Didnt have a good night, achy and bunged up, but after another hot shower all was well again. After breakie we planned our day, a trip out to the north east of the city. It wasnt so sunny today, but still as hot as always. We decided to take cyclos out to a botanical gardens and zoo then take in some pagodas on the way back to the hotel. Cyclos are 3 wheeled pedals bikes with a seat on the from. Apparently they are being phased out as they dont really fit in with the traffic, but ours did ok! We founf 2 together outside the market and after a bit of haggling with the price we set out for 20,000VND. My pedlar was called Ho and had a ever so slightly better grasp of English than Claires did, there were a bit old and wrinkly, as they all seem to be, but it was a brilliant way to travel. Bing in the traffic instead of watching it whizz by is really exhilarating, if a tad hairy at times. they got up quite a speed when we were going down hill. Incidently there are not very many hills and the city is mostly on the flat. Lost sight of Claire in her Cyclo when mine stopped for traffic lights and when we caught up again we were at our destination - the bank.... No... Took a few more minutes of explaining, but we got on our way again towards the zoo this time, we hoped! We did arrive and they were quite cheeky, saying they were sweating, so we upped the fait to 25,000VND we did have a bit of a tour, it was really nice and comfortable, and as we went the wrong way to start with we got to ride down the side of the river.

We were sure whether to go in the Zoo or not, but it was only 8000 dong, thats less then 50 cents so we thought we might as well. They had loads of animals, some in cages that were too small, but they all seemed happy enough and it did look like they were doing some work on new enclosures. There were tigers and lions and bears, leopards, elephants and giraffes as well as various deer, very 7 cute otters playing and many types of birds/macaws. There were a couple of chimps and ouranguthans and reptiles - complete with rabbits and guina pigs in the tanks for dinner!!! It was really nice walking round, i was a bit worried it might have been worse than it was. We bought bamboo and fed the elephants!!!

We were hungry when we had finished so walked a while to find some lunch. Passed some very dubious looking little cafes, but not knowing what type of meat you are going to be eating we passed! Found a nice loking place and i had chicken and sweetcorn soup and Claire had a bacon club sandwich.

We somehow missed the pagoda's - Vietnam isnt into them in the city as much as say China or Thailand, something to look forward to later in the trip. Saw the reunification Palace, we will be going back there another day. Got back to the hotel around 5 having made a reservation at one of the restaurants recommended in the guide book 'Ngon' for 8pm. Freshened up and headed out, im sure you have to walk double the distance of a journey because the pavements are full of scooters - i think they can park where they like! and also street vendors with little chicldrens tables and chairs to eat at. I have seen corn on the cob on a stick, im looking forard to having one of those! The whole city is actually very clean though, suprisingly as there are no rubbish bins. They have a lot of street sweepers with wicker brooms sweeping all day long, esspecially leave, they are their favourites. They are dressed in orange suits like convicts! The other day there was a group of men playing some kind of board game and drinking little cans of 333 (Local beer) eating mussels and osters and lychees and throwing all the shells and cans on the floor! It was a mess when they had finished, but the sweepers came along, collected the cans for recycling and swept the rest into a pile to be collected. It might seem manic, but its actually all very ordered.

Arrived at the restaurant and were glad we had booked a table, it was heaving and a lot of people were queuing. It looked very posh, in a kind of fake pagoda style, but was very reasonable priced, our whole meal cost well under $10. Claire had a very strong blue cocktail and i just had iced tea. We shared some shrimp and pork pancakes, i had sticky rice with shredded pork and vietnamese sausage - it was the best meal i have had yet, really tasty. Claire had steamed rice with pork and a mystery hue sauce. i finished off with a rice desert that had been soaked and fermented in wine, it was very strong and very weird, but nice - it was an experience! We throughly enjoyed the whole meal and the atmosphere and took a steady walk back to the hotel. Its a nice heat outside at this time in the evening, with a slight breeze.

Just updating this and then up to bed to try and get a good nights sleep! Heard something about some people dying in Bangkok today, but nothing specific...

Bye for now X