Saturday 12th May

Another early wake up! We didn't have time for breakfast but the over so lovely receptionist had made us some sandwiches to take with us! I love her! Our tuk-tuk driver took us to the bus stop and wished us well and we boarded the bus. The bus company are so eager for you to get on early, yet they still don't leave on time!!!

We started our way to Phnom Penh, we slept much of the way (it makes it seem quicker!) We arrived in Phnom Penh around 12ish, and experience yet another 'it's a small world'. We bumped into a couple of French guys we meet on Koh Rong, it was very bizarre! We had to wait till 1:45 pm for our next bus. It wasn't that sunny today, but it was warm. We literally sweated buckets and all we were doing was standing! I'm glad the hot season is coming to an end and the rainy season should be starting any moment!

We jumped onto our lovely bus to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC for short!) where our bus host checked if we had visas, which we do and it's the correct date too! He said there are plenty of people who think you can get visas at the border, which most places in South East Asia you can except Vietnam! As he said this a perfect example happened, a guy who clearly hadn't done his research, said he hadn't got a visa and that he was going to get one at the border. Our bus host told him that it would not be possible, this then lead him leaving the bus and having to re-confirm his tickets, which would properly be about Tuesday/Wednesday seeing as embassys are only open Monday-Friday and today is being Saturday. Whoops! Soon we were on our way, it's a long way to HCMC! We did sleep again, Stu has mastered my ability of being able to sleep anywhere! Soon we were at the border, we jumped off the bus to get our passports exit stamp, jumped back on the bus for the next part. Our host took our passports and we jumped off the bus with all our bags, for some people (one very dim women) couldn't grasp this at all and had to go back to the bus to get her bags. We waited for our names to be called to pass through customs with our passport stamped! Wooo! Quickly got our passport stamped and back on the bus. The women previously mentioned had some sort of issue, but she was making a giant scene about it and our host didn't look too impressed! Soon she was left behind (I assume she had her own onward transport) and we were off, FINALLY!

We slept once again and woke up just before we got to HCMC. In Vietnam all the buildings and shops actually show their whole address, which makes working out where you are helpful! I managed to follow the bus's route through HCMC so we knew where we had to go for our hostel. The first thing we got greeted by was moto drivers holding flyers in your face screaming '$10 HOTEL! CHEAP CHEAP!' We got rather annoyed and had no worries expressing this, unlike the Cambodians who avoid confrontations the Vietnamese like a good argument! We fought through the crowd and headed down the street looking for number 120 which would lead us to our hostel. We stupidly walked past this, but only by 50m so turned back and headed down alley 120 and found our hostel easily enough. It was 7 pm and I just wanted to shower, eat and lie down!

The staff at the hostel was a very friendly and excitable young (gay) Vietnamese! He was lovely and said we had the top floor, 'the penthouse!' It was a horrible 6 flight of stairs up but we eventually managed it! We turned the fans and A/C on, I tried to turn another fan on which was unplugged but managed to blow a fuse. Luckily there are phones on each level so we buzzed down to advice someone I had blown the fuse! After 5 minutes of realising that we should not plug the fan in any more as it clearly doesn't work we got washed and dressed to find some food.

We went for some classic Pho, which are basically noodles! I still yet to eat noodles again since the horrible experience in Russia! I wasn't feeling too good so went with some fruit and yoghurt!

We went back to the hostel and rested!

Sunday 13th May

We didn't wake up particularly early, but headed for brunch/lunch (we are now on two meals a day as it is too hot to eat three meals!)

We decided to visit the war memorial museum, it was a long walk but it was good and we got to know the streets well. One of HCMC famous sites is the amount of traffic, the rule here to cross slowly, REALLY slow. This gives the motos time to move out the way, the only thing we tried to dodge was things bigger than motos, cars, buses and trucks! It wasn't too bad at first, but I'm sure it will get worse!

We found the museum and went in, at the front there was loads of replica planes, tanks and other machinery used by the Americans in the war. We had done a bit of research of the war before arriving as we really knew nothing! I thought the war was the Vietnamese fighting against the Americans, which I guess was half true! History lesson 101:

The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the United States and other anti-communist countries. The Viet Cong (also known as the National Liberation Front, or NLF), a lightly armed South Vietnamese communist-controlled common front, largely fought a guerrilla war against anti-communist forces in the region. The Vietnam People's Army (North Vietnamese Army) engaged in a more conventional war, at times committing large units into battle. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery, and airstrikes.

The U.S. government viewed involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam as part of their wider strategy of containment. The North Vietnamese government and Viet Cong viewed the conflict as a colonial war, fought initially against France, backed by the U.S., and later against South Vietnam, which it regarded as a U.S. puppet state. American military advisors arrived in what was then French Indochina beginning in 1950. U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with troop levels tripling in 1961 and tripling again in 1962. U.S. combat units were deployed beginning in 1965. Operations spanned international borders, with Laos and Cambodia heavily bombed. American involvement in the war peaked in 1968, at the time of the Tet Offensive. After this, U.S. ground forces were gradually withdrawn as part of a policy known as Vietnamization. Despite the Paris Peace Accords, signed by all parties in January 1973, fighting continued.

U.S. military involvement ended on 15 August 1973 as a result of the Case-Church Amendment passed by the U.S. Congress. The capture of Saigon by the Vietnam People's Army in April 1975 marked the end of the war, and North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year. The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities. Estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed vary from less than one million to more than five million. Some 200,000-300,000 Cambodians, 20,000-200,000 Laotians, and 58,220 U.S. service members also died in the conflict.

With this in mind we headed inside there was several rooms and floors dedicated to what the war was about, this was somewhat biased very much against the Americans. I'm sure what the Americans did was bad, but they were shed in a very bad light and the Vietnamese was painted in a very good light. The facts were still there and it was very interesting. There was several photos taken by a photographer that travelled with the American army, some of the photos he took were horrible. There was one picture of a family, he told the soldiers to stop so he could take a photo, when he walked away he could hear gun fire. Made me feel very sick, the worse part of the museum was about the victims after the Americans sprayed much of the land in chemical defoliants which led to many birth defects, which still happens today, passed down the generations. Some of the victims have been lucky to manage to find a way of survival, some have used their feet to paint, write and even wood carve since their arms/hands are useless. Some however are very unlucky and have to be helped 24/7.

After a while I felt it was time to go, the weather had a change of mind and it was chucking it down. Luckily we had our fashionable ponchos giving to us by Aish and Lant! So while the other visitors waited it out, we headed back. It is actually nice to see some rain after being roasted alive! We went back and got washed and dried and headed for some dinner, it was still raining! We sat down for a bit and chilled out with a beer or too for 50 cents! We got talking to another couple from the UK Steph and Matt. We were having a good time and a few beers we didn't realise the time, it was 3:30 am! Oh dear! I was pretty sure the doors of the hostel would be shut now! We headed back to our hostel where my guess was correct. Ooops! We knocked on the door for a while luckily someone opened the door! (Since then we have found where the door bell is!) So we crept back up to the penthouse and slept!

Monday 14th May

We woke up late, and it was raining too! We got up and dressed and searched for some food! We decided to head to the Reunification Palace formerly known as Independence Palace, is a landmark in Ho Chi Minh City. It was designed by architect Ngô Viết Thụ and was the home and workplace of the President of South Vietnam during the war. It was the site of the end of the Vietnam War during the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, when a North Vietnamese Army tank crashed through its gates. It was apparently left as it was found after liberation day. Stu was expecting the gates to still be caved in, which I said would be silly as the palace would have been ransacked!

We decided to go for a free tour, which we left after a while as it wasn't very interesting. We had a booklet which we were referring to. The rooms are all very elaborate and huge; down in the basement had war rooms, where the President could plan his attacks. It wasn't what we were expecting but it was interesting to see.

We then walked onto the Notre Dame Cathedral, the French influence, it looked very non-French! It looked similar to one in Paris but was made out of red bricks and was smaller.

We attempted to find a cinema to watch the Avengers; the first one we tried said they were showing it any more. Very disappointing! We knew were another one was, well I thought I did, we ended up walking and hour and finding that the address was incorrect somehow! So we walked back, disappointed! By this point we were tired and hungry! So we went and got some food and meet up with Steph and Matt. We had convinced them that going to the cinema would be awesome. We walked the short distance to the (correct) address and walked in. I have honestly in my life never seen a more crowded cinema in my life! We managed to get our tickets and popcorn and drinks for a total of $8 for both of us! Bargain! We queued in random queue, which I'm guessing to wait for the previous film to finish. We then shuffled into the cinema and found our seats, it was pretty big and the seats were comfy. The film was in English with Vietnamese subtitles! It was good!

Tuesday 15th May

We didn't have much of an exciting day, we did some research for our next destination Mui Ne and booked our bus and hostel for a couple of nights!

We meet up with Matt and Steph again for dinner and having a few beers before going to bed.

Wednesday 16th May

We woke up early and got ready, ate waiting for our pickup to the bus. We all jumped on and befriended a German he was pretty cool. Our tour guide was hilarious, well Stu and I thought so being the only people whose first language is English his jokes made sense!

We travelled to the Delta for an hour before jumping onto a boat and started cruising down the river. It was nice and sunny, but not too hot, thank god! We went first to the floating village/market, were lots of boats lined up with a pole in the middle of the boat with whatever they were selling tied to the pole so you could tell what they were selling! Mostly fruit and veg! We disembarked and went to a couple of shops where we got to try various produced. Honey tea, rice paper, snake wine, coconut sweets. We did buy some coconut sweets as they were tasty!

We got back on the boat and continued down the river to get some lunch which was pork chop, rice and veg! Yum! We got back on the boat once more and travelled to have some local fruits, which were pretty much, pineapple, water melon, jack fruit and dragon fruit.

We got on the boat once more and travelled back to where we started. The river is huge at this point, miles between each side. We got back on the bus, just as it started to rain and headed back to the city.

We arrived back in HCMC and still raining so we got back to the hostel, showered and changed ready to meet Steph and Matt again to have dinner.

The rain had cleared by the time we left and we went to a family restaurant and had a meal and a few beers. I wasn't feeling 100% so went back to the hostel while Stu stayed out until 3:30am!