We're in our final stop in Vietnam now!

Last night after I posted my blog we went to the travel agent to get our bus, and the owner was a bit crazy. He put on the Beatles really loudly and started dancing around (Vicky joined in) and then went on for ages about his motorbike tour of Vietnam which we should definitely do with him, his name was Phuc Duc (pronounced to rhyme with look, not muck!). He was just quite hyperactive, and after chatting for ages he suddenly ran outside and shouted for a taxi - he'd forgotten about our bus! We jumped in the taxi and he sped off in front to hold the bus, luckily we made it in time and set off on another comfy sleeper bus to Ho Chi Minh City.

We arrived at 7am and almost immediately found somewhere to stay - it is definitely the yukkiest place yet. We are right up on the 5th floor too and there are no lifts! (We were originally on the 4th floor but the bathroom light didn't work).

We had showers (we had to kneel to wash our hair) and headed out into the boiling hot sunshine. I had an omelette for breakfast and the others had a big bowl of milk with a side of cornflakes (literally - the cornflakes came in a separate dish to the huge bowl of milk), and after fending off a few men trying to get us to take a ride on their cyclos (strange tricycle pushchair type things) we headed off.

We really wanted to get some US dollars out because they accept them here and in Cambodia. I had read in the guidebook that it was nigh on impossible to get them in Vietnam, but we headed to the bank anyway and lo and behold, they refused to sell us dollars. We got talking to a nice couple from Scotland in their fifties or sixties before we left about our trip, and how we couldn't get dollars, and university etc. and then said our goodbyes and went looking for an under the counter dodgy establishment to get some dollars. We asked in a couple of shops but they didn't have enough money, then as we were leaving one the man from the couple in the bank came running down the road to get us. His wife/partner had some traveller's cheques and was able to withdraw $600, and she really kindly offered to sell us half of that! We got some Vietnamese Dong out of the ATM to pay her with. It was really nice of them to make the effort to come and find us and having dollars means we won't have any problems at the Cambodian border. I gave them my blog address (so thank you Leslie and Myles if you're reading!) and Myles used to be a marketing director for a record label, so he gave me his email address and said he would forward me some contacts if I needed any! It was just really nice, especially this far from home, to meet some people who are just happy to help, without an ulterior motive (eat in my restaurant, ride in my taxi, stay in my guesthouse etc).

By this time it was late morning, and the War Remnants Museum and the Reunification Palace where we were heading were closing for lunch, so we wandered around for a bit and played in a playground! We then had an expensive coke in a restaurant and decided to go somewhere else for lunch that was cheaper. We found a strange, dirty street restaurant/shed that was offering vegetarian pho (traditional Vietnamese noodle soup) for 22,000 dong (about 69p) so Vix and I had some of that. After that we headed to the War Remnants Museum.

I, unfortunately, am extremely unknowledgeable about most things to do with war and politics surrounding war. I learnt loads today about the Vietnamese war (it was 17 years long!). Some of the exhibits and pictures were truly harrowing, there were hundreds but one which sticks in my mind is a US soldier holding the torso and head of a Vietnamese man blown up by a grenade, just dangling it by a piece of skin and looking quite nonplussed about the whole thing. There were also loads of pictures of people and children who, even up to the present day, are born with mental and physical deformities because of 'Agent Orange', a toxic chemical sprayed everywhere by the Americans. Some of the stuff the Americans did is hard to comprehend, like finding and shooting civilians, including children. It reminds me of the Stanley Milgram experiment to see how much pain or suffering a normal person would inflict upon another person if an authority figure was telling them to do it - I'm sure the American soldiers were actually normal, nice guys just following orders and believing that what they were doing was for the greater good. It was clear, however, that the whole museum was biased towards the current, Communist government in Vietnam who America were fighting against. I have no doubt that the American army did some terrible things, but Vicky said that Northern Vietnam also did some awful things which weren't even given the slightest mention in the museum. It's kind of annoying because museums should be unbiased and factual, so I am reluctant to take everything I read today at face value. There were some awful, awful pictures though.

After the museum it was gone 4pm, so we wandered back to our hotel. We stopped at an Air Asia place on the way back to print out our tickets for our Krabi to Kuala Lumpur flight, but they said we just need the reference number which is easy.

Back at the hotel, we complained because our air con doesn't work. Vix had to keep going down the five flights of stairs to ask them to do something until eventually a man came up to 'fix' it (poke it). We said we would rather share a double bed but have air con so we asked to move, but it soon transpired that none of the air con works in this shabby establishment. We moved rooms anyway to the double because the fan is stronger, and said that we wouldn't pay $8 each for two nights to share a double bed with no air con, so we now are paying $6.50. We also got some laundry done for $1.50 each. It smells a bit better but it is still dirty and they didn't iron it like the last place. We at least have some (vaguely) clean underwear now though!

We changed for dinner and headed to a bar/restaurant called Eden which we had seen was quite cheap. We got 'buy two get one free' cocktails and some free garlic bread and a free weird shot. We all ate Western food, well Vix and I had Mexican and Vicky had a burger. My enchiladas were so nice!

We then headed to a rooftop bar five storeys high and had another cocktail. The table had a hole in it and a gas cylinder underneath so you can cook your own BBQs at your table which is good. There was also a fairly big BBQ over the other side of the railings perched on a ledge, which the chef was using. There would be some major injuries and burns if that fell five storeys to the busy main street below! The regard for health and safety here is pretty much zero though so it wasn't a surprise. The views were good but we all forgot to take photos!

Ho Chi Minh is cool because it is so famous, but it is very dirty and busy, I don't know if I like the city very much - my favourite place so far is definitely pretty Hoi An, and I liked the holiday feel of Nha Trang. We have another day here tomorrow so we are going to the Reunification Palace because we didn't make it today.

I'm going to try and sleep now but the room is roasting so I'm not sure if that will work out! Vicky is fast asleep every night as soon as her head hits the pillow - wish I could do that!

xxx