From Phnom Penh, Cambodia we caught the 7 hr bus to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, which included one of our easiest and quickest border crossings yet.In the last week we have found Vietnam to be a huge array of different things: stunning and peaceful, ugly and dirty, friendly, aggressive, very loud, and with this has grown our love-hate relationship with the country.Arriving in Ho Chi Minh sounds something like this -"beep beep beep beep beep beeeeeeep".The Vietnamese toot their horns at anything and everything and for no reason, even if the street is empty and we are walking along the foot path on the other side of the road, beeeeeeep, beep beep.Greg has plans to invest in an air horn to carry with him, just to join in.we have gone through packets of painkillers to ease our headaches from traffic noise and the volume which the Vietnamese seem to yell at.

On our second day in HCMC, we visited the Cu Chi tunnels, a 250 km network of 3 levels of tunnels built by the Vietcong during the war.Our guide was a Vietnamese officer in the American army and had lots of interesting and heart felt war stories to tell.The tunnels were full of booby traps, sniper holes and trap doors to deter the US.After Greg squeezed into the sniper hole, our next activity was naturally to shoot guns.It cost $1 per bullet to feel the power of an AK-47 in your hands.The ear muffs were actually just headphones and were probably the reason our hearing was off for the next few days.Then it was time to venture into a 140 meter section of the tunnels - 1.4 meters high and 0.6 meters across made for a sweaty, backbreaking and claustrophobic 5 minutes.The tunnels are pitch black and the zigzag path makes it difficult to navigate and shuffle through.Greg made it all the way to the end, but I had to climb out of an air vent tunnel before I passed out from the heat.You have to give it the Vietcong, they were resilient and determined.

The next morning we reluctantly got on the 24 hr bus to Hoi An, we hate skipping such a huge part of the country, but time is ticking.The bus was a sleeper bus, with seats like beds (made for 4 ft. tall Asians).We grabbed the back and had 5 beds to ourselves for the first 12 hours.The passing scenery ranged from white sand beaches, long stretches of rice paddies and stunning green mountains.The next 12 hours were not so comfortable.The bus was full and we were snuggled up with 3 strangers.With no room to move, the driver tooting the entire time and a Vietnamese comedy sketch being blasted from a speaker above our heads - we only caught a few hours of sleep.

Hoi An is supposedly a relaxing and charming town with cobbled streets, however most of the roads were dug up, making it noisy, dusty and impossible to walk anywhere.Bad timing!The people here are warm and so friendly, quite contrary to what we expected and the food was top notch.Admittedly we weren't here for the town, just the clothes.Hoi An has over 300 tailors where you can get anything made and fitted in unbelievable quality for a quarter of the price in a shop at home.We spent days picking out material, styles and getting fitted.3 long days later Greg came out with 2 suits, 4 shirts, 2 pairs of shoes (they have great cobblers there as well) and a pair of trousers and I with 3 dresses, a suit, a winter coat, heels, and trousers - we booked a bus out of there so we couldn't buy anything more.

Our next 26 hrs could quite possibly go down as the worst of our trip.We wanted to get to Vientiane in Laos and were assured we could get a bus to a town called Dong ha, sleep there and continue the journey for 7 hrs to Vientiane.This travel agent is what we like to call an a******.We were on the bus for 4 hrs before we were told to get off and get on a sleeper bus -"But we want to go to Dong ha and then Laos tomorrow.""Not possible, you take this bus now!"feeling pretty ill all morning, this was the last thing that we wanted to do but we had no choice so we boarded the sleeper bus and grabbed the back seats again where we chatted with an Englishman named Mark who was as confused as us about the hellish route that the bus was taking.With 2 Vietnamese grannies, we all snuggled up, synchronized spooning to get some sleep with sweat drenching our clothes and dripping off our faces.As soon as one person rolled over and ruined the "spoon", we were all tossing and turning again.5 hrs later at 1 am, the 3 of us had to change busses.We looked at the uncomfortable sitter bus we would be on for the next 15 hrs as our sleeper bus pulled away.At 1 am we just wanted to get on and sleep.It was about this time that we realized that this would be a night from hell.The bus was full - the corrupt driver had sold our seats to locals and pulled out a toddler's plastic stool for us to sit on in the aisle.$30 to sleep on a stool for 15 hrs - our response was *!*?*!!***** b******s.The driver was a mean b****** and had already thrown a stool at a Slovakian girl for refusing to sit on it as she rightly took a proper seat.After 1 hr the bus arrived at the border and as we had expected, the border was closed for another 5 hrs.Greg, Mark and I lay awake laying on our backpacks in the aisle, sweating with the heat of the engine and wishing the hours away.7 am we crossed the corrupt Vietnamese border paying money for nothing, walking 500 meters in the rain to the Laos border and back on the bus for another 8 hrs.Two seats had opened up next to three of the most stubborn and aggressive Vietnamese but was better than the floor - just.We had no room as they spread our, legs on top of ours.We were now 36 hrs without any sleep and we were just lucky to have the company of some great fellow travelers.After arriving in Vientiane and a nap, we met up with our bus buddies to drink jugs of Beer Lao to celebrate the end of a horrible day.Next country please…