Hellooo family and friends,

I hope everyone reading this in Australia and England (hiii granny i see you too have now subscribed haha) are well and appreciate how hard it was for us to post this message. This is the 3rd time we have typed it out thanks to some seriously terrible computers.

After our last post in Phnom Penh we decided to go out and about that evening. Went down to the lake where all of the touristy bars are. We decided on the Lazy Gecko which we found out was managed by an Aussie from Moe haha. Pretty cool. Was really nice there so had a good evening.

The next day we decided to crash another posh hotel's pool hehe. We went to the ever posh Phnom Penh hotel which had a lovely pool, bar and pool boy. Spent a good day there, got a little bit burnt and probably spent waay to much time in the sun. We also risked eating some tropical fruit which was soooooo good and on the prettiest little (well huge) platter. However this proved to be a bad risk to take.

At approximately 3am Ben started his 24hours of vomitting and.....well u know. Whether it be from the fruit or (since i didnt get it) the meat and egg in his burger for dinner he certainly caught something. What made it worse was that the next day was our scheduled departure from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City and we had already booked and paid for the ticket. Not wanting to forfeit our ticket ben bravely (hehe) decided that we should continue our trip. Lets just say it was lucky that we had splurged on (another) VIP ticket which meant that the bus had a toilet. He was pretty good though....and we made it here to Vietnam in one piece.

The trip despite everything went pretty smoothly and quickly. It only took us about 6.5 hours + the time it took to go through immigration. Even though we had to wait ages at the Vietnam passport control in Moc Bai (yes we used to Bavet/Moc Bai border) the whole thing was soooo much smoother than the THai/Cambodian crossing. The Mekong Express bus service is really good (even though they have racist ticketing system where foreigners pretty much pay double.) In our guide book it does say not to use them because of that but the idea of a toilet on board was toooo good to miss. Besides the price was still sooo cheap it didnt really bother us.

We arrived in HCMC not knowing where our hostel was (lost our booking sheet)....had no dong as we forgot to exchange some dollars and waaay too much useless riel. However we were pleasantly suprised to find that everyone here is sooooooooo much more helpful than Bangkok and Cambodia and will actually help you EVEN if you dont want to go on their moto or cyclo. So we found an internet cafe that took US$$$ and found our hotel which was only around the corner grrrr but YAAAYYY!!!

The hostel that we are staying at is really nice with AC and a better cable tv. We have MTV now but sadly no Australia network. However the bed is like a rock and the pillows a slab of cement. But meh...

Our first day here we decided to just take a tour of the city. We are staying in the backpacker district 1 which is pretty cool because all the other people are here and all of the cheap restaurants and bars. But we walked across the city to the Ho Chi Minh City Museum which was cool with heaps of stuff upstairs on the VIetnam war (not too friendly towards americans and therefore aussies) but there was also alot of vietnamese art and craft there. Bumped into three old americans that were on our bus from Phnom Penh. My GOD does the american accent carry. When we got there we also saw a bride and a groom. We wondered why they didnt look happy in between the photos....haha it was because when you looked further there were like four more couples all having a photo shoot. Got some good photos there :-p.

Our next stop was reunification palace which apparently had a name change to independance palace (even though the brochure they gave us was dated 2000 with the old name hehe). But the guard told us it was closed and unlike at the grand palace it actually DID close for lunch. So we caught a taxi to the Jade Emperor Pagoda. My god it was an effort to get there. The taxi driver didnt speak a word of english....and fair enough why should he. BUt i mean come on...i gave him the map and pointed. And its a popular tourist destination. We drove around for AGES and yes mother thats when we msged you about my phone. Finally he decided to stop and ask someone. SOmeone that also didnt speak any english but spoke french. So there was fi trying to remember her yr 12 french to ask this woman where the pagoda was. We did eventually get there and it wasnt worth it. Some would probably say that it is spectacular but it was just another temple to us...and not really that pretty. There were some cute turtles though which kinda made up for it.

Then we went back to the palace and had a tour there. Was such a long tour and as nice as the palace was....it just kinda looks like a massive hotel. The 1st floor was blocked off because they were greeting people there....but i think it was just the massive history tour that arrived on a bus as we did. They soooo didnt deserve the grand reception that they got. There were people dancing, skipping, banging and chanting. Was cool to see though....even if we didnt warrant such a reception.

We then walked over to the War Rembrants Museum. This museum was really interesting and really horrible too. It displayed all sorts of bombs, planes, pictures of agent orange victims and personal stories of what happend to these people during the war. Some of the letters between families during the war were really nice to read if not sad. Seeing all of the effects of Agent Orange was horrible and we saw a terrible picture of this US soldier holding a man hit by a granade. He was less than half there.....seriously horriible. Then we just went back to the hotel and chilled....went out for food and drink etc. Was a great day.

YEsterday we decided to take a tour to a temple (really cant remember the name....maybe chau doc) and then on to the cu chi tunnels. The temple was really cool because it was a totally different religion. It was a mixture of buddhist, hindu, catholic etc....but set up in a catholic way. They believe in a universal god and also in reincarnation. Was really pretty and we sat in on a service there. People changing and singing and praying.....was nice. We also met an old vietnamese guy that was telling us about the news in australia. And the funniest thing was he thought ben was asian because of his dark hair and tanned skin. Hahahahaha my lil asian boyfriend. It amused us for awhile.

The Cu CHi tunnels were an AWESOME experience. We saw all sorts of booby traps that they used....they were so damn clever. We saw remakes of the under ground kitchen and armery and then the smallest tunnels you could ever see in your life. I cannot believe that people actually fit down there....let alone lived down there. There were also B52 bomb craters all over the place. Then they took us to the tunnel that they had widened and made taller for tourist. Unbelievable. It was 80cm in width and 120cm in height. When you are in there it feels a hell of a lot smaller....and it is pitch black. We nearly went the whole way.....but came out the exit about 8metres before the exit. Was crazy you had to squat and then waddle along....but was alot of fun. It was so hot down there and because everyone in front wanted to stop for their pictures it made the 100metres take forever. The fact that there was a shooting range next door really made the experience more real. The entire time all you can hear is gunshots.

Our tourgide was an absolute crack up. At first he was just telling us about the city and his experience in the city. Then it turned into his experiences in the war which were really interesting. But then we realised he just loved to speak...and preach haha. He started telling us that all you need in life is happiness and a smile. This went on for the very very long trip. But he amused us....was a nice guy. I expect to see him on that late night preaching jesus show back home.....so funny.

After that day we were completely exhausted.....so we went back to the hotel to have a shower only to find our conditioner had been STOLEN. Well not stolen but taken away thinking that it was rubbish. Call me (fiona) a princess but i HATE not using conditioner when i have a shower. I had to do it in Phnom Penh (after our shampoo and conditioner got stolen on the last day in SIem Reap and they only sold shampoo) and i refused to do it again.My hair went all dry and crazy like. Was so sad so ben went down for me and demanded more. Hahahaa YAY have soft hair again :-) Makes me soooo happy.

Not really sure what we are going to do today....probably not much as it will cost us our savings just to use this computer for so long.

Please keep on emailing.....

xoxoxo