Vietnam; what can I say, this country is a weird one haha.

That is probably an incredibly un-pc way of describing another country but I don't mean it at all negatively and for all those who have been here, I'm sure you'll know what I mean by this.

Compared to all the other countries we've been to, Vietnam seems by far the most diverse. It's diversity spans across all aspects of society creating (in some case) quite stark contracts in culture, economic wealth and even the ecology of the country.

Over the past 12 days we have travelled from Ho Chi Minh City in the south (which was formally known as Saigon and once the capital of South Vietnam) to Hanoi in the north. During which, we have experienced the varying attributes of Vietnam and enjoy much of what it has to offer.

Our first stop, as I've already mentioned, was Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) after arriving in Vietnam via night coach from Cambodia, this city seemed like an instant parrallel to the one we had just left. The streets were swarming with cars, lorries and motobikes! I have never seen so many vehicles on one street before. Literally every space that could be filled was! Compared to this city centre, central London traffic seems as busy as a country village in Wales haha. A traveler we had previously met advised us to hire motobikes to get around the city - we instantly knew this was one aspect of Vietnamese life we prefered to observe rather than participate in haha. HCMC was also incredibly developed with designer outlets and technology stores on every street corner. Again, compared to it's neighbour, our first impressions of Vietnam were of a flourishing country.

We spent 3 days in HCMC experiencing the typical tourist hotspots, including spending a day at the Cu Chi war tunnels. These tunnels were part of the network of underground tunnels developed by the Viet Cong and Vietminh during the Indochina, and later, American wars. These tunnels stretch for over 2000km, enter Cambodia and Laos and took the armies 20 years to build. They were an impressive spate of engineering! And as always, I took some picies for you to all have a look at.

Our tour guide was telling us that during the war, when the US began dropping Napalm bombs, some villages took to living permanently underground - one village was underground for 7 years! We also visited the war museums and got a real insight into the Vietnamese side to the conflict. So for all of you cynics who think I've been bumming around on beaches for the last 3 months, this is proof that in actual fact, I have expanded my mind and done something educational haha.

Ironically, the next few days, we did infact bum about haha.

Our second stop in Vietnam was Da Lat - a small town up in the Vietnamese mountains. Never before have I been so happy to be cold haha! Being at a much higher altitude, the weather became much cooler and, for the first time since Rio, air conditioning was not necessary and jeggings and cardigans were required! I will hold fond memories of Da Lat for this very reason. After 3 months of seemingly constant sweat, for once we were content whilst walking around town.

Da Lat itself however, was a series of unfortunate events (and I'm not talking about the books haha). It is common in Vietnam for businesses to have a siesta between 11 - 1.30 every day. On our first day in Da Lat, it started thunderstorming at 1.31 (exaggerating slightly here) and it didn't ease up until after dark. As such, a lot of what we planned on doing didn't happen. On our second day we had a packed itinerary of visiting a "Mad Monk's" temple, visiting a cathedral, walking around a lake and taking a train to a small market village 10km away. The Mad Monk wasn't in his temple, we missed the train (which only goes twice a day), we got lost on the way to the cathedral and ended up driving around the lake haha. We did however hire some peddleo's - an obvious highlight haha!

For the second time in this blog entry, I am going to express great irony...

Following our welcomed stint in the cool town of Da Lat, we went in search of some sun. After applying 100% deet (for all of you who aren't aware of the alien concept that is deet - it is extremely strong insect replent which is advised for use in malaria prone countries and which stripped my nail polish off my toes!) for the past 2 weeks, we were becoming increasingly aware that our tans were fadding. Consequently we took action and headed to two sea side towns - Nha Trang and Hoi An.

As previously stated, Vietnam is an incredibly diverse country and unlike HCMC, Da Lat, Nha Trang and Hoi An were all incredibly chilled, relaxed towns. We got to enjoy the weather, shop in the markets and lounge around without the constant sound of car horns (and they literally beep for everything here - they beep to let others know they are about to overtake) and vehicles racing around.

Our last stop in Vietnam (and where I am today) is the countries capital, Hanoi. Very much like HCMC, this city is developed, crowed and full of culture. Over the past couple of days we have once again returned to expanding our minds by visiting a collection of the cities tourist attractions. Today we visited Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum (the home, palace and burial site of Ho Chi Minh). It was a slightly weird experience as Ho Chi Minh (the leader of the Viet Cong army who fought the US and the first president of independent Vietnam) has been preserved and his body is in an open casket for all to see and pay their respects.

In stark contrast (I told you there was a lot of that here haha) we spent the afternoon at a water puppet theatre watching a production, entirely in Vietnamese, about the history of Vietnam. Again, this was a slightly surreal experience but an enjoyable one all the same :-)!

Right ladies and gentlemen - that's your lot, my Vietnamese experience in...too many words haha.

We are flying back into Thailand tomorrow for another fun filled week which should include an elephant ride, white water rafting, a cooking course and a visit to a tiger sanctuary! I will let you know how everything was in due course.

Take care all, xxx