Made it to Vietnam!! After the ridiculous visa formalities prior to our departure we were expecting the slog into Vietnam to be hot, busy and far too thorough..it was however a breeze! It was the 9 hours on a bus to our homestay in Chau Doc that was the killer. Tess and i usually work quite well with me by the window and her with plenty of legroom in the aisle but this bus seemed to have been made for the seven dwarfs rather than 16 fully grown (Yes i do count!!) adults! Unfortunately I became rather ill at this point and so was rather dull in bed all evening..perfect to have chosen the homestay to get ill rather than one of the cushy hotels we've stayed in but such is life! (I also blame karma as I had proudly told my Mum the day before that I had yet to even open my ginormous bag of first aid stuff that she had lovingly packed me off with..

Rightho Tess here to finish up what we did in the evening...having left Flo lying in bed surrounded by a mosquito net I settled down to a delicious dinner cooked by the family we were staying with. Food just get coming out and it was all delicious. There were traditional pancakes filled with beansprouts and veg, then spring rolls, poppadoms, tofu, beef, pumpkin soup and piles and piles of rice. Then we had fresh pineapple and bananas (yuck but everyone else said they were delish, I'll take their word for it!). After dinner we played a game of cards which went on for hours as we were taught a new Scandinavian card game which I proved very poor at, specifically because my poker face is one of the worst out there. After several rounds of 'werewolf' (I actually have no idea what they call it) we headed to bed with the reassuring sounds of crickets and lizards by our heads. We woke up to the reassuring noise of the rooster from about 4am as it seemed to be confused. Next up were the Mekong river floating markets which were amazing. Boats were piled high with melons, cabbages and pineapples with people buying boats full of the fruits as well.

Finally though we arrived in Ho Chi Minh only to be greeted by the return of crazy crazy traffic. Flo and I almost got mauled, not killed, by the traffic as we ended up in the middle of a Very busy road with motorbikes whizzing past our ears. Literally. The only other excitement of the day was flo's attempt at washing. For some reason she thought it would be a splendid idea to wash her clothes the evening before we left HMC and her clothes are currently not dry (see picture). We're leaving at 8. That's in 9 hours. Keep your fingers crossed otherwise her bag could be a little bit lighter tomorrow.

Tess and Flo xx

Tess and Flo