For the devoted followers of the Wandering Wows (both of you), you might recall that we had spent a couple of days floating along the Upper Mekong River (Thailand & Laos) and now we were going to spend a couple of days exploring the Mekong Delta- the point at which this mighty river meets the sea. The Delta is the proverbial food basket of Vietnam, and the dams the Chinese are proposing to build further upstream has the country very worried for the future of this...

The Viet Cong tunnels at Cu Chi are something of a must-do if you're anywhere near Saigon. We grabbed a cheapie bus and on the way to the tunnels stopped at the Cao Dai Great Divine Temple and were lucky enough to observe a noontime ceremony. Although we were restricted to the galleries above the main temple floor, I still felt like we were intruding on almost cult-like worship. Dramatic devotion like this has always amazed and puzzled me- on the one hand, it...

Ho Chi Minh City was almost a letdown given the warnings- we were expecting Hanoi on steroids and not in a good way. The population of Saigon is nearing 8 million and there are apparently close to 4 million motorbikes and scooters (and none of the 8 million is able to operate any of the 4 million within any commonly accepted rules of the road) and this should result in a chaos far greater than that of Hanoi... but it doesn't. One of the more positive reminder...

Back by popular demand, DH wanted to describe her favourite town since Luang Prabang in Laos. Asia time kicks in again as we try to make our way to Hoi An. The van that was to deliver us to the bus stop arrived 50 minutes late. But no worries- the bus itself was also running late so we perched ourselves on plastic stepping stools on the road out front of the 'bus stop' which was actually a ticketing agent and women's clothing store (wonder who it was ...

We hadn't planned on stopping in Hue, but we were talked into it by other travelers that had just come from there. We only have 3 years so we can't stop everywhere but we thought we'd take a flyer on this place. To get to Hue we did another of the overnight Vietnamese trains and were bunked in with an Aussie couple once again- I've got to think that at any given point in time, at least half of the population of Australia is not actually in Austral...