This is our first opportunity to update since we left Vietnam!

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) was busy and hectic like Hanoi but much more tourist friendly, with a few streets full of bars and restaurants within a few steps from our hotel!

The coach journey to Saigon was very bumpy and uncomfortable to say the least, but we got talking to a nice girl called Vibs and Gerrat (who we met on the bus to Dalat). By the time we got to Saigon, we were very hot, tired and very much just wanted to get a hotel and have a cold shower! A crazy local lady in a purple suit kept following us, shouting at us that she will get us the best price and basically bullying us into staying at one of her hotels! Needless to say, we got straight away from her! We found a nice hotel/guest house for $18 a night, which was a bit pricey for our budget but was very clean and had AIR CON!

That night, we headed to a restaurant '333' which appeared to be some of the cheapest food. It was absolutely delicious, so we were really happy! We hit the bars which were actually quite good (and very lively, really reminded us of Bangkok!) The buckets of rum were good (and were sorely missed since we left Thailand), and Gerrat & Vibs joined us to get drunk! It was a good laugh, but we couldn't make it too heavy as the next day we had booked a trip to go to the Chu Chi tunnels and war museum at 8:45am.

The next day, we were picked up promptly from our hotel and made our way to the Tunnels, which was about a 2 hour drive from where we stayed. Our tour guide wanted us to call him 'Mr Bean' although I would have preferred Rowan Atkinson to have been our guide!!! Although he was a really nice man... he talked, and he talked, and he talked. To add to that, he talked a little bit more. It was odd; he had fought in the Vietnam war... however, he fought for the USA and not Vietnam. It was OK to have heard the story from the USA side as well as what we would learn at the Tunnels, however, it confused me and I came back none the wiser as to what actually had happened! The tunnels were interesting, however we could have done the whole thing in an hour and been happy. That's the problem when you go on an organised tour I guess. And you always get one 'hornblower'on every trip who asks 2000 questions and wants to be at the front for everything!

The highlight of this for both of us was the shooting range, where we fired an AK47 and an M14 at targets. The noise is sooo loud but it was good fun, although I was gutted I couldn't shoot Mr Bean as they were on fixtures!

The war museum was much more interesting, and somewhat disturbing. It was very sad and on several occasions I welled up looking at some of the photos. These were from the damage caused by Agent Orange which the US had dropped over 'Nam. There were also lots of images of people being killed, but it was very powerful to have seen it.

The last night was good too! Vibs met us for a farewell drink as she was heading off to Cambodia on a night bus, and Gerrat came and shared a few beers in some random bars (he was sure a few of them were w**** bars, I think he may have been right!) Again, nothing too heavy as we were due to be leaving for Phnom Penh in the morning! All in all, it was a good stay in Saigon and would recommend it to others!