Thursday, 21st July 2016 An early up and away this morning as we had to catch the eight o' clock Giant Ibis to Ho Chi Minh City. My last chance to have yogurt and passion fruit for breakfast in Cambodia. A new favourite! Embarassingly for him more than us, our disappearing taxi driver from a few days ago turns up before we leave the hotel. He makes some feeble excuses for his non-return on the day and we smile weakly. Anyway, we leave Phnom Penh at eight prepa...

We arrived back in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday for a one night stop off following our time in the Mekong Delta. This was our first longish bus journey here and it took three and a half hours to get to the main bus station a little outside the city. This cost a little over £2.00 each which included the transfer in a minibus to nearer Ho Chi Minh centre, to District 5. From there, our ten minute taxi ride to our hotel cost us a little over £1. Taxis here...

Our second full day here was planned as a quiet day and there was no mad rush to hit the breakfast tables before seven as we did yesterday. As a result, it was about ten before we left the air-conditioned comfort, or icy discomfort according to Alyson, for the sauna-like street. Our plan was to visit a museum and following a little tripadvisor research we headed, via a local park, to The War Remnants Museum. With a new photocopied map from our hotel, we got there...

How can I find the time to write this blog? The answer lies in the fact that it is four thirty in the morning here and, as I've not established a full night's sleeping pattern yet, I'm filling it with writing up a briefish account of the main highlights of yesterday. By the way, our hotel room looks on to a side alley and is only picking up the buffeted sounds of early morning motos and those assembling themselves for the harmonious madness that exists here. We w...

It's about 15 hours in the air from Manchester to Ho Chi Minh City, plus a few hours connecting to a different aeroplane in Dubai. so, having left Manchester airport at nineish last night, we are sitting here at nine o' clock at night local time expecting an hour wait for the landing visa to be processed. And this is a crazy system. A hundred plus are crowded into a little corner waiting for the return of our passports for which we will have to hand over $50 each...