Hey guys!!!

So we reached HCMC (still Saigon to the people who live here) at 6am in the morning...no accom booked and as you can imagine very tired!!!! Thre bus drops you off around the backpacker area which is good but you are bombarded by taxi/moto drivers who want to take you to their hostel etc, its just pure madness! But we stuck to our guns and did what we do best!....walked!

Found a decent hostel for $10 just off the main backpacker road, clean room with ensuite although it was up 5 flights of stairs! Ouch!!!!!

It was eaarly....daz was hungry so we set out for the day, thought we'd get it done before tiredness really kicked in!!! HCMC is crazy crazy crazy....Hanoi was mad but Saigon is bigger and more cars and scooters, so getting to the sights and crossing the road was yet again another challenge!!

We headed to the Reunification Palace where North Vietnam crashed the gate on April 30 1975 and took over Saigon and renamed it Ho Chi Minh City (after theur leader for those of you who didnt know!) Was impressive building and got to see some original artifcats inside. We didnt have a giude but we cheekily listened to someone elses and got a little info from it! Was interesting to see.

Then we headed to the Remembrance War Museum which is basically all about how badly the USA damaged the country and its people during thier time in the war. We didnt realise how much damage they really caused and there is some shocking photography showing the US Army killing civillians from the north and south. Not for the faint hearted as many of the picitres are after execution. Really sad looking at how much this country has had to suffer. Also learnt more about Agent Orange and how they dropped millions of tons throughout the south killing vegetation and damaging the land and having long term effects on the people. It wasnt just the Vietnamease who suffered. Cambodians and even the US military suffered from agent orange and its still evident today with many old and young with deformed limbs, begging on the streets. Now I can understand possibly how this has happeded to them, but its not over, they still say its effecting the grandchildren.

The weather was hot hot hot and we were withering after the museum and hungry so we headed back to our side of town and had a buffet pasta lunch! Very good haha!

Had an amazing afternoon nap and really just chilled the rest of the day. We were going to spend another day in Saigon but as many of you will know we're not the big city type and we'd had enough of the noise and craziness, so we booked a 2day / 1 night tour to the Mekong Delta which would end in Phonm Penh, Cambodia, our route to a new country!

Saigon has alot of history, maybe if we wernt so tired and had nt spent a few days in Hanoi we would of stayed longer but we felt it was enough for us and we got what we wanted out of it!!!!

Will tell more about our Mekong 'scam' adventure next time!

xxxx