Woke up early today. Apparently school starts around 6am here so the principal was on the bullhorn around 6:30am. That will be our alarm clock during our stay but at least we're not next to a mosque. The Dalat Hotel Du Parc is one of the first French built hotels in the area and has some amazing architecture. It has an old style cage lift which we failed to realised how to operate first time. We stood in there for a few seconds looking like complete doofus...

We had a relatively slow start today as we were checking out. After brekkie & arranging the luggage to be stowed, we set out into the regular hustle & bustle of the city. We'd become quite adept at getting across the road now. We walked a few blocks to the War Remnants Museum to finish off our tour from the other day, namely all the machinery on display outside. We were approached by a man who had been wounded in the war. Both arms were missing, one eye ...

As we handed over the cash to Lam the previous evening, Sue said "Well, if we're going to get ripped off in Vietnam, it just happened". She was right in thinking that because when you book things off the beaten track, you can get taken for a ride. More concern set in when we got a phonecall that night from Lam. Her mother had fallen very ill and was travelling via bus to the city to go to the hospital. Lam was unable to take us on the tour but assured us that her...

Because we'd crammed 2 tours in on one day, we had free wandering time today. First stop was Bên Thành markets so we set out to tackle navigating under our own steam. Crossing the road in Saigon is a fairly daunting task at first - wait for a small break in the deluge of cars and bikes, then holding hands cross in a steady pace and allow the motorbikes to flow around you. Steve was pleasantly surprised that the street vendors didn't hassle us too hard to buy th...

We all slept very well after being awake for 21.5 hours. Woke up at 5am local time so had an early brekkie. Lots of different Asian goodies to try at the hotel buffet. Tried dragon fruit for the first time and lots of delicious fruit juices. Our tour guide Lam met us at reception at 8am. Our first day was supposed to be a tour of the city but because the traffic was going to be much more hectic tomorrow, our tour guide said we'd be better doing the Cu Chi tunnel...