hellooo.

When we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City we went for a wonder around and a trip to the cafe we had heard alot about, Sozo. This was where we spent most of our breakfast, lunches and dinners for two days as we really enjoyed the fact you got what you actually ordered! and they did the most amazing peach iced tea.

After braving the Ho Chi Minh roads where 20 motorbikes come at you all at once and you just have to walk at a stready pace hoping they will avoid you! we found a funky silk shop that was as cheap as chips and an abercrombie shop which was about 1/10th of the price of stuff at home! weather or not it was real Elinor didnt care and stocked up. I on the other hand still have a constant battle every morning with packing my original belongings in to my bag i bought from home so couldnt enjoy this shopping experience. (sorry ma, your cushion covers will have to wait!)
That evening we had dinner in the local food market which was an experience. The choice was of pigs feet, Pigs stomachs, fried frogs, wild boar, snails, etc. so we both stuck to fish. After we went to an australian bar where the vietnamese owners actually believe they are australian - this bar was the westerns hideout and we both felt at home.

The next day elinor and myself thought it would be a super idea to go and see the tunnels where during the war the (north??) vietnamese hid out underground. To be honest i did not understand or care about annnnything the tour lady was going on about so decided to take photos of the giant centipeids in the jungle. Elinor understood a little bit more however the tour lady was so concerned about the europeans that had joined our group without paying, she spent the whole few hours on the phone to her managers and abandoned us. I prefered this. On one occasion we were allowed in to a tunnel where they had once lived to escape being killed by the enemy (dont know who they were, or why the war was actually going on). This was a stupid idea of ours to climb 10 metres underground into tiny tiny tunnels (we were pretty much crawling) in the 40 degrees heat. I couldnt see where i was going so had to keep flashing my camera but got into a panic so escaped at the first emergency exit but elinor managed to do the whole hog and feels very proud!
Thankfully the tour lady got into a stress and let us go, but not without her singing to us on the journey back! to make up for the fact she tried to drive off leaving the poor europeans stranded at the tunnels. We did not let her do this and insisted they were to be taken back to the city aswell. We went back to Ho Chi Minh City and went for another walk around, trip to sozo's and shower before departing for our 13 hour overnight train journey to Nha Trang.
We bunked up with Tom and beth and spent the night in our lovely cabin with a lcd tv! We did however manage to get to the bar on the opposite end of the train but was made to feel so guilty about taking up valuable seats to just play cards we retreated back to our room for the evening. This morning we arrived at hour new accomadation that despite the family of cockcroaches i have removed from the bathroom and elinors bed is ok and has a pool.
will put photo's up soon.

speak soon,

Soph and Elinor xxx