Vietnam. The fifth country. We have now breached the half-way mark. The hair is getting longer, the toothpaste is now called 'close-up', the shower gel 'fa' and even my old GCSE school bag has now retired! But the feet keep walking and the wheels turning. Our entrance into Vietnam wasn't one of the most easiest of journeys and not, for once, due to the border control. We had decided to take the route down the Mekong river to the border. It was all going well until we reached the boat and were told there was just one boat that left in the morning contrary to what we had been told. We were supposed to be able to catch a local boat but now they didn't exist or so we were led to believe. They at least offered us a place to spend the night for free - on a large wooden bed, minus the mattress, outside next to the dock. We tried to ignore the bats flying around our nets and the large lizard guarding its nest of eggs right beside us that I managed to annoy before hand but none-the-less little sleep was had. Arriving in Chau Doc, in this relatively quiet place we learnt how Vietnam operates the hard way. No-one likes tourists to take independent travel. You have to buy your bus tickets from the guesthouses and as soon as you say no thanks and ask where the bus station is they suddenly appear not to speak English. After trying numerous places with the same effect we tried to find it ourselves. We failed. Had arguments with cyclo riders etc. We are now taking tourist buses and life has got a whole lot more easier. It's unfortunate that people are like this and it would be good to be able to speak Vietnamese so we can interact with the more helpful, friendly locals - anyone that speaks English is connected to the tourist industry. The language is very hard - for example the beer called 333 in Vietnamese is 'ba ba ba' but say it too quickly and you end up calling the waitresses three old women! Anyway, we eventually made it to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) a day later than planned. The most fascinating place here would have to be the War Remnants Museum. I'm not usually a massive fan of standard museums but considering this was once called the American War Crimes Museum you may get a better picture of what it was! Not more than hundreds of pictures telling the stories of the war mainly from the Vietnamese side - one that is rarely heard. The pictures were extremely graphic and had more impact than S-21 or the killing fields in Cambodia. To go with the photos there were a few artefact's and formaldehyde preserved foetuses deformed from 'agent orange'. It wasn't something to forget that easily. The following day we left the city behind and headed to the Cu Chi, the old tunnels used in the war by the VC. Now the top layer of the three storey network of tunnels are open to the public to crawl through. After 130 metres of this I was knackered from these small dark tunnels. Fortunately they had had thought to remove all of the really narrow sections (~60cm high) and bamboo spear pits. For now we have escaped to tunnels in preference for a bus to mission it North to Hanoi (stopping on the way of course)...