Hello from Vietnam!

We are a few days late with our blog so will backdate it a few days so you are all upated. We arrived in Saigon or Ho Chi Min City from Cambodia on Friday. We had to leave our guesthouse at 6am as we opted to take the earliest bus we could so as not to waste time. The bus 'station' (not really a station, just a group of buses all parked on the side of the street) was full of local people trying to sell fruit and cold drinks but we decided that at that time of the morning we really needed a coffee. So we went to something that resembled a service station and asked for two large cappuccinos. Large being an important word there. It took the guy ages to make it, bless him, and then when it was finally ready we were presented with a very large cup about a quarter full of coffee! So, unfortunately, we had to be very British about it and made him fill it up again until we were happy with the size. You have to understand that it was 6am and we both work in the hotel industry with very high standards, so you can't blame us for being picky. Please.

The buses in Cambodia are funny because they play music videos throughout the entire journey really loud and we think it is actually meant to be karaoke as th words come up at the bottom of the screen. Nobody sings along but it is literally playing at the highest possible volume for the entire trip which, of course, prevents you from sleeping. Matt and I did get quite in to the music though and could identify quite a few of the 'hit' tunes including one which we are particularly fond of called "Let me glow your mind" which made us laugh and laugh! They haven't quite got the translation right there! And they also played Cambodia's version of hip hop music with lots of guys dressed in gangsta clothing and trying very hard to be American. So all in all, it was quality entertainment and it definately made the trip better. Let me glow your mind... ha ha, gets me everytime!

When we arrived at passport control we were surprised at how easy it was. Compared to the border crossing getting in to Cambodia, getting out was a breeze. We had already got our Vietnam visas so we just strolled right through and were impressed that they scanned our bags before we were allowed to enter the country. Then we jumped back on the bus and headed to Saigon. We got there about 1pm and luckily the bus dropped us off quite near to the hotel that we had booked so it was just a 10 minute walk up the street although it was a little difficult in the intense heat and every minute someone was running from the buildings trying to get us to stay in their hotel/eat in their restaurant or take a ride on a motorbike. There wasn't much sense in that really seeing as we both had massive 80 litre backpacks on our backs - how would we have got on to the motorbike and driven along successfully with all of that? Mind you, we have seen a total of 6 people now crammed on to one motorbike so I guess a huge backpack doesn't seem like a problem to some of them! Our hotel was really nice - AC and a TV which is a huge luxury for us! And at only $10 a night with breakfast included, we were quite happy with our choice.

We headed out for some lunch and were so starving after the bus ride and only eating a bread roll and water each for breakfast, that we jumped in to the first restaurant we could find and had a huge meal each which made us feel better! It unfortunately then started to rain - not English rain, huge torrential rain that made it impossible to go anywhere so we just went and used an internet cafe for a few hours and got a coffee until it passed. We were so tired after our journey that we didn't really fancy doing much else. We did manage to book a train ticket for the following evening though - we've had enough of going to big cities and Saigon is just another big city to us. It's full of motorbikes, apparently 80% of the population have a motorbike so the roads were madness and like the rest of Asia there were no road markings or etiquette so it's pretty scary trying to cross. They don't stop if they see you crossing, if anything, they speed up!! That evening we went in to the main area of the city for some dinner and are ashamed to admit that we ended up in an Irish bar which made the most amazing food. Vietnamese food is incredibly similar to the food that we have already been eating (almost every day) in the rest of Asia so we fancied a break from rice, clear soup and noodles and Matt got a lamb hot pot with mash and veggies and Holly got cheese and onion pasties! Washed down with a couple of bottles of beer. Lovely!