Our intro to Vietnam made our entry into Siem Reap and first steps into Cambodia, calmly riding on the back of two motorbikes, look like nothing in comparison…as soon we crossed the border by bus from Cambodia into Vietnam, the very next thing we saw was the biggest swarm of mopeds/motorbikes coming towards us, as if the nearby Honda factory was giving them out for free. We had heard this was typical of Vietnam, but was still quite a sight…and little did we know that we would soon be joining them.

As we drove through downtown Ho Chi Minh City (formerly known as Saigon) that evening, apart from the vast number of motorbikes, peering through the bus windows we also noticed immediately how much more Chinese everything looked, with even brighter/redder lights to what we had seen in Phnom Penh. After disembarking from the bus, we were accosted (in the nicest possible way) by a Vietnamese grandmother, practically dragging us by our backpacks to come and look at the room in her guesthouse. We went along - although I don't think we had much choice - out of curiosity to see the room as it was half the price of what we were expecting to pay, and followed her through a crazy maze of alleyways, which turned out to be full of 'spare rooms' in family homes - and which is where we ended up staying. It seemed miles away from the street we had just arrived on, which was full of bars and restaurants catering mostly to backpackers / tourists, and loved the feel and contrast - everywhere you walked gave you a sneak peak into the lives of the local families in these extremely narrow and towering apartment blocks: elderly family members lying on the stone floor to keep cool while watching TV, men drinking the local draft beer on tiny stools in the alleyway, kids doing their homework, women preparing dinner….all happening in these tiny front rooms, one after another.

We spent our time in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) sightseeing during the day, occasionally taking the odd hair-raising motorbike taxi, but mostly seeing the city on foot, pausing in awe at the main junctions to just stand and watch the crazy amount of motorbikes and wondering how on earth there are not more accidents, as there is no rhyme or reason as to how they all cross at an intersection, each bike veering within inches of the next - and you are not safe on the pavement either: when the congestion gets too bad, bike riders just take to the pedestrian areas to get round the traffic. A better understanding of the craziness might be best viewed via You Tube.

There are apparently 20 million motorbikes in Vietnam (out of a population of approx 90 million), and 5 million of these belong to HCMC's 7.2million residents - anyway I think that puts the person:motorbike ratio in to perspective.

Daytime sights - apart from motorbike watching / avoiding - included the Notre Dame Cathedral and the Reunification Palace - built in the 1960s to serve as South Vietnam's Presidential Palace, this is also where the first Communist tanks crashed through in April 1975, when South Vietnam surrendered to the North…an interesting time warp of a building as it has been left just as it was on that day (minus the tanks).

We also visited the Cu Chi Tunnels site, which was famous during the 60s for its role in allowing the Viet Cong (the political organisation and army fighting the US and South Vietnam during the war) to control a large rural area 30km from HCMC. The tunnels of this former battleground stretched from HCMC to the Cambodia boarder, and in the Cu Chi district alone the immense network consisted of more than 200km of underground tunnels. The tunnels were used by Viet Cong soldiers as hiding spots during combat, as well as serving as communication and supply routes, hospitals, food and weapon storage and living quarters for numerous North Vietnamese fighters.

It was quite something to see these tunnels (some original, some replicas) and after squeezing / crawling through one of them you got a claustrophobic understanding of the lives of the Viet Cong during this time, spending weeks underground at times. The tunnel systems were of great importance to the Viet Cong in their resistance to US forces, and with US ground efforts to target the tunnels being ineffective and claiming large numbers of casualties, they turned their artillery and bombers on the area, turning it into a moonscape. Venturing into the tunnels themselves was considered too hazardous, as they were often rigged with explosive / spiky booby traps…replicas of these ingenious and painful-looking traps were also on show.

We also paid a visit to the War Remnants Museum, a brutal and powerful museum documenting the atrocities of the Vietnam War (and of course hugely propagandaist / anti-US as you can imagine). All the exhibits (weapons, tanks, tiger cages used to house the Viet Cong prisoners) and especially the photography were a powerful reminder and in parts, education, of the war, from pictures of all the anti-war protests taking place round the world at the time, to the horrific effects of Agent Orange - which I think has to be the war's most devastating legacy, with some of the worst cases of physical deformities I thought possible. It is estimated that up to 1 million people are disabled or have health problems due to the US spraying almost 80million litres of the chemical during the war, causing 40,000 deaths, with the goal of depriving the guerilla forces of cover, support and food supplies with mass deforestation.

Evenings in HCMC were spent taking in the buzzy street scene, watching the world and its bike go by, sampling delicious food on the street-side bbqs (grilled octopus most nights for me), all washed down with a cold bottle of Saigon beer. Some of the cheapest beer in the world apparently and at about 30p a bottle we were not complaining.

What else….oh yes we bought a motorbike! Within 24 hours of arriving in HCMC, Simon had gone off to see Kevin (a British mechanic living in the city) and soon enough we were the proud owners of a Yamaha Nouvo 115cc - a few hundred dollars poorer, but certainly worth it for the ridiculous excitement we felt about the two weeks ahead of us exploring Vietnam on two wheels, with the thought of 'normal' transport suddenly just not cutting it. It was thanks to conversations with Nate and Mimi, who got us thinking about the idea in Cambodia, that we decided to try and explore Vietnam by bike, and started researching bike sellers, routes etc. You would have thought that having seen the traffic and driving 'style' once in Vietnam, this would have put us off the idea…but it sounded like a fantastic way to see the country, and what's one more bike to add to the 20 million, it can't be that hard can it…?