We boarded the sleeper bus in Da Lat around 11pm and were soon on the way to Saigon. Once in our narrow beds up the back of the bus, we got off to sleep and didn't wake up until we were in Saigon, a bit earlier than we had hoped at around 4:30 am. As usual, we were dumped outside some random shop at an unkown location in town. We consulted our guide book and picked an area which was described as the main backpacker area, and seemed to have a lot of hotels, then managed to find a taxi driver who would take us there.

Take us there he did, but not before driving well out of his way to pad out his fare, the slimy creature. We got out and grudginly paid the grasping weasel, who had the audacity to try and overcharge us further. I kicked up a fuss until he gave me our change, then we turned our attentions to our surroundings.

We were on a street just beside a big junction, with 4 streets full of bars and hotels running off in each direction. There were still some bars and clubs open from the night before, with some worse-for-wear revellers stumbling about. We immediately didn't like the feel of the area. While it might have been fun to end up there at the end of a night out, it didn't seem like the place we'd want to be sleeping.

Nevertheless, we knew there were plenty of cheap hotels around, so we set about the task of finding some that were open at 5am. We only found a few and they were all universally dingy, grimy and overpriced. Dismayed after traipsing up and down stairs only to see disappointing rooms, we took a seat at a cafe and had a ridiculously overpriced coffee whilst waiting for 6am, when we hoped some more hotels would open. However, as we were sitting, with Matt and his family who were also on the hunt for somewhere to stay, we decided we just didn't like the area and were willing to walk somewhere else to have a look. Again consulting our guidebook, we ascertained the location of a 'quiet' alleyway about 10 minutes away which had a few alright-sounding places.

We hefted our bags onto our backs and set off through the streets, which were already busy by 6am with hundreds of motorbikes zipping everywhere and people setting up their businesses for the day. We found the alleyway after 10-15 minutes of walking, and as soon as we turned off the main street into it we noticed the quiet and calm. We decided then and there we'd find somewhere in the alleyway that would suit us. We looked around a couple but came back to the first one we'd checked out, California guest house, where we got a clean and lovely room for a bargain price.

Since we hadn't had much sleep with our short bus journey, we had a shower and then crashed out for a few hours to catch up. When we got up, we walked back up through the streets of the city towards the area we had originally been dropped off, as it had a lot of places to eat. Along the way we passed numerous small businesses and schools around our area, and got views of tall skyscrapers in the CBD in the distance.

Back in the central area, we found an alleyway off one of the main streets which was lined with restaurants and, it turned out, mini hotels. We would maybe have found a decent hotel in amongst the many there, but had missed these alleyways earlier in the morning. The place we had found was really nice though, and in a quiet area.

We stopped at one of the bars, called Bread and Butter, which had an enticing menu featuring some western dishes. We ordered and enjoyed a catfish po'boy sandwich with chips and a cheese toastie with tomato soup, then set off to explore some more of the city.

At the far end of the alleyway we found ourselves on a long, wide avenue facing a strip of parkland. We walked along this and found ourselves at a massive roundabout, evidently a fairly central location in the city. Beside this roundabout was the Ben Thanh market, which we'd read was worth a look. We went into the huge 1-level building housing the market, but soon found out that the power was out making the narrow alleyways between the souvenir-laden stalls stifling hot and too dark to make anything out.

Therefore, we left the market and walked through some more of the built-up streets of the city, skirting around the high walls of the so-called Reunification Palace, which had been the presidential palace for South Vietnam during the American War, with plans to return the next day. We walked on, picking up a chilled coconut we haggled a wandering salesman for, until we arrived at the War Remnants Museum. We had heard that the museum, although presenting a fairly biased view of the American War, was a worthwhile visit, particularly for its photography exhibition. Sadly, however, we found the museum shut for the day, evidently from the same power issues affecting the Ben Thanh market.

We wandered some more through the streets, amsued by the volume of motorbike traffic which at least rivalled Hanoi. We passed another big roundabout with a weird 60s-looking concrete tower in the centre, and a big shopping mall before we found ourselves looking across another massively wide roundabout/junction at the back of the Notre Dame Basilica, a famous Catholic church in the centre of the city. We took a seat here, on a bench at the border of one of many parks spread over the surrounding area, and amused ourselves watching the motorbike traffic whizzing by for a while. We bought some rambutans from a passing saleswoman, Lucy cleverly making sure her scales were balanced (which they weren't) before we parted with our money. At this point we wondered whether there was anyone in Vietnam who wasn't a scam artist.

After watching the traffic for a while, we plucked up the courage to cross the big junction and walked around the cathedral, which was indeed quite a smart, brick-built example of a church. We then had a peek into the main post office next door, where a huge portrait of Uncle Ho gazed down over the crowds in the main hall.

We'd noticed when we passed the shopping mall earlier that there was a bowling alley inside and, deciding that bowling was something we both really fancied at that moment, we walked back across the road, through the air conditioned cool of a department store cosmetics area and into an elevator to take us up to the bowling place. We emerged from the elevator into a big area very much like Codona's in Aberdeen with a bar, arcade machines, pool tables and of course the bowling lanes. We paid for a couple of games, changed our shoes (pleased to find that they had ones big enough for me) and spent the next while engaged in two fun and reasonably-scoring games of bowling.

After the bowling we left and walked along the wide boulevard outside, between two large squares of parkland with the Striking 60s edifice of the Reunification Palace in front of us, then took a left turn to head back towards our hotel. As we walked past the rush hour river of motorbikes in the road, rain began to fall, gently at first, before pouring down in a torrent. It was funny to watch all the motorcyclists simultaneously pull over to the side of the road and fish out their big waterproof capes, but not so funny to feel ourselves getting completely soaked as we'd neglected to bring our own ponchos.

With no other choice, we carried on through the rain back in the direction of our hotel, turning down the alleyway where we'd stopped for lunch earlier. We decided we'd have a look at some places here for dinner since we were both quite hungry, and in the end were swayed by a BOGOF offer on cocktails at one place, run by a British guy. We had two mojitos then ordered some food, which was received with mixed views. My steak au poivre was, for the money, fantastic whereas Lucy's dish, which comprised of two tiny potatoes split open and topped with a tiny bit of cheese and a morsel of ham, failed to live up to both her expectations and its description in the menu. Since she was so unsatisfied, she ordered a pasta dish which turned out to be pretty decent.

We left the bar and started back from our hotel, but were lured once again into Bread and Butter when we spotted a sign outside advertising apple crumble. Unable to resist, we ordered one portion to share and sat at the bar eating it, whilst chatting to the American owner of the bar and some other patrons, most of whom seemed to be ex-pat English teachers. After our dessert we ended up staying for a few beers, then walked back to the hotel where we chilled out for a bit before going to bed.

We enjoyed the comfort of our bed in the California guest well into the next morning, and it was nearly lunchtime by the time we were up and out to see more of Saigon. Our first stop was for food at a cafe near the main junction in the tourist area. We had some fantastic burgers here, then set out for the Reunification Palace. Along the way we remembered that most of the tourist attractions close over lunchtime, so the palace wouldn't be open for an hour or so. Therefore, we took a detour through a large park where we got an ice cream and sat for a while amongst tall old trees just watching the world go by.

Whilst sitting in the park, a large group of school kids formed, obviously on some sort of trip. Some of them started trying to tie a long string tied with flour-filled balloons between two trees across one of the park's main paths. Realising that my superhuman (by Vietnamese standards) height could be used for good, I strode over to assist in tying the balloons to the trees, securing them to some jutting stumps of branches just at the limit of my arms' reach and therefore impossibly high for any of the Vietnamese to reach. No sooner had I got the last knot finished though, than a park warden had a word with one of the group and asked that the balloons be taken down. Thus, I and my gibbon arms were employed once again to remove the balloons from their offending position. The most annoying thing about the whole episode is that we never got to find out what the balloons were going to be used for.

Eventually we had killed enough time in the park, so wandered around to the front of the Reunification Palace, bought some tickets, and approached the building. Although it had a very characteristic 60s look to it, unlike many buildings of that era the palace was very smart and seemed very much at home looking over its expansive lawn and circular driveway, down the wide tree-lined boulevard in front of it like a set piece from a Gerry Anderson programme.

We approached the building, on the way looking at the tanks displayed in the garden, the same models as those which broke through the gates of the palace near the end of the American War. We entered through the main door, under one of the numerous jutting horizontal lintels which, when viewed from a distance make up several Chinese characters symbolising various things. We were asked by a polite young lady if we'd care for a free guided tour, and replied that we would.

After a short wait we were taken with another group through the palace and shown all its sights. I found it to be a fantastic buildings, with a strikingly modern design for the 60s, which still managed to look modern some 50 years later, with the exception maybe of the games room on one of the upper floors which looked like a set piece from an Austin Powers film in a very kitsch 60s way.

We were shown from the main hall around the various state rooms, the accomodation section set around an open-roofed garden courtyard, the cinema, helipad and rooftop ballroom, before descending a number of floors to the two-level underground bunker and command centre, designed to be used in times of crisis. There was even an emergency staircase leading from the president's office some 6 levels above down a concrete shaft to the bunker, which still contained maps from the time of the American War.

I really enjoyed looking around the palace, both for its historical significance, as it still seemed frozen in time from the end of the war, and just for the fact that it was a really cool building, just like somewhere a classic Bond villain or the Tracy family would have their headquarters.

We left the palace and took a break at a cafe in its grounds where we enjoyed some delicious, ice cold fresh passion fruit juice whilst sitting under some big trees. From there we walked a few streets to return to the War Remnants Museum which we had been unable to visit the day before.

Outside the museum were numerous military vehicles and weapons on display, but the most interesting exhibits were inside. We spent quite some time walking through the halls filled with photos of the horrendous after-effects of the chemical weapons employed during the war, and in one large area where there were some truly phenomenal photographs taken by various journalists reporting on both sides during the war. Aside from the images themselves, it was interesting to read about the journalists' experiences, and a shock to read how many of them were killed during the course of the war.

After being kicked out of the museum at closing time, just as we were reading the account of how the war began, we meandered back through the streets towards our hotel, ending up along the way at the big junction near Notre Dame where we once again sat and watched the crazy rush hour traffic for a while. We carried on, stopping for a look in the Ben Thanh market where the power was thankfully working. We picked up some souvenirs after looking around the densely packed stalls, then continued on our way, once again taking the alleyway lined with restaurants and finding one at which to eat dinner.

This time we had some tasty Asian food, before nipping across the alleyway to a bar for a drink. We continued back, but on the way were distracted by the shining lights of a newly opened establishment, Yogurt Space. Intrigued to see what it was all about, we went inside and found a big version of the Pizza Hut Ice Cream Factory, but with frozen yoghurt. You took a cup, filled it with as much frozen yoghurt in as many flavours as you liked, then topped it with various fresh fruit and crunchy and sweet bits, before paying based on weight, like pick n mix.

We sat and enjoyed our yoghurt creations then went back to California to read and relax before going to sleep.

On our final full day in Saigon we once again slept in, then got out and walked through the street near our hotel which were lined with busy market stalls selling all manner of foods. We followed these streets then turned towards the wide river around which the city is built, finding the area around it rather depressing with just a busy highway and nowhere to really walk.

We cut back up a few streets from the river and walked through town parallel to it, the buildings around us becoming taller progressively as we walked, until we found ourselves in what was evidently the CBD with tall skyscrapers all around, including one very modern one which looked just like the sail-shaped BUrj Al Arab in Dubai, complete with helipad jutting out of it like a crashed frisbee near the top.

We walked between these glass and steel giants, including some still under construction, until we reached the river again. We decided to get something to eat so took a seat at a cafe beside a small ferry terminal with a view across the river to a harbour with huge gantry cranes and further parts of the surrounding city. We had some breakfasty baguettes at the cafe then carried on walking along the riverfront road, a busy thoroughfare with more tall commercial buildings on the far side of it.

After a few twists and turns (including walking some way down a pleasantly bustling alleyway only to find it a dead end) we found ourselves at the gates to the city's Botanic Gardens which contained a zoo and the national museum. We decided to check out the national museum, housed in a smart building just inside the entrance of the park.

We paid our entrance fee and walked through the halls detailing all the various stages of history in the area around Vietnam, which included some interesting exhibits. For us, the ornate Cham sculptures were probably the highlight, but for everyone else in the museum the most interesting thing was me, and the fact I was tall. In a perfect example of bad timing, we had coincided our visit with what seemed to be a high school trip, and the students took it in turns to gawp, point, and sneak up behind me to compare their height and laugh with their friends at me. I'm fairly thick skinned but this behaviour was really starting to annoy me. We decided to see how they liked it, so started pretending to whisper to each other whilst glancing at the groups of kids, or turning round when I knew they were behind me and taking photos of them staring. They really didn't seem to like this last one, so I continued to employ the tactic from that point forth.

After leaving the museum, we thought we would take a walk through the park. It turned out we had to pay to enter the park, the entrance fee including zoo admission, since the park was really just a big zoo with trees in between the exhibits. After seeing how tourists were treated, we weren't that keen to see how the Vietnamese treated captive animals, but paid the incredibly low entrance fee and went for a walk anyway.

We stopped first of all at a cafe inside the park where we had a drink. When we tried to pay, the woman tried to overcharge us despite there being a gigantic board behind her with all the drink prices emblazoned on it. Completely unsurprised, and not in the mood for any more s***, we gave her the proper money and walked off, ignoring her protests.

We then decided to take a look at some of the animal enclosures, which sadly confirmed all our earlier fears. In almost every exhibit we saw, the animals were in poor quality or too-small enclosures, with often far too many animals squeezed in than there should have been. Almost every animal imaginable was there, and all in uniformly poor conditions. We saw some really miserable looking elephants with their rib cages showing, a tiger with a limp, a massive herd of goats in a conrete enclosure ramming each other furiously and screaming, the most pathetic looking skinny white lion we had ever seen, and a gibbon which spasmed like it was being electrocuted as it hung onto the bars of its cage, dog-sized rats crawling around underneath it. After walking about halfway through the place we had had enough and left, feeling incredibly sorry for the animals.

We got a taxi back to the central touristy area, where we booked some tickets for a bus the next day to take us to Phnom Penh in Cambodia. With that done, we went for a beer and some spring rolls in a cafe down one of the alleyways off the main street, and whiled away some time there. When we started to get hungry again, we left and walked up the main street in the area, Bui Vien, past all the lit up bars and restaurants as they were starting to get busy in the evening.

We stopped at an Indian restaurant where we got yet another fantastic meal, before walking the final few streets back to our guest house. We got an early night and a good long sleep with a long lie, before packing all our things and catching a taxi to the travel agent's.

As we had arrived early, we had time for lunch at a nearby Italian restaurant before a minibus came to take us a few streets through the city to where our coach was waiting to take us on to Cambodia.