Feb 3rd From Hoi An we flew to Ho Chi Mimh (known as Saigon here) during the early afternoon. Getting off the plane in Saigon we instantly noticed the heat (about 33) - something we hadn't experienced in a couple of weeks! It meant i could put the 1 jumper i brought away with me, safely in my bag, after 2 weeks of constant use!! Vietnam is gearing up for the TET festival (New Year) so things are busy and prices a bit high (Chuc Mung Nam Moi means Happy New Year ...

Sat Feb 2 First thing in the morning we hired bicycles and we were taken to the local orphanage, where we each bought some biscuits & toiletries as presents for the children. We went into their classroom and played toys with them for about 15 mins (they had a lot of toys!) and they were really happy to see us - they all lookedn really young (i thought they were 6 or 7 yrs old) but some of them were 14 - 14 yrs old, which surprised me a lot. This wasn't too...

Day 4 of our intrepid tour through Vietnam and Cambodia. We took the overnight train from Hanoi to Hue (about 12 hrs long!) which left Hanoi at about 11.00. we had small little cqabin between 4 of us - so it was pretty cramped and lots of various smells. Our leader brought on nthe train some rice wine to "help us sleep better" and to be fair was pretty effective. Pierre had a bad dose of Delhi Belly so he didn't have a very good night - he was constantl...