Back in the US, back in the US, Back in the USSR... Da'nang me, Da-nang me, oughta take a rope and hang me - higher than the highest tree… (to quote The Beatles and also Robin Williams in 'Goodmorning Vietnam!' - here we are, back in Saigon (which is still used a whole lot more than the well-deserved but loooong Ho Chi Minh City). Saigon? Much easier.

Lazy? Not us. Well most people, yes, because it is almost a moral and economic sin here to be energetic. We get the strangest looks sometimes when we're out on Shanks's Pony, hoofing about the streets of the city (getting those steps in, don't you know). Why in heaven's name are we walking anywhere when we could call a GRAB (Asian UBER)? It would be seriously easy to walk to the lift, out the front of the lobby and get in a car… and so on and so forth everywhere and everyday and back again. (And as a moral bonus, we would be supporting the local economy and drivers.)

But then there is the food. Aaaaahhhh the food. And the imperative to lose the couple of extra kgs gains after 16 nights, a bit more than two weeks, in the lap of luxury in Thailand with all meals, beer and wine included. Having to feed ourselves is terrible. Have christened it the luxury DTs - or LDTs for short. So here we are, back fending for ourselves. God help us, the first couple of days were pretty dire indeed. We spent one night in our booked AirBnb (also dire) then hit the panic button and relocated to a much better apartment managed by the same guy - for a month, much more spacious and comfortable (though the bed is hard… about as hard as the original joint, but not as creaky so small mercies).

When we arrived from Phuket at 4 pm it had been a long day - final oceanfront breakfast, 90 minute drive to Phuket Airport airport, waity waity, then onto the flight - our first with Vietjet. Off in Saigon and managed to pick the fastest moving queue in the packed Arrivals Hall (this is rare - we certainly can't manage it at supermarkets). Our 3 month visas worked perfectly and we were stamped through in no time and our bags came around almost immediately. We had planned to hang on to our unused Thai Baht for next time, but couldn't be pfaffed, so exchanged it for Vietnamese Dong in order to have a tiny bit of walking around money - about A$20 worth. Felt ridiculousy efficient. Flitted through the 'Nothing to Declare' queue and back into the real world. We picked up a new SIM card for the phone, and not only whistled up a GRAB car, but actually found it. Wonders. Never. Ceasing. Of course it is possible to do Vietnam with untold and limitless wealth (easy enough anywhere we imagine), but it is particularly easy to do Vietnam on the less expensive side with tools like GRAB - no language barrier, no 'hot meter' and a fixed price. So our 45 minute ride to the apartment was about A$10 (didn't need the cash as we'd set up GRAB whilst still in Thailand and it was ready to go). Wow. Ate dinner at a tiny little joint just down the road from the apartment and she only took cash - another $10+ - but jeeze it was nice as we embarked on our self-sufficiency regime. And lucky, so lucky we had changed our Baht into Dong - Altogether a pretty good travel day.

Here we are after our first week in Saigon and we've kept busy as only we can. We've visited a great supermarket with awesome pre-made food a couple of times so far (and filled the fridge) - which has also helped us try a few Vietnamese meals we would not have known to look for - Bahn Xeo (pancake), Bun Thit Nuong (pork, springroll and noodles), a few other bits and pieces and even a whole roast chicken.The cupboard is no longer bare. (This is a 20 minute drive each way, door to door, and well worth the extra 100,000 VND for the return trip with heavy bags.) There are also four convenience stores/minimarts just downstairs at the complex - so that's the delicates dealt with (cold beer, large waters, eggs and icecream).

Aside from long walks and acclimating to the intense heat and humidity, we've enjoyed revisiting old haunts around the city - the Saigon Post Office (and market) and of course, Ben Thanh Market and the newer 'Street Food' complex - which is a thoroughly pleasant way to wean tourists off bad spag bol and onto real food in a non-threatening environment. Our usual day involves a jaunt around the city and a smoothie and light lunch at Ben Thanh market proper - we're we've become addicted to freshly cooked Bahn Cuon - or freshly steamed rice paper pancake, filled with chopped pork and accompanied by a smoothie (Banana / Banana & Coffee / Mango / Coconut / Sapodilla / Papaya… working our way through the menu).

What else? We found a couple of nice pieces at Antique Street - it has soothed my fossicking/hunting urge for the moment and was surprisingly good fun, ratting through dusty cabinets for an hour or so each day on our walk from the centre in D1 to our joint just over the footbridge in D4. The highlight find was a pair of vintage garnet and silver earrings - with what we all presumed were CZ or glass stones. They were super dirty in a box of odd earrings at the back of a dusty cabinet - perfect hunting grounds. We gave them a gentle clean (toothbrush, toothpaste, hot water and a silver cloth) and they looked quite nice. We popped into a jeweller we'd used before to get them cleaned and in a process of 'trust but verify' to avoid confusion she ran the diamond tester over them. Huge surprise to everyone to hear it go 'beep beep beep' - four diamonds in each earring. It would have cost more to clean than they cost… so we hit the supermarket and went down the tin foil and baking soda route - super sparkly now and a great souvenir of Saigon.

We've booked tickets to see the ballet Giselle at the Saigon Opera House (built in the 1890s and designed by the same architect as the Petit Palais in Paris) - bonus? We've never seen Giselle before. The booking process however was a comedy of errors - I signed up online to the ticketbox app, logged in, found the performance and just could not access the many empty seats - which was weird, since some seats were already reserved. We went old school the following day and walked in to the box office. Apparently there'd been some issue with the 27/28 October dates and they'd decided to bring the show forward to another, yet to be determined date in October. They promised to email me - and the following day they did! Now on 21/22 October. So we selected seats from the pictures of the marked up seat map, they put a cross through them, stuck the tickets in an envelope and we trotted in later that day to pay for them. Seriously old school. Whilst expensive here at A$50 each, our premium, front and centre seats would be more like A$1000 in Sydney (and thus we would not be going). Looking forward to our evening at the Opera House immensely.

We were looking for new places to explore and came across Japan Town. To be found conveniently at the end of the riverside walk we try to do every day. Fascinating little corner of town and very atmospheric in the lantern filled alleyways.

We are also exploring new things at Ben Thanh Market. We have discovered the Bahn Xeo (sizzling cake) pancake at the supermarket and now have the confidence to order them at the market. Some days are really, really, blazingly hot day and humid. We are definitely looking forward to the slight drop in temperature as we head northwards. As the weather forecast went in the movie 'Goodmorning Vietnam' - it's hot. Hot and wet. Nice when you're with a lady… but not when you're in the jungle. Or for that matter walking about on blindingly hot and reflective pavements. Like getting toasted from the feet upwards. Or living in a microwave. Thank god for malls and air-conditioning.

We have been doing our outings during the day but on Saturday night (14 Oct) we went down Nguyen Hue / Walking Street at night - wow! It was just so different - kites, balloons, bubble blowers, music, dancers. It was lovely to be out and about later in the day. We ended up down at Ben Thanh market and bought some vintage cufflinks, a junky ring, a cute brooch and a nifty combined knife/spoon/fork/bottle opener tool. Knives are really not a thing here - none in the apartment other than a chopping knife. We have a couple of travel knives but never enough - anyway - it was fun to do a bit of shopping. We found a street we hadn't noticed during the day just over from Ben Thanh market and it had most of its stuff priced in RM or Malaysian Ringgit - strange - seemed we'd tripped over a little microcosm of Malaysia with lots of halal restaurants and muslim tourists.

It was a Red Letter day on 16 Oct - an actual cool(ish) day. It was so pleasant to be out and about during daylight hours and we took the riverwalk. We also took the opportunity to stroll into the glorious old Majestic Hotel on the river. It was amazing - art deco leadlighting, lovely chandeliers, real olde worlde charm - just incredible. Could easily move in here with a small windfall during our stay.

We saw a possibly good spot on the map and decided to go exploring. The place in question is one of Saigon's walking streets and a bit of a touristy spot. Bui Vien Street turned out to be a den of drunk, low rent tourists getting stuck into beer and fags for breakfast at 11 am after a big night the night before. It was a bit skungy and depressing actually. We accept we're walking ATMs here in Vietnam , but were really made to feel it here - 'oh look a tourist - quick, try and flog them a beer'. We gave in on our 'Don't Buy Art' resolution and bought some prints on handmade-ish looking paper. We had been somewhat on edge with regard to the Christmas visit to Portugal - we weren't sure if it was going ahead or not, but the owner has finally received her residency card - so that's a go-er - which was more of a relief than we had imagined.

And so began our exploration of dentistry tourism in Vietnam. It's a thing. Who knew? Not us. Not at least until James's 2 month old crowned tooth snapped across the base and got all loosey-goosey with only a couple of weeks left in Ho Chi Minh City (heaven forbid the gums stop holding it in place and he inhales a tooth - eek!) Having visited dentists in NZ, Ireland and Turkey (and Queensland once when in Australia), we are au fait with hunting down a good option - but it is still nerve wracking - heaven forbid doing something leads, via infection or a botched job, to a worse outcome than doing nothing. It was Wednesday evening when I reached out via email to one clinic that had seemingly genuine reviews by actual users of the service - and 'lo, had an email back within an hour and appointment for the next morning and 'our driver will pick you up'. OK. Going well so far. Still nervous mind. The dentist seemed very confident and this place does crowns/implants/all-on-4 dentures and restorations all day every day. Despite looking about 18, it turns out he was 32 and actually, a very good dentist. There was of course bill-shock (not to mention time-shock - driver will collect you again in 24 hours and your permanent crown will be ready). Bill shock in Vietnam is a completely different beast to dentistry bill shock in Australia - you still say 'how much???!!!' but it's because it's ridiculously inexpensive - so a repair of the broken tooth, a new crown, a crown on the tooth next door and a new night splint/mouthguard for a grand total of A$1250. No wonder people come here for full-mouth fixes - and have a holiday at the same time. Wow. Could not believe how fast we were out the door with a temporary crown in place on day 1 - let alone done and dusted on crown 1 after 24 hours. In the end it was about a 10 day odyssey all told - finished by 26 October with loads of time to spare before our scheduled departure to Hoi An on 30 October.

In between walks, teeth and exploring Saigon on foot (a form of extreme-walking that requires a head on a swivel, 110% attention to all planes of existence at all times and true grit), we finally made it to the ballet Giselle at the Saigon Opera House on 21 October. This show was new to us and quite amazing - the first act was neither here nor there - but the second act was glorious - the Wilis and the Veils were stunning. It was almost a Russian kind of venue, for want of a better word. The building itself was a stunning French era monument, however. The 'red' carpet was on it's last legs and they would have been better off with marble or even polished concrete. The foyer was beautiful if you looked up at the crystal chandeliers, but somewhat lacking in the finer things - the intermission was served by a fridge with softdrink and beer behind a counter (which was perhaps a cloakroom once upon a time?). So no bubbly at intermission for us. It was however still a reasonably posh-feeling night out and we treated ourselves to a Grab car both ways in order to be able to dress up and not be dripping with sweat for the show.

On the subject of getting driven about in air conditioned, leather seated comfort and looking out upon the regular people…so 10 people, a Dalmatian and a corgi walk into a bar - what do they have in common? It only took 3 Vespas to get them there. Seriously, the scooters of Saigon go above and beyond the call of duty every single day. Seeing the Dalmation hop into the footwell area was hiliarious - too quick to get a photo - he certainly knew what 'hop-in' meant. The corgi was slung over the lap of the pillion passenger and as happy a dog as we've ever seen with his ears flapping in the breeze. Our record for scooter capacity sightings this trip is 5 people (albeit 2 adults, 2 small persons and 1 was a baby) on one scooter. We've also seen scooters loaded up beyond any possible expectation of specification - 100 or more one dozen trays of eggs. 10 large bags of ice (but badly loaded… one came crashing off as he was driving down the road next to us - thus the constant requirement of situational awareness), a small, purpose built pallet of bricks - fairly hard done by scooter that one - also had a couple of bags of cement in the footwell- I mean, if you've not got a Dalmatian to stick there, the space would otherwise go to waste.

In other news, we're now off to Dublin after Porto - one of our favourite city stays - and, since we were cutting back on packing (silly move that was), being in HCMC is a good chance to pick up a couple of cheap, warm jackets here in the North Face (sorry 'North Fake') manufacturing centre of Asia). We had a good look around over the course of a few nights, noted the many different grades of genuine fake jacket, sizing that has to be seen to be believed (I am simultaneously a Small and a 3XL depending on the shop and jacket model). You also have not been hot until you have tried on down jackets in 38 degrees and humidity. The jacket I really liked and that fitted well was purple - which defeats the purpose of endeavouring to not look either too obvious or too posh on the mean streets of wintry Dublin. Funny enough, whilst I'm sure North Face genuine product is very nice and all, seeing the mountains of fakes is off putting. We ended up buying a one off, end of line, gray, genuine down jacket by Cabela's. We've never heard of the brand but have found the exact same one for sale on eBay. How do we know it is in fact 80% duck down and 20% duck feathers? Because a couple of feathers were poking out. Seems a better bet all round compared to a North Fake. Apparently genuine ones have a little holographic sticker on the label. And now, so do the fakes. A genuine fake holographic sticker - give the punters what they want indeed. The jacket we bought was a snip at A$16 though it sounds more expensive at 250,000 dong. We also didn't need to haggle due to it being part of her selection of sale goods. And it fits both of us. All good on the shopping front. We may still pick another one up in Hanoi - gives us something to look for in the night market.

The time has come after a month in HCMC to say farewell. We have a few 'last minute' things to do today and tomorrow then onto the flight to DaNang on Monday. There's a lot of 'art' for sale in Asia, most of which must be getting pumped out by battery-cage-artists in far distant factories. We have passed an actual artist (witnessed him at it) on a street in the city who seems very talented - so tonight we might actual buy a small piece from him. We've had so much enjoyment from different pieces we've picked up over the years and 3 metre ceilings mean we can put a lot on our walls. We'll get some extra cash out while it's easy to do and recharge the mobile phone to take us out another 3 weeks. Final packing to be done tomorrow morning… final lunch… final dinner in at Ben Thanh Market and final night in our trendy apartment. Phew! Hoi An, here we come for some peace and quiet down by the riverside.

(PS - our final night seemed like a veritable comedy of errors. We went to our 'usual' Citibank/UOB ATM and it decided not to work. We ended up finding an HSBC option, but at double the fees - sigh. The woman who sold us the SIM at the airport assured us we could recharge it at any convenience store… after the 5th try we gave up - and doing it online also wasn't possible as it was impossible to find an English version of the website. We ended up nipping into a posh hotel to ask a front desk person if she knew where we could do it - Angel! She did it quickly, online on the phone in return for the cash amount of the recharge - and we were back in business. So cash secured (tick), phone charged (tick) and art bought from real live artist (tick) - final dinner and home and hosed. We'll be up early for our flight from SGN to DAD - Da Nang with Vietnam Airlines tomorrow. On a positive note sunrise is around 5.30 am... so getting up in daylight will be easy!)