Our number one priority on arriving in HCMC was to find some decent tasting junk food! I have to be honest, Vietnamese cuisine is not nearly as good as Thai food, and the places we have been to so far, have had a very limited menu. So, after a staple diet of noodles or rice for every meal for the last few weeks, we were ready for a big fat juicy burger! Unfortunately, our hotel staff who spoke good English had never heard of Burger King or Mcdonalds. I was gutted! However, we did find a burrito restaurant and it was glorious! Traffic in HCMC is no different than the rest of Vietnam and is dominated by the scooter. Crossing the road was not a problem anymore because we were now a dab hand at it. During our time in Vietnam, it has become apparant that the term family transport does not mean a six seater spacewagon but instead they cram all their family members onto their motorbike. It is absolutely crazy! We have seen bikes with 4-5 people on them and the family dog in the front basket. They also use their bike as a form of transport for everything. Most memorable things we have seen include wardrobes, 2 seater sofas, and even 3 very fat pigs fixed with a rope onto a plank of wood and then strapped to the back of the bike. I couldn't believe my eyes when these grunting pigs pulled up at the side of us at the junction! The traffic didn't seem as bad as Hanoi because the roads were much wider so we were confident enough to take a cyclo (a push bike with a seat attached to the front) across town. It is definately not for the faint hearted and was quite frightening at times. I think that every time Simon looked at me, I had my hands covering my eyes. Whilst in HCMC, we took a trip out to the famous Cu Chi tunnels. A network of 250km of hand dug tunnels used by the Viet Cong in the war. The site was the real thing and were absolutely tiny, not the replica tunnels built for the fat Westerners. At the tunnels site there was a lot of equipment left over from the war and they even had a selection of machine guns, AK-47's and shot guns which Simon had a go at firing for a few dollars. We had a few days in the city doing the usual. One place in particular that is worth a mention is the War Crimes Museum that dealt with primarily with the American war. As expected, this was a harrowing and upsetting place. The most disturbing was the images taken of American soldiers holding up severed heads to the camera as a trophy of their kill. Other images of murdered and injured children were too much for me to handle and I didn't leave the museum dry eyed. The Museum was incredibly one sided but the war had a devastating effect on peoples lives and many Vietnamese people to this day are having to live with the terrible memories of this tragic event in History. From HCMC we headed south, setting out on what would turn out to be a 3 day trip across the border into Cambodia and to its capital, Phnom Penh. We travelled by a combination of buses and boats along the Mekong river. A couple of the highlights include visiting a floating market where hundreds of boats congregate in the river with smaller boats going between them to do their shopping! Another was coming across a crazy old guy in a village. His life now consisited of catching snakes in the river, keeping them until full grown, then making snake wine from them. He had us sample his home brew (pretty harsh stuff) and practically threw snakes at us to 'pet'! We crossed the border along the river, alighting and boarding the boat a few times to complete the formalities of the two countries. A few greased palms later and we were in Cambodia, heading north to Phnom Penh. Lisa xx