Saigon is an extremely busy city in the South of Vietnam, with about 7 million people living there, 5 million of who own a motorbike...need I say more on the pace of the place? There was plenty to do here though to escape the hustle of bustle of the road (and pavements). With it having a long history of wars and conflict, educational sights were abundant. We visited the reunification palace, with the tank which steamed through the palace gates in the 70's still in the grounds, the War Remnants Museum which was extremely interesting but something not for the faint-hearted and last but not least the underground network of the Cuchi Tunnels, built and used by the Viet Cong insurgents during the Vietnam War. We could go underground and walk through sections of the tunnels, still completely intact with obvious empty spaces where hospitals and bedrooms once were.

Apart from this, our main activities in Saigon were wandering the streets and bartering in the market stalls with the little ladies wearing conical hats and masks covering half their faces (we were told it was to minimise pollution inhalation but it turned out to be so that the ladies' faces don't tan when the Sun is out, white is more beautiful apparently; if you buy Nivea (or any other) products here they usually contain skin whitening pigments). Anyway it was immediately evident on coming into the country that Vietnam was by far the wealthy neighbour, with an advanced infrastructure and (slightly) more order, it was a surprise to see that everyone was wearing a helmet while on the bikes ie.abiding by the law!

Anxious to meet Emma (AKA Bum, a good friend who I lived in Spain with), we took our first night bus in Vietnam, to Nha Trang. Nha Trang was where we stayed for the next 5 days, going to the beach, talking, having our ears cleaned for a dollar (very strange experience), eating a lot (trying mouse-deer curry, what is that anyway?), going out, taking a moto trip to some mud baths and talking some more...resulting in Emma going home to catch her sister in time before she gave birth. During that time, we also went on a boat trip to a few islands nearby which was good fun..we went snorkelling, to an aquarium, had a floating bar in the sea (which involved the barman floating around in a large rubber-ring with a small surface holding plastic cups and bottles of wine) and 'onboard entertainment' which involved the boat-crew and their make-shift band (the drums were pots and pans) and a few strangled cat imitators having a go at karaoke.

After Emma left, we then ventured into the mountainous area throughout the Central part of Vietnam, to a small city called Dalat. Dalat's surroundings were beautiful, boasting many waterfalls, coffee plantations, lakes and viewpoints, so we did a day with the Easyriders, a renowned group of moto drivers who own vintage motorbikes, to see it all. Dalat was also home to this literally 'Crazy House,' an eccentric piece of architecture often described as something out of Alice In Wonderland. It was more like a mansion of many parts and each individual room had its own design and name; it was brilliantly done and most people visit it as an exhibition of art rather than actually stay there.

Still in Central Vietnam but back towards the coast, we spent a few days in Hoi An, a quaint, pretty little town with a river running through its centre. Typically, after managing to watch almost every warm-up Lions game, we could not find ANYWHERE with the channels showing the test matches...until the last one, once South Africa had already won the series. Anyhoo, Hoi An is famous for one major thing: tailor-made clothing. The streets are literally lined with mannekins and little ladies watching TV just inside their shops waiting for their next potential sale. The clothes aren't always perfect but the prices are low so you'll see tourists galore wandering the streets sporting their new attire.

Hué, the next stop Northbound, is also a fairly big city but with little to do other than to do an organised trip...frustratingly, because like in the whole of Vietnam, it's a lot more expensive when you try to do things independently! So we spent a day on the DMZ tour (the de-militarised zone) where we drove through and stopped at various places and points to see where both sides were fighting during the war, including the Vinh Moc tunnels and Khe Sanh Base, which housed a couple of American helicopters, tankers and bunkers to have a squizz at. The city tour the following day was pretty boring, visitng too many temples with not a lot to them, so we spent most of the day with a Catalunyan couple just chatting while the Koreans whizzed about with their tripods.

The following day did not get much better when we arrived in Ninh Binh, having just disembarked from a 10-hour overnight bus journey with a crazy driver. Having barely caught a wink, we checked into what looked like a lovely, but empty (not sure why we didn't wonder) hotel - perfect to get some kip. About 30 minutes later, the town woke up and the traffic outside of our window was horrendous, horn after screech after shouting after more horns and we literally just could not stay there. After moving we took a stroll out to find everything was shut (strange we thought for a Thursday?!)...but the reason we'd come there was to see Tam Coc, about 10km from the town itself, basically what I would describe as the Milford Sound of Vietnam...a long channel surrounded either side by looming mountains, rice paddies and grottoes - beautiful. So that cancelled out the bad location. In the evening, we actually had to have a little hotel restaurant open for us so we could eat - alone and in silence (with a little cockroach scuttling about)! But we had found a good Bia Hoi place in front of our hotel, where they sell draught beer for VERY cheap prices (eg.30p/L) so that was some consolation.

Glad to see the back of Ninh Binh, we headed onto Hanoi, the capital city of this country of contrasts. Basing ourselves in the Old Quarter, we spent all of our time there (this time round) just wandering about. We took a trip to the backpackers hostel in the middle of the mix, found a Brit working there and found out where to watch the rugby that night...it seemed the whole hostel was there, so soon after the game ended we all carried onto a bar together and it turned out to be a very good night, within the space of a couple of hours Jonny'd been offered a bank job and I'd made some Irish friends for life, ha!

From Hanoi, we took a 3 day tour to Halong Bay, a really pretty bay of 1600 islands (albeit some of them were tiny little rocks jutting out of the sea). We quickly found the young crowd of the group and spent the first day and night on the boat, visiting caves, the fishermans' floating village, kayaking and swimming. The night was fairly comfortable too, apart from the generator drumming through our wall all night. We were dropped off at Cat Ba Island the following morning, where we went on a walk through the national park, a very big trek that was quite hard-going at times, although the 70 year-old Korean guy showed us all up. We spent the rest of the day on the beach, and the next morning made our way back on the boat to the mainland before returning to Hanoi, where we then caught a night bus to Sapa, in the North-Western part of the country, near the Chinese border.

Sapa was a lovely little town in the mountains, with a notably cooler climate, low clouds shrouding the town and with a somewhat Peruvian feel to it, with all the minority group women selling their goods round town with their babies slung over their backs in a cloth and wearing brightly coloured clothing with patterned stitching. We also ventured outside of the town and took a ride through the countryside on a moto, visiting the Thac Bac waterfalls and the Tram Tom Pass enroute.

Back in Hanoi, we spent our last few hours visiting Ho Chi Minh himself (with at least half of Vietnam), the Temple of Literature and going to see a water puppets show. We weren't sure what that was either...a series of puppets being thrown about in water, to some traditional melody or other. Didn't really follow all that well, but interesting all the same. Fed up with rice and noodles and with seeing dog and duck eggs (where you actually eat the chick) on the menu, we will spend this Saturday night on a 24-hour bus to the Laos capital - Vientiane, in hope of a Western food treat or two.