Arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) at about 3:30 pm, absolutely starving, so just had enough time to check into a hotel and find some delicacies that this country had to offer. There are about 7 million inhabitants of HCMC and 3 million motorcycles, so you can imagine what the streets are like. Bikes everywhere, and I mean everywhere. There are no rules to crossing the road apart from 'don't run'!! As you proceed across the road, you feel like you are taking your like into your own hands, however strangely enough the bikes just don't hit you - they seem to respect you like another motorcycle and just go around you. It's a strange phenomenon, but you get used to it after a while and just trust them. Still it goes against your better judgement and you just have to fight your instinct. Compared to Cambodia, Vietnam is a paradise and HCMC is very civilised with lots of great shops to spend your money and fabulous food. The bars are very 'western' in their nature and the Vietnamese are trying to bring their country up to European standards and their not doing a bad job at all. The currency here is Dong (but you can also spend US Dollar but it works out more expensive), so first stop was to get some cash out of the cash machine. As there are about 30,000 Dong to the GB Pound I left the cashpoint feeling very wealthy with 2 million notes stuffed in my pocket!! I've not been a multi-millionaire since I last visited Italy!! Day 2 we visited the tunnels at Cu Chi (cute name), which is where the Vietnamese army hid out during the war to kill lots of Americans! They were absolutely facinating and if you ever get the chance to see them, you absolutely must. You get the opportunity to crawl through some of them and truly experience what these poor soldiers had to tolerate during the war to try and outsmart the Yanks. I also got the opportunity to fire 5 rounds of an AK 47 gun, which was utterly amazing. I haven't fired a gun since I was a kid and that was just an air rifle, but to fire something with such incredible force as an AK 47 was an awesome experience. You have a choice of military weapons to choose from, but it can get kind of pricey if you want to try them all as they charge you for the bullets. Saturday night was a blast as a few of us went out to explore the local clubs! Our evening started over dinner at about 18:00 and ended about 12.5 hours later when I finally got to bed. The listed clubs are a bit crappy here as they shut at about 02:00am. It didn't take long to find some 'unofficial' clubs though, which were pretty cool and kept us entertained until the early hours. A very colourful city if you can seek it out. I am surprised as to how cheap this place is too - much cheaper than Thailand and Cambodia from what I can gather. A pack of Marlboro Lights is about 40p, a bottle of beer 50p in the bars and internet is about 15p per hour!! You could stay here forever on a measly salary, which unfortunately is what they get paid. There also appears to be a seedy side to Vietnam too. There are lots of young pretty girls and boys with older Western men and quite a bit of prostitution, but that's quite underground and not so much in your face. We have been warned about pick=pocket scams going on here on a regular basis - a guy on our bus got caught out, but if you don't carry all your money and cards on you then you should be fine - like any city really!! Just apply a bit of common sense. I'm leaving tonight on the overnight train to Nha Trang, where I will update you further. It's on the coast, so I'm looking forward to spending a week in the sun to put some colour back in these cheeks! New Zealand kind of robbed me of my Fiji tan and I've not seen the beach since then. Not sure what to expect from the train, but I've booked and air conditioned sleeper carriage, so hopefully I'll be able to sleep the whole journey (I said hopefully!!). I arrive at Nha Trang at 05:45am so I hope I don't sleep through my stop!! Miss you all terribly. Stephen xxx