After an early rise, we got ready for our bus journey to Saigon, we were unsure what to expect of this city. Hanoi had been so crazy we were curious to see if Saigon would be as mad or worse. When we arrived we were pleased to see you could actually walk on the pavements and there was less mopeds everywhere, and so far the city looked a lot easier to work out how to get around. Although one of the first sights we saw was a grown man peeing in the street VERY openly! Not the sight we really wanted to see. We had a short walk to the hotel we had decided to book into, it was nice although mid refurbish state, which in hindsight maybe wasn't the best of idea but we had faith. However later that day whilst exploring the roof terrace I had decided to use the stairs as the lift was a bit old and making interesting noises. David used the lift and of course it got stuck!? I was really scared for him as the lift was making some scary banging noises however thankfully it was all fine. But that was the last time we used the lift on the hotel. That day we ventured to the shopping district to see what the nicer parts of Saigon were like, we were very impressed. We decided to book a tour of the city for the next day, as we had little time left in Vietnam our visa's ran out in about 4 days time. As we were walking around in the city we saw a load of people in the park kicking something into the air and it was a large shuttlecock! It seems it was all the rave over in Vietnam, you could buy them for about a dollar and they looked fun too.

The next day was an early rise to go to the Cu Chi Tunnels, which is where the Vietnamese soldiers hid during the war with America. As we were being shown around the tunnels, you could hear guns being fired, yep that is right you could pay to fire guns. The tunnels were amazing, they showed us how that had hidden out in them for up to weeks at a time, the entrances were cleverly hidden so that the American's couldn't see how they got in to the network of tunnels. The entrances were tiny, you definitely had to be small to get in them. They also showed us the traps they had made to get people's legs trapped ... lets just say they were horrific some if you fell on one of them, we took pictures for you all the see them as well. As we went round the tunnels more they showed us the areas that were made for hospital's and cooking and making ammunition etc. David fired a AK47 there too for around 8 dollars to fire 10 rounds, he really enjoyed it and got photos too, and it was really loud as well as the recoil was strong. The last part of the tour was getting to actually walk through the tunnels underground, they were small to walk through, you couldn't even stand up in them you were crawling along the ground, and they were extremely hot down there. That afternoon we did a tour of the city, with a tour guide that was a Vietnamese version Al Pacino. He was a great character, he was singing "let it be" by the Beatles whilst telling us a lots of stories about how things were for him during the Vietnamese war. Music was illegal and we was obviously a big music fan, as he really enjoyed singing to us. We went to the War Remnants Museum, in which outside they had a courtyard filled with old tanks, aeroplanes and many more war vehicles. Inside we saw many photos of the occurrence during the war, as well as the after effects too on the people from both Vietnam and America. After this we headed to the Reunification Palace, which has been left the way it was after the Americans left Vietnam just after the Vietnam War. It was a lovely palace and you could tell it was the same was it was before, with maps on the wall showing where they were aiming to attack next, as well as prehistoric technology and phones. The view from the roof top was pretty amazing as well, we got a few snaps from there before the rain started. Our last stops for the day were the Notre Dame church and the Old Post Office, however the rain and sunday mass meant we never made it into the church, but the post office was very grand inside (included a gift shop as well). We had a jam packed day seeing all the sights to be seen in Saigon so we had a day where we could get some tourist shopping in.

The next day we shopped until we dropped, starting in the posh shopping area to walking our way across the city to the more tourist area, of the indoor market. We got bigger hand luggage bags as our bags were starting to burst due to all our buys along the trip. The rain made the day a bit duller, but thankfully the sunshine came out soon enough. I tried to pull David away from any shop selling technology as he just get too tempted, and our funds won't stretch for buying the various technology things he wants. We packed our bags that evening and got ready for our journey the next day crossing over to Cambodia, taking a 12 hour bus journey to Siem Reap.