A 45 minute drive from airport to hotel was $10 after being flocked by several hundred drivers. They do have driving licences here and a highway code, but you couldn't tell. The green cross code is 'When crossing roads, ignore any traffic coming, close eyes, step out and walk as slowly as possible so that HGVs, bikes and cars can avoid you'. There are six million city inhabitants and three million scooters/small motorbikes. The streets are 90% motorbikes.

The hotel is good with poorly dubbed cop shows on TV and a news progamme that is abit like the scenes from the film 'Airplane'. Local food is good, with a meal and a beer costing about 2.20 GBP (There are no pound signs on computers here)

Shops are used as storage areas, with goods diplayed on the pavement. The locals all park their bikes on the pavement (at 90 degrees to it!) making the pavement more dangerous for locals than walking on the road. So far, we have found only 1 cake shop, called YAMI cakes (pronounced Yummy). They are ok, but not close to cadburys and low on sugary sweetness. For our overnight train journey to Hue, we have ordered cake from a wastern take-away, to try to meet our Western dessert needs!

We took a trip to a factory that makes cerammic kitchen and garden ware, everything from soup spoons to massive ornaments. Prices are great, but anything above 2 kg is about $100 to send back to the UK.

Hope you are all ok.

Lins xxx