just arrived in saigon yesterday after a 7 or 8 hour journey from phnom pehn which included a very comic boarder crossing. first they took everyones passports and made us all egt off the bus, then with one lady checking the pictures we all get back on the bus one by one but are passports are given to someone else. then 2 bus loads of people are in a hallway and you get called randomly by your name to fight you way to the front with all your belongs to have them scaned. obv this took twice as long as it would do if they actually had some kind of system but i was lucky to be one of the first and get back on the air con bus!.

droped us off in the main back packer ghetto which is really busy and not that nice in a simialr theme to kho san road in bangkok, over priced everything and booming music my room is 10 dollars!!10 dollars!!! and the toilet leaks but it has got 3 fans in which is kinda nice.the cheaper places are all down little maze like allways which i didnt really fancy. first impressions the vietnamese certainly dont give a smile away for nothing!certainly not like cambodians or some thais ( some thai just fake it really obviously where as the cambodian people are genuinly really nice).

iv been off my food last few days as nothing too bad but stomach cramping up atc atc so just didnt fuel it so havent eating anything apart from plain bagette last 3 days and today had a soup, their into their noodle soups here in a big way and it was really nice so thats good news.il be eating 1 or 2 of those a day i should think! altho watched a local pay before me - 5000 dong to her but 15000 dong to me!! its still only a dollar, next time i will try just hadning over 5,000 like iv lived here all my life and see what happens!

today i got some clothes made this morning got some trousers and a shirt for teaching have no idea what they will turn out like as is werid having clothes made how do you no if it will look good when its just a mass of fabric on a roll!! and also the language barrier makes it a little tricky so well see!! i think the trouser will be ok defo, you cant go that wrong can you. was 36 dollars for both which im not sure if its a good price or not but she wasnt up for haggeling and i wasnt up for going thro the whole thing again with someone else! think you can get a suit made for 40 or 50 dollars. pick it up on wednesday

in the afternoon went to the war remnants museam which was very good. nothing about the viet cong side of thing but still good. there tanks outside and all the guns they used and takes you thro american involvement start to finsih mostly in pictures. the agent orange info was really disturbing and sad that years after children are being born with horrific defects from the defoliants used. they really dont shy away from it some of the pictures where really sad, they even had deformed fetus pickled in containers. at first i thought i was really distasteful and didnt look but later i thought theyre just showing the reality and brutality of what happened i guess. have read the book the girl in picture about the 9 year old girl that was burnt by naplam in an american attack on their own side - was sorry to see it didnt say about her story jst her picture. haggeling for motos definalty more liek morroco where they make you feel like your being rude to offer such a price and start shouting so you smile and walk off and then they take you anyway, they where saying nearly 5 times what i thought it should be and mine is only a guess so prob over anyway!!

after that came back and fell asleep for abit, now just going to get a drink and some food then bed am tired duno why. tomo going to try and go to the language schools and hand my cv out and see what happens.

love rachxxx