Almost completed my two days in Hi Chi Minh (Saigon) it's as hectic as people say but another great city with a real buzz to it.

I arrived at 06.30 yesterday morning after another night of being thrown around the sleeper bus (beats me how they can call it a 'sleeper'). I was on the top bunk again and it felt like i was in a washing machine and i felt every pot hole and bump in the road and believe me there are a lot !

It's pretty busy around Pham Ngu Lao and not many beds left so after about 30 minutes of walking around i take a coffee break to take stock, no point in rushing. I find a room at the Yellow House, $7 in a dorm, it's in lonely planet, it says basic but acceptable, they are being generous but at least its a bed and theres a few people around which is the main point of stopping here. No time to waste, no sleep but lot's to see and do. I grab a map and head off for the sights,it's pretty easy to negotiate and all the sights are nearby. I cover the tourist sfuff, reunification palace, i have a photo from Hanoi of the actual tank that stormed the gates in 75' so that' pretty cool. The war remnants museum is a bit grizzly in parts and makes me even more p-ssed at the war, nice to see the peace work drawn by local kids which lightens up the proceedings!. Grab a photo of the Notre Damn Cathedral, pop into the Museum of HCMC and then have a wander around the local market.

In the afternoon i found a great coffee shop next to the hostel, Bobby Brewers, its quite funky, it has a little cinema on the third floor with settees to just lol about on, good for an afternoon snooze.

Back at the infamous 'Yellow House" one of my roomates is in, Ingunn from Norway, we have a good chat and get on well so decide to go for a bite to eat. We choose rest Pho 24 for a bit of local fayre in nice surroundings which is on the main road by backpackers strip. We both have the beef Pho, it was YUM. We hit backbackers alley for a few beers and people watch, it's $2 a coctail night so go for a few of them, my long island tea just hits the spot!

Day 2 and we head of to the Chu Chi tunnels, we pay for a bus at the hostel, it's only $6 with a guide and as it's a 55km drive it makes sense. The guide is Nam, couldn't understand a word, but i recall him talking for the first 20 minutes about scooters and girlfriends, no scooter, no girlfriend, he is 24 and just bought a scooter, for the life of me i hope the frustrated poor lad gets some action soon. Oh and for good measure as he was a bit short on knowledge we had kareoke on the way back, my ears were bleeding but he was a 'vlelly lubbly' lad (now with scooter but no girlfriend, - with very little hope of ever getting one!). The tunnels are really amazing, a 200km maze and you get the chance to crawl through one of the tunnels - although it had to be widened to accept Westeners - say no more - by the way there are no fast food chains here!. Theres a shooting range with a whole host of machine guns, AK47's etc and for $10 you can shoot some barrels (i heard that in Cambodia you can fire a rocket launcher at a cow!?). An interesting day out and worth the effort to get more of an insight into how the war was fought and just how resilient the Vietnamese are.

The Kareoke on the bus back went on too long, i'm sure Nam was enjoying himself so asked the driver to take the long route - we got back at close to 16.00. I took a late lunch with Ingunn, in fact we wolfed it down as we were starving. That's pretty much it, Ingunn goes North so i have passed on some good tips, i go south tomorrow, onto the Mekong Delta for 2 days which will take me over my first border in Cambodia heading for my next adventure in Phnom Penh.

Will be online in a few days time, bye for now