06 November 04 Hi from Ho Chi Minh, formerly Saigon. We are sweltering in the heat, down to 2 meals a day, getting bitten by mosquitoes and our bones are weary but otherwise we are in good health and loving Vietnam. We had a nice 2 days in Hoi An, once an important trading destination and now a Unesco World Heritage Site. It was glorious walking around the old town, over the Japanese covered bridge, through old family homes and generally taking in the ni...

Hi again, since we last wrote we have whizzed through Laos and are now in Vietnam. Laos was a slow paced underdeveloped country - our introduction was a two day slow boat ride down the Mekong River to Luang Prabang. LP was a lovely chilled out town, once an important French outpost and the mixture of temples and colonial buildings was quite special. We took an excursion out to a waterfall and generally soaked up the atmosphere of river life and the nig...