VIETNAMHO CHI MINH CITY (SAIGON) So we finally shook off the Christmas and Boxing Day hangovers and dragged ourselves off the beach to catch a bus headed for HCMC. It wasn’t too bad a journey – only 14 hours with a couple of hours in Phnom Penh at the 'Green Vespa' bar by the river for lunch, but we arrived in the dark which is always interesting but particularly so when your arriving at what is supposed to be the thieving capital of Vietnam! No worries though as we found the guesthouse was just round the corner from where we had been dropped off and were amazed to find that not only was the place squeaky clean, the rooms had cable TV, aircon and a fridge, not quite what we were expecting for 5 quid a night right in the middle of the City! So HCMC got off to a cracking start… this continued as we spent the evening in the bars of the main backpacker area where we met some really good people and befriended the bar staff in our local, which was great as we had been total ‘norman no mates’ in Cambodia.The following day it was time to explore the city. There are some amazing sights, if you can make it to them without getting knocked down first, as the traffic is a little intense – in fact it makes the driving in India look safe. Welcome to moped heaven and the swarm of HCMC - this place rocks. We started off at the Reunification Palace which is beautiful, won’t bore you with the architecture stuff (we’ll leave that to Mark when we get home) but it is a stunning piece of contemporary design and we were sorry we only had a few hours there. Our favourite rooms were the Austin Powers style entertaining areas, complete with helicopter pad on the roof – pretty cool. More sombre sights included the War Remnants museum where there are some pretty graphic photographs as well as actual helicopters and tanks etc from the war, the narrative explaining the autrosities of the American war effort made very interesting reading. All in all it was really fascinating if not entirely enjoyable. The next day we visited the tunnels at Ku-chi where the VC and many villagers lived underground during the war – this was absolutely unbelievable, as the tunnels are tiny - there is a small section open to public and you have to crawl or crouch to walk through it, kind of hard to imagine people spending months on end down there as it was awful just to be down there for 5 minutes. While we were there Mark also had a go at shooting a M16, as did practically all the blokes present, they seemed to enjoy it. Then it was time to return for more beers in the city and a spot of shopping obviously as it would be rude not to. We just had time for a few hours sleep before catching a cheeky cheap flight up to Hoi An – we had to do it as the train was full and the bus takes a day (again no nightmare bus journeys for us!) – not a good way to spend New Year’s Eve!