alright boys and girls,

Im in Saigon now, right in the South of Vietnam. Im hungover today so this blog will be mercifully brief, for the benefit of you guys and my head. Gettin here took me 25 hrs on the bus so i pretty much managed to grab something to eat and then went straight to bed when i got here. I cant sleep on buses and must have managed about 2hrs so i was a big mess when i arrived. Saigon is pretty busy, the traffic here is a nightmare but once you get past your initial weariness you realise that you can cross the road without putting yourself in mortal peril. Yesterday checked out the reunification palace and the war remanants museum, the museum is particularly harrowing. you see alot of beggars out here with limbs missing/deformed and i thought it was due to the war directly but it turns out alot of it comes from Americans using all kinds of herbicides on the vietnamese and there deformities in turn affecting their offspring. Pretty awful. Plan for today is just check out the northern area of the city, botanical gardens, fine arts museum (Douglas and Cokeham, ive yet to bang my head into glass out here but im sure its a matter of time) and whatever temples i can find. Hopefully Wyatt should be arriving here either late tonight or early tomorrow so i can hang out with her for abit, maybe travel through cambodia with her. I dont want to of course, but you know i have to be civil!

Nick has emailed to announce that he will be heading back from Kuala Lumpa on the 18th March and i will be leaving from Singapore on the 23rd, arriving back into Manchester on the 24th March. Mum, Dad i will give you all the details when i call on the 18th so that you can prepare my homecoming parade! Hope everyone is okay and i'll see you all soon.

Ian