We thankfully didn't have the worst overnight bus and we slept surprisingly well and didn't even hear other people getting on. Arrived in the city about 7:30am in first view it looks very similar to Hanoi where there is a mass of bikes driving all over the place.

Found our hostel and then planned to check in but had to wait until 2pm so like every other city we dumped the bags and decided to go exploring. You would have thought we should be good at reading maps and finding our way around at this stage but we seemed to be going in the wrong direction all the time in this city and Emer came to the conclusion that they'd made streets up because they weren't on the map.

We then all gave in to getting a taxi to the independence Palace because we were all shattered and sick of walking in circles. Once we arrived the Palace was closed for lunch as was nearly every other tourist attraction around the city.

We stayed there a while and were approached by a Vietnamese man offering to give us a tour around the city on four motorbikes. From my last few posts about the lunatic drivers you'll know why we all brushed it off and said we wouldn't bother.

After about half an hour the man approached again and because we were all a little tired we gave in and agreed to take their tour. We started with putting a helmet on so that was a little reassuring. The men took us to loads of the sites in Ho Chi Minh city and I'll have to put my hands up and say I felt very safe and the back of the mans bike. The Vietnamese people are so aware when driving and because its so busy they appear to notice everything around them. The roundabouts are a little daunting but they manage to fly around them with no collisions. You'd see more crashes at the small roundabout at Old Cross square than I have since I've been in Vietnam. I'd totally recommend taking a tour on the back of a bike. You see so much and because its so humid here, the breeze is amazing!

After our tour we got back to the hostel where our beds were finally ready... You can only imagine how sweaty we were after a night bus and then touring the city since we arrived. We had three lovely girls in our hostel room who we went for dinner with and after we went to watch the end of the Irish v Wales Rugby match.

Needless to say we slept like babies that night after the lack of sleep and copious amount of Saigon.