A long drive at around 25mph as we dodged potholes, oncoming lorries and mopeds. We wound up into the mountains with a spectacular view of Hoi An bay, a deep water port used by the US Navy, and Lang Co beach. At the narrow Hai Van pass we stopped for strong coffee and were assailed again by the street vendors. The pass was used by the French before the US Army, and pill boxes and bunkers of the hillsides can be explored, either side of the narrow road and opposi...

A 9am start to drive to the World Heritage Centre of My Son, to see the Hindu temple ruins left by the Champa people when they were pushed south by the invading Buddhist Vietnamese people in the 13 th century. Building here went on continuously from the 4th century and there were 70 temples discovered and mapped by French archaeologists in the late 19th century. All but 20 of them were destroyed by American bombs, jettisoned prior to landing at Da Nang. Eventuall...

Up early to fly north to Da Nang. The airport was built by the Americans and some of their hangars are still in use. It was 39C at 10am but there is a breeze and the humidity level is lower than in the Mekong, where it was about 100%. We stopped to see the Cham sculpture museum, where the pieces excavated by the French at My Son temple complex are displayed. We'll be going there later. After a brief stop to paddle at the beach, we climbed the Marble Mountain to s...

To Mekong delta, the rice, fruit and veg basket of the South. A tropical climate, the temperature was in the 30s with high humidity. We took a small boat to get to the village of Cai Thia where we cycled around, visiting a family to see how rice paper is made. The people are very hospitable and we tasted rice paper with soy sauce, crispy rice paper with sesame seeds and their home grown fruit. I now have the recipe for Miss Thuy's jam, which I shall try making. ...

At HK airport we exchanged the last of our yuan for Vietnamese Dong. ¥265 is about £26 and bought us 650,000 Dong. At the ATM the option was for a million or half a million Dong. I withdrew half a million, then realised this is only about £22 worth! We are now officially millionaires as we currently have 3,387,000 Dong on hand. The smallest note seems to be 2000, about 8.5 pence. Coins were introduced a few years ago, but the people didn't like them so they we...