Well I am now over a month behind. Unfortunately, I have not been well and had to spend some time recovering before resuming my travels. I will leave out the ugly details, but try and give an account of the more significant places I have been.

Saigon

After arriving by bus, me and Rasmus found ourselves are nice hotel in the backpacker area of town. There is a square of streets and within the square is a maze of alleys dotted with hotels. We were in one of these.

That evening we went out to find dinner and came across a nice little local style restaurant and the prices were fine so we ate. However, when we asked for the bill the guy (abnormally big for vietnamese) didnt write anything down, just stated a figure. Without having to do all the maths I knew it was too much and so did Rasmus. I asked him break it down and when he was saying the wrong price for things I asked for the menu again. He brought it but rather than let me have it, just opened it and closed it fast before we could read it. Rasmus lost his cool at this point and we were quicly into an argument. We had the right change for what we knew we should be paying, put this down and left fast, though not before the guy threatned to get the police!

Cross, we headed back toward the hotel and got a bit lost. We spotted a little cafe with guys outside drinking beer. A couple of them beconed us in and, in need of a beer ourselves, we joined them. They were a couple of older guys about 60 who were pretty friendly and shared food with us. After a while it transpired that they were moto drivers and wanted to give us a tour the next day. I knew it had been too good to be true, that they just wanted to be friends, but the way they went about 'grooming' us did not leave a bad taste. These guys needed the moto money, we needed motos anyway, so why not be friendly about it. We agreed to meet them in the morning.

So, we met Hoa and Mike after breakfast and set about negotiating a price. They started much much higher than I had hoped and for a while it looked as though we were not going to agree. I took Rasmus over to oneside, we decided we would not go above a certain price and when I explained to the drivers that for anymore we would walk away, they agreed. Actually we got a very good price!

On our instruction, they took us to the Cu Chi Tunnels, found us lunch at a cheap little local place where the food was great, and took us back toward town to visit the independence palace. On the way back it began to rain, a shower at first, then a downpour. Both drivers had a rain cover of sorts, but it did little to stop me and Rasmus getting soaked. Very quickly the town was flooding and we were driving through water that came up over my feet in places!!

After the palace we joined them for beers at a very odd place. It seemed to be a dissused factory with a little balcony area where the ceiling was too low even for me. They served Bia Hoi'', freshly brewed draught beer that was sold by the litre! The guys went and found us great nibbles and the best tofu I have ever tasted. Unfortunately, we ended up paying for most, if not all, of it and they even had the cheek to ask for a tip when we got back. I was a bit dissappointed that they had exploited our relative wealth to such a degree and was saddened that they could not have been a bit more honest about things. I suppose I had fallen for their ploy. I had not been entirely naive to the situation, and considering that I am comparatively rich, I was happy to pay more than my share, but I had hoped that they would be a little more open and honest. Overall I enjoyed the experience. We still got a very good deal.

The following day Rasmus left and I explored some more of the city myself. The most noteable sight being the war remnants museum, which housed several gory and compelling exhibitions of photographs, highlighting the brutality of the war.

I spent some more time in the city, but there is little else of excitement that you should want to know about. Ho Chi Minh City was a huge, bustling place where crossing the road at certain places was nearly impossible due to the sea of bikes. The traffic made Hanoi look quiet! However, this did not make the place feel intimidating at all. The streets were large and open, with attractive and often modern buildings, and there were areas of parkland scattered about. The government calls it Ho Chi Minh city, but all the locals call it Saigon. Im not sure it quite lived up to my immaginative expectation of what 'Saigon' might be like, but I liked it all the same.