backwards and forwards trying to get out. The sharks weren't much better, with loads of black-tip and white-tips all in together. The one decent tank was in the centre of the aquarium where there was a large pile of rock and coral in a big tank and there were loads of different species of reef fish. When we finished here we set off to the snorkeling point off the second island. Here I amused all the Aussies and Americans by coming in early because I was cold. They laughed that I was British, but if they'd been diving in 30+ degrees the last few weeks they'd be cold in 25 and overcast conditions too! the visibility wasn't great but we saw a few interesting fish - it would have helped if it was sunny.

We anchored off the third island for lunch, but it was hardly picturesque - all we could see on the shore behind the rocky cliff were some portaloos and a hut! We then had the entertainment part of the day where the skipper got up on the "stage" - all the benches pushed together - and sang for us, accompanied by his band which included an electric guitar and a very rusty drum kit. It got scarier when they asked for volunteers to take the stage, but luckily there was one uber-trendy Asian man more than willing to sing a few songs. The skipper than dragged Eleanor (one of the Irish girls we'd met) up on stage to dance with him - hilarious! He then gave her some flowers and forced her to sing a song (at this point I was very glad it was't me!!) Once the entertainment was over we had the "floating bar" where he jumped into the sea with a bit of polystyrene "bar" with 4 bottles of dalat wine on it. His language was awful and he kept yelling at us to come and have some "f***ing minging wine" with him. Finally about 5 of us jumped in with rubber rings and floated around the bar drinking wine that tasted more like sherry! It was actually quite nice - but he really wasn't selling it to the others with his description!

The last island was a prettier island, but as we reached it it started to rain. We had to pay to go ashore, but some people decided to stay on the boat so we were pretty annoyed when they came to get us 20 mins early as they were getting wet on the open sided boat. We set off back to Nha Trang getting wetter and wetter the whole way back. Torrential rain was becoming the norm before we caught our night buses! We climbed aboard, hoping we would sleep as well as on the last one, heading off north to Hoi An.