This last week we have had fun exploring Ho Chi Minh using grab bikes to get us around. The city is so vibrant and full of life, it is a great place to people watch, especially riding pillion on a bike. The people here use motorcycles and scooters just as you would a family car, carrying mum, dad and two kids down to the shops or packed to the gunnels with merchandise for a roadside stall. They think nothing of weaving through the traffic with 10 foot pieces of wood strapped to the side steering with one arm or holding a large sheet of glass balanced precariously between two people. Bikes jostle for place between the cars, often using the pavements as a clear piece of road. When the bikes pass through the market outside the English school they jostle for place with the pedestrians bartering for fruit and veg. The air is hot and humid and heady with diesel fumes mixed with the odour of sewage intermingled with the smell of tantalising street food being cooked on small burners. There is so much going on that your senses are on overload just stepping out into the street. Everywhere you look you have a welcoming smile or a cheery hallo as you pass by.

We have loved staying here and meeting the local people and will be sorry to leave tomorrow to catch our train to Hanoi.