We have returned to Vietnam! This was our first southeast Asian country back in November 2017, where we chose to only tour the top half of the country. The plan this time is to move from Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) way down in the south, up to the central area before we leave for Thailand.

Our exposure to a major Vietnamese city last time was the capital of Hanoi in the north, and wow, that is a frenzied, captivating place. We had heard from fellow travellers that HCMC rivalled if not surpassed Hanoi in terms of its busyness, which surprisingly, we have not felt at all. Are we just becoming desensitised?! There are of course millions of motorcycles competing for space here (over 6 million according to our recent tour guide!), but the roads seem much more spacious compared to the narrow streets of old town Hanoi, and so walking around is more manageable. Crossing the road continues to be a bit of an adventure, of course, and one must always remember that after mentally celebrating your tiny victory of making it to the middle of the street, that it is now time to focus your direction the other way to complete the journey. Troy seems to be better at this task, and likens it to the challenge of playing Frogger, which Clare is likely poor at playing as well.

HCMC seems hotter than the Philippines was, but more importantly it is definitely more humid, which has meant more down time in our hotel room, which mercifully has air conditioning! Oh AC, how we have missed thee. We have mostly ventured out in the later afternoons to see some temples, and roamed the neon infused streets at night to find a good street front table to watch the action. Several streets have a Bangkok-esque quality to them in terms of the tourists, flash, and flurry of activity, and for us that is nothing to be bored about! It's nice to be back in an international city and have all the food options, diversity, transport, museums; all those things and more are always a reminder of why for us, there is nothing like the comfort of a big city.

We thought we might visit the Mekong Delta region for a few days, but decided instead just to do a group day tour to Ben Tre, about 90 km south of HCMC. We spent most of the day cruising around the waterways in little boats and tasting fresh fruits, including a new one called sapodilla, which perhaps tastes a bit like caramel and nuts? Troy tasted a green tea that he actually liked and said he would drink again, but will undoubtedly deny this if you bring it up with him. (Is there even another Canadian and also international traveller that still does not enjoy even one hot beverage?!) The trip was of course just a taste of a huge region, but we felt like this taste was satisfying enough, and are happy to move on to, you guessed it, another beach, this time on the island of Phu Quoc!