Reluctantly we left our beautiful beaches of Phu Quoc and set off for the next stop along the the trail -Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). Daunted by the full day of bus and boat traveling we used the few bob that mum had sent over to treat ourselves to a flight instead. We arrived at the brand new airport bright and early to enjoy a little brekkie (noodle soup for me and a Burger King meal for Lukey - standard) before boarding our 40 minute flight which was like a dream and saved us a whole day. We arrived in Saigon and I climbed up on to our luggage trolleynbefore embarking on a few laps of Luke wheeling me round the airport at high speed screaming 'meep meep!' and anyone who got in our way much to the amusement of the other passengers but not the security guards so much. Eventually we decided that we should probably grow up and go and get a cab.

The city itself was a pleasant surprise because compared to Bangkok and Phnom Penh (which both have their charm) it was a lot cleaner and less congested. The city is full of manicured gardens, streets lined with huge flowers and fairylights, lovely cafes that were from the French colonial era and secret little market streets that we stumbled upon.. Our hotel was in district 1 which is nice and close to most of the tourist attractions we wanted to visit albeit slightly ruined by backpackers. Our first stop was the War Remnants Museum which, as you would expect, housed lots of history from the Vietnamese/American war in the form of tanks, fighter jets, propaganda posters and uniforms. The Requiem Exhibition was a collection of pictures from photographers around the world that captured all angles of what had taken place.

After soaking up some history we decided to hit the central market to try and replace some of the items we'd had pinched after stupidly strapping then to the outside of our backpacks. For me it was my sun umbrella and for Luke his fliplflops. We bargained hard and our good cop 'they're so nice' bad cop 'no that's just too expensive' role play worked a treat. Finding size 11 flipflops in Asia is an accomplishment enough but we walked away pleased with our haggling skills.

Dinner that night we decided that we would do some research to avoid a repeat of our experience in Phomn Penh which you may have read about in a previous post (fish's arse). Luke discovered a lovely sounding place in a posh area of Saigon so we jumped in a cab. To our absolute horror when we were seated the logo looked strangely familiar and eventually I recognised it as being the same one a previous nightmare involving (fish's arse). Yep. Luke had managed to choose the exact same restaurant only it was their Saigon chain this time (there are only 3 in the world would you believe). Of the hundreds of choices, what are the chances? Deciding to give it one of more chance we stayed put but this time round we played it safe and went for steak and chips.

On day two we visited Reunification Palace and frankly - it was complete balls. We strolled around looking at the 'presidential quarters' and 'classic architecture' that the guide books raved about but in reality it was just a shedload of lavishly decorated meeting rooms and board rooms. The only saving grace was finding a working microphone for Luke to MC into whilst other visitors looked baffled about what they were hearing. In fits of laughter we did a runner and spent the remainder of our day enjoying the bars and restaurants along the riverside.