We arrived into Ho Chi Minh City (also known as "HCMC" or "Saigon") on the night train. This was a huge comfort step up from the night buses - there were pillows, proper toilets and a nice lady bought you dinner. Unfortunately it arrived into town at 4am in the morning. So our first impression of Saigon was one of it being dark and locked up, but we managed to find a nice place to stay and grab a couple more hours of sleep before brekkie.

First on our list of things to see was the Reunification Palace. The storming of this palace in 1975 is what ended the civil war in Vietnam and it's been kept as it was found then. So it's full of some really wonderfully 60's and 70's decor! The home cinema projector room in the palace (I mean who doesn't have one of these?!) has two huge film-reel players that would probably go for a fair bit of money now and the "gold chairs meeting room" is pretty spectacular.

Our next stop was the war remnants museum. It has displays showing the genetic aftermath of agent orange as well as heaps of photos from the war, largely from war photographers, often showing dead vietnamese people, or Vietnamese people who were about to die at the hands of the Americans. Obviously the propaganda fairy had been here and there were a lot of text about the brutality of the US during the war. There were also displays showing international solidarity for Vietnam during the war and how the country has rebuilt in the aftermath. But it's those photos that are hard to forget.

That evening, to boost morale we went to a restaurant recommended by Neville the food tour man from Hoi An. As recommended, we let the Maitre De (Tye) choose our food for us and had an absolutely delicious dinner. The highlight was talking to Tye afterwards. He runs the restaurant, has worked at over 300 restaurants in some capacity (often a PR role), in this line of work he's met the Backstreet boys, Michael Jackson's dad and Brad Pitt. But it's not his main job, he's actually a make-up artist for a TV company and he was a ballet teacher but had to give that up because his love of serving people food was taking over. And he's 28.

The next day we went to Cu Chi to see the old Viet Cong tunnels. We went with a day tour from our hotel for convenience sake. Our tour guide had worked for the US as a translator during the war and he wasn't shy about telling us how awful war is and how he hopes for world peace one day. He was funny and engaging, if a little difficult to understand. One minute he's be talking about how women and wives can be difficult (knowing chuckles spread through the bus) the next minute he's telling us that his dreams are haunted by his memories of the war (rapt and sympathetic silence) and then goes on to say that a smile is the first word of the international language and that humans are all family no matter where we come from (not a dry eye on the bus).

Our first stop on the tour was the temple of an unusual religion in Vietnam. We watched their midday prayers and it was very nice and relaxing. They dressed in white robes and say on the floor of this enormous temple, looking at the image of an eye at the front and chanted gently.

Next was the tunnels. We'd read that this was mega-touristy and so I was pleased to find that it was nowhere near as polished as Pearl Harbour. First our group was shown a propaganda documentary which showed the happy shiny people living down in the tunnels and showcasing people who had been given "hero of killing Americans" awards for their skill in the field. Next we were shown a tiny tunnel entrance which Si could only just squeeze his shoulders into. And there were some models of guerilla fighters and a shooting range (go figure). The highlight was the old tunnels - widened for tourists. I had the good luck of being first down into the tunnel after a young guide (our normal guide reused to put himself through it all) and he stopped in a side tunnel at one point and urged me to go on to the end, so I got to lead us all out. That meant that I was the only one who saw the bats. The tunnels are tiny, claustrophobic and deep. It was pretty hard to imagine anyone living down there for an extended period of time. It was also hard to take it too seriously though because Si kept chuckling at himself for bringing his big camera down with him. When we finally came out, we realised that only a small handful of our group has actually made it through the tunnels, I'm not sure what happened to everyone else.

Then we pile back on the bus for Saigon and a lovely last evening in Vietnam.