Well i bet this is a shock, twice in one week!! We are taking advantage of the cheap 'mod-cons' in Thailand. Hope we didnt depress or scare you all too much on the last blog.

So next part of the trip- Vietnam- Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

We will pick up from where we left off: finally made it through the border in one piece, as promised by the hotel manager our driver was waiting! We were a bit apprehensive about getting into the taxi as we saw the drivers teeth before we had a glimpse of his face- he had a terrible twitch and his teeth protruded out of his face worse than Ken Dodds!!

We all started to relax and joke about what a horrendous journey we had just been on and how on earth we had managed to come out unscathed. We had a short taxi ride and then suddenly it hit us - oh my god, for anyone that has not experienced Hoi Chi Minh City its really difficult to explain the 'traffic'!!!!!

We have tried to take pictures of the traffic but unfortunately they just don't do it justice. The main bulk of the traffic is scooters, they take up every inch of the road and surround cars/buses like flies around s**t, they swerve in and out of each other in unison and somehow it all works (iam sure not all the time though). There is no organisation what so ever, now and then you will just see a scooter coming the opposite way down a road and no one seems to think anything of it, they just swerve majestically around him/her!!!! Unbelievable!!! Just watching it you get transfixed at the absurdity of it all, we all just kept screaming ' why don't they get traffic lights, or lolly pop men at least ha ha'.

And the noise, it gets imbedded into your brain, the sound of horns just tooting continuously. Whereas at home when we use the horn its because someone has done something wrong, they use it to let people know they are there (as a warning) but the thing is- there's never not anyone there!!!!

The next obstacle came when we left the safety of the taxi and had to try to cross the road!!! As luck has it a lovely Vietnamese old lady must of seen the look of horror on our faces and came to the rescue!! She put up her hand which was holding a fan and started to walk across the road and the hundreds of scooters and cars that were hurtling towards us just came to a stop!!!!

They have a whole section in our lonely planet book (the bible) dedicated to explaining how to cross a road in Ho Chi Minh City and now we can understand why!!! It took some practicing and realising its not a good idea to just shut your eyes and hope for the beat!!!

So we managed to find some accommodation or another name for it could be 'small, dingy sweat box' but hey ho, we have to keep reminding ourselves we are backpacking!!

After a few hours of wondering around this huge, dirty city we decided to go to the local park, this turned out to be a tacky, weird version of alton towers. It was nice to escape the city for a while and we ended up having a good day. Throughout the day random people (esp chinese) kept coming up to Sarah taking pictures and asking if they could have their picture taken with her, being the shy type (ha ha) she had to quickly adjust to be thrown into the lime light, but think she pulled it off he he!!! Umm i wonder who they thought she was, or is this blog that good the whole world is reading it?

We quickly planned our escape route and headed for Dalat- this is nicknamed the City of Eternal Springs, its dotted with lakes, waterfalls and surrounded by forests- a complete and much needed contrast from where we had just come from. On this journey we had a small taster of the kind nature of the Vietnamese people as they were offering fruit, sweets etc on the bus. One of the biggest surprises we came across in Vietnam (also in Cambodia, but not to same extent) is the way they just leave litter everywhere. After they finish a meal in a cafe they just literally chuck the waste inc bottles, cans onto the floor outside. So everywhere you look there is piles of litter, we were all stunned by this and found it had to fathom why they could not see that this was wrong!!

Anyway, Dalat people must of thought the same as here was spotlessly clean. We went on a tour around Dalat, this turned out for us to be very educational for us. We visited coffee plantations, silk worm farms, waterfalls, crazy house (mad architect designed what really is a crazy house). Probably the most testing was to have to eat with the tour guide and driver in a dirty house/cafe whilst trying to be polite and not to puke aghhhhh!!!!

Nha Trang- our first encounter of Nha Trang was a bit of a shocker. We were all walking down the beach looking for a spot to sunbathe when a young Vietnamese lad appeared from nowhere, he then in one swift move had a quick grope of Sarah's bosom, ran off and had quick mess with his pidge (don't you love the English language). As you can imagine we couldnt get our heads around it, it would of made perfect sense if it was Vikki- but Sarah umm????

We met up with a chap on the beach called rich from blackpool, luck would have it he was a manager of the only busy bar in Nha Trang- Yeah free drinks!!!!

So that night we took full advantage of our new found buddy and drank the bar dry! We were all a bit worse for wear but poor steph who is'nt normally a drinker had to be carried out by two not very impressed bar men, with sick running off their shoes opps, maybe you are best sticking to watermelon shakes! Vikki thought at first she was the sober one and opted to take steph home, untill it came to directing the taxi to the guesthouse............. two hours and three taxis later they were about to resign themselves to a night on the beach when vikki had a slowwww drunken recollection of having the name of the guesthouse on the keys in her bag, so much for the cheap night out!!!!!!

Bang bang.... opps it had completely slipped our minds that we had all paid to go on a boat trip the following day, woken by the guesthouse staff banging at the door. Still drunk, only two hours sleep we thought we may be a liability on a boat so had to give it a miss.

To get to our next destination we decided to take a sleeping bus for the first time as we thought this would offer us a bit more comfort, how wrong could we be!!!! We all went for the back row, this consisted of a row of five umm beds, if thats what you can call it!! But five being the main point here- after about an hour into the journey we all started getting prepard to try and sleep in this claustrophobic hell hole, when to add insult to injury a smelly Vietnamese man popped his head over the ladders, we were already squeezed together like sardines. However he managed to find himself a little spot next to Sarah and the window, obviously not put off by the look of dread on her face (think this is captured on one of the pictures ha). This is where the expession 'skin on skin' came from, no sleep for Sarah that night aghhhh!!!!!!!!

Next Destination Hoi An- wow what a surprise, in our book it describes it as a living museum piece and thats exactly what it is, a really relaxing and romantic place- which is a bit unfortunate for four single girls. However we all gazed into each others eyes as we took a boat trip down the river and had lovley candlelit dinners. Sarah ruined the ambience as she screeched and ran about the restaurant as a huge beetle landed on her skirt, much to the waitresses amusement!!!!

We had a tour around the ancient sites inc the 1593 Japanese covered bridge, traditional arts museum where we watched a strange but entertaining show. It was nice just to walk around the narrow street with its numerous tailor shops and art shops and lovley riverside cafe. Hoi An managed to relax us all and give us a positive outlook to what Vietnam has to offer as we had all been a bit spoilt in Thailand and Cambodia.

Arrived in Hue after only four hours on coach (to us that's just like going to Tesco now) we spent longer getting there than we did staying there, as we quickly made the decision after a short walk around that Hue was certainly not a place of beauty. We booked the night bus sharpish and just kept our fingers crossed we didn't get the back seats, couldn't take any more 'skin on skin' ha ha !!!

So Hanoi here we come...... well just a twelve hour night bus to contend with first, but had separate beds this time phew!!! Hanoi is another big city but a little easier to digest than Ho Chi Minh, traffic not quite as bad and some nice shops to browse in. Think we were all realising we are not city people though and after a day we again made a quick exit!!

Halong Bay& Sarah's birthday!!!! Just as we were giving up hope on Vietnam Halong Bay give us a bit of a boost, we booked on a three day boat trip around the 2000 islands of Halong Bay (not all of them of course). We were on a boat with sixteen other people, all different nationalities (Italian, French, Thai, Malaysian, Australian, Vietnamese and English). After sailing around a few islands on our pirate boat we stopped off to see a magnificent cave, it was huge!!!! After climbing back onto the boat we decided to start the celebrations (4pm, well we are on holiday and it was my birthday he! ). It didnt take long for our fellow english man (Brian) to join in with his girlfriend Gin, after a disgusted smell and swill of our cheap wine the Italians brought a few bottles of Vodka and joined in the fun!! The French took a bit more persuading but once they started there was no stopping! We soon had the whole boat singing, dancing and having a great time, they took it turns in their different languages to sing happy birthday to Sarah, whilst forcing (yes forcing!) alcohol down our necks!!! Towards the end of the night the language situation was getting confusing as people were translating from italian to french to thai to Vietnamese to french to italian and the most challenging was from stokey to english!!!Lisa did however manage to teach a French man 'sacre bluer'- sure thats not how you spell it (not in spell checker ha ha ) but apparently its not a french word, how dare they say that- it was on allo allo!!! What a special birthday!!!!!

The morning after the night before- no staying in bed for us, feeling sorry for ourselves with a cup of tea watching crap t.v...... oh no- a trek and then kayaking for us!! To be honest we thought it would be a short walk on a clear path, so Sarah and Lisa dressed as they thought appropriate- strapless dress(to avoid strap marks) flip flops and handbags!! We quickly discovered it wasnt going to be appropriate attire- not in the slightest!!!!! We were scrabbling up rock faces, trekking through dense forest and wadding through mud paths, all of this covered head to toe with an unimaginable assortment of insects!!!! We squealed like a bunch of girls, almost cried but instead went down the hysterically laughing path!! We made it to the top where there were breathtaking views- literally!!! After getting our breaths back and our red beaming faces had calmed down, the realisation that we had got to get down started to kick in!!! It was to much of the amusement of the group that when we got back to the bus Sarah held up a pair of trekking shoes from under her seat!!!

An exhausted group were then taken after a quick lunch to do Kayaking, Lisa ended up with the Australian bloke colin who lets say, was a little on the large side. She wasnt to happy with this pairing since the instructor had said its only usually the fat people that capsize!! Sarah was happy with hers as she had the instructor and quickly overtook everyone!! Vikki and Steph didnt do bad as they stayed right behind Sarah and the instructor, lisa was not impressed!!! We all made it across the sea to 'monkey island' where the monkeys were extremely vicious and tried to attack one of the french lads! Once back on safe ground the instructor took us inside someones house/yard, they had large glass jars on the shelves full of all kinds. One had a young goat in, the water was drunk and supposed to give similar effects as viagra (reminded me of nats granddad with his 'horny goat' ha ), other jars had snakes, birds, spiders all used for different aliments- we will stick to paracetamol thanks!

So back to hotel and good nights sleep, thanks to all that exercise!! Next day back to Hanoi to prepare to leave Vietnam, after much deliberation and disappointment we decided we just didnt have time to fit Loas in, so headed back to much loved and missed Thialand- this time to the North, Chiang Mai!!!!!

Sorry ive had to resend it again but i think i was confusing everyone putting sarah then i then me, sorry-corrected it now!! oh and forgot one improtant thing - COME ON STOKE!!!!!