I am having a quiet day in Saigon before heading off again tomorrow to Mekong Delta and then onto Phnom Penh in Cambodia, where I'm doing my teaching thing. I feel kind of unprepared and not quite sure what's going to happen, but I feel like that anyway so hopefully it'll work out fine. And I say a quiet day, but even though I'm living between my hotel and a cafe across the road (where I went on a finally successful avocado hunt, everywhere has been sold out since I arrived), there has been some excitement. I was sitting in my hotel when I heard a loud bang and lots of yelling and then a screech and a crash, followed by everybody running out of shops, hotels and restaurants onto the street so see what was going on. This in itself is not an irregular occurrence: several people have fallen off motorbikes/collided with other motorbikes/objects. Anyway, it turned out a local guy had mugged an old white lady walking down the street, and then everybody had chased after him, made him fall off his motorbike, chased him again, and then finally he was dragged down the street by three policemen and two motorbike drivers, being kicked in the face and the stomach. Very exciting. They obviously don't tolerate robbery of tourists here!

I think I left off on my way to Dalat in search of the "real Vietnam", after becoming disenchanted by the cities with their Westernized ways and all the traffic and pollution. On the bus I met Sarah from Switzerland, who was planning on doing an Easy Rider tour. I'd read about this gang of motorbike drivers, who had formed the Easy Rider outfit about ten years ago in an effort to give tourists a taste of "real Vietnam". I went along when she met them and whilst I was very taken with the idea and Mui and Tuan seemed really nice and knowledgeable, I said no as it was way way way over my budget. Later, after talking to Sarah, and realising I had come all the way here and had already spent more money than that and not really seen anything, I changed my mind and decided to go for it.

Well, it was definitely worth it! I went on a four day trip, two with Sarah, two on my own (well, with Tuan), and can categorically say it is the best experience I have had of Vietnam and even one of the highlights of the whole trip so far. The regular backpacker and tourist route in Vietnam goes down the coast - Hanoi, Hue, Hoi An, Nha Trang, Saigon - basically the route I have done. This means all the places you visit are cities, and cities which have got used to the influx of tourists and cater for what they think the tourists want. The Easy Riders take you to the Central Highlands, close to the border to Cambodia, and you go to small hill tribe villages, where they never see white people, and where nobody speaks English. And all the time the Easy Riders stop and tell you about the history of the country, which they know because their fathers, uncles, friends, fought in the war, and because they know the local people and what they do.

The Vietnamese are so friendly and will do anything to help you. Tuan, my driver, was so sweet. I had my own Easy Rider jacket, which he made sure I put on when it was going to be cold, he carried all my bags for me, I didn't even have to help myself to food as he put everything in my bowl for me. He was also very patient and answered good humouredly all my random questions. In the towns and villages away from the big cities, it is a bit like stepping back in time. Everybody and everything is self-sufficient and nothing is wasted. People have a job and a business because they happen to live next to a field where they can grow rice, or coffee, or pepper (this caused much confusion as I thought Tuan was saying paper, and I spent ages wondering why I thought paper was made out of trees and how they make it out of these little green pods...oh dear).

Oh I have people reading over my shoulder again. One of these days I'll be saying something bad about the country and I'll get beaten up!

Anyway, I saw lots of farms, and factories (factories here are a family operation, run from a shed in the back garden), and tiny one-room houses that sleep ten people, lots of chickens, and baby animals which Sarah and I kept cooing over. Piglets never got old. I saw the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which they built and used in the war to get from Hanoi to Saigon and across to Cambodia, and I saw the hills where the American army dumped millions of gallons of Dioxin to destroy the jungle there so they could bomb it. The plants are only just starting to grow back.

The best experience was meeting a war veteran and his wife in their eighties. They met during the war (I think this must have been WWII from the timings, though he fought in both). She brought messages and food to the soldiers and they fell in love then and are still together sixty years later. They were so excited to see us and the lady kept hugging me and was practically crying when we left because she wanted us to stay. I can't believe people like this, whom I have so much respect and awe for after what they've been through, would treat us like that just because we're white. A few weeks ago Mui had brought a New Zealand war veteran to visit them. The two men had fought against each other in the 60s, and when they realised they hugged each other and cried.

One thing I have noticed about Vietnam is how hard people work. Everything seems to be done by family business, so I guess if they don't work they don't make money, but everyone works in the family, even the children, and they work such long hours. Basically, if they're not sleeping, they're working, and shops are open from 7am to 11pm every day, and run by the same person. Although, to be fair, a lot of the time they're just sitting around talking to their friends and such, it's not as if it's continual backbreaking work, but still.

Also, relationships are really interesting here. I was asked somewhere "how old are you? 24? are you married? why not?", "er, well, for starters I'm much too young to get married", "no, you are old, 24 is old, you should be married with two or three kids by now"! Haha thanks! I quizzed Tuan about this, apparently it's common for girls to get married at 18 and men at 22. But he also said most couples get divorced, and everybody has affairs, it's completely normal to have a "girlfriend" and a wife, and people will have an affair and move on and divorce their spouse! But cohabitation is completely normal as well, although couples don't spend long together before getting married. I don't know why they bother with the wedding! Wedding dresses here, by the way, are hideous. Fluorescent colours, shiny material, lots of sparkles and ruffles. Lovely.

Oh, and I rode an elephant.

I have put some photos up, but I have many more to come. Connection is very slow!

I will write more later if I can, otherwise I'll update in Cambodia probably as I'm spending the next few days on a river!