Ho Chi Minh City or Saigon as everyone still seems to call it is definately the furthest west (so to speak) we've been on our travels so far. Pavements are actually for walking (and the odd rogue scooter), cars and scooters obey traffic lights and the temperature is fairly sensible! We've even managed to find western style department and electronic stores.

Arrival in Saigon was fairly standard, wander off the bus to be attacked by a bunch of locals wanting to show you a hotel room or bundle you in a taxi. We wondered round and settled on an ok priced and looking room in the backpacker area. The heavens promptly opened as soon as we went outside so we saught refuge in a coffee shop. Probably had the worst coffee we've had in Vietnam, was served with regular uht milk instead of sweet condensed milk and the coffee seemed pretty bitter. With the rain easing off we set off in search of Diamond plaza and a cinema!

Diamond Plaza was as a close to a western department store as we've come across, full air con and western prices on designer goods! Charlie was pretty excited to find a French Connection store, but not so excited to see the crazily inflated prices. We took a wander round and found a bowling alley with very loud music on the fourth floor. Bizzarely the cinema is on the 13th floor, we got tickets for Captain America. The screen was probably the smallest we've ever been in but the picture was fairly good although some of our fellow movie goers insisted on talking during the film and laughing hysterically at bits that really were't that funny. We were happy enough though munching on Popcorn (much cheaper and way better than at home) and enjoyed the film. We got some dinner in a place in the same alley as our hotel. We weren't really all that hungry after all the popcorn but ordered some nachos and a noodle dish. Nachos were not at all like what we were expecting, was like a salad with some black beans on it and a few very large oily tortillas around the outside. Noodles were very tasty though.

Next day we were keen to see some of the tourist sights in Saigon. We were fairly late getting up and bought some breakfast from a bakery to eat in a park. We then wandered round to the Reunification Palace where the southern Vietnamese government had opperated out of before surrendering to the North. We were told it had just shut and to come back at 1PM. With three hours to kill we decided to solve Tom's camera problem and headed to an electronics store we had researched. 11 Million Dong later Tom has a new waterproof camera and is very happy :-).

We had lunch at another spot on the same alley as our hotel, this time we both ordered burgers. Tom had a steak one which was disapointing compared to Charlie's minced beef one which was easily the best burger (and most authentic western food in general) of the trip so far. With full bellies we set off in search of the war remnants museum. This was fairly depressing place full of photos from the war, pictures of combat victims, evidence of war crimes and photos of the 3 generations of victims of the "agent orange" chemicals used by the Americans. All pretty sobering stuff with some pretty incredible photographs of the fighting as well. The museum also had some replicas of the cages the south vietnamese used to detain their prisoners. Some of these were crazy, one was so small Tom probably wouldn't have fit in it, all the sides were made of barbed wire and the sign said up to three people would be put in it!

We were too late to see the Reunification Palace after this so ended up searching out a nice coffee place. Ended up in a very nice place (like an upmarket Starbucks) perched over a cross roads. We sat in comfy chairs sipping one of the better cups of coffee and watching the rush hour traffic going by. The only way to desribe the way traffic flows is like a shoal of fish, its really quite impressive how few crashes there are!

We had dinner in a nice restaurant specialising in Mexican, Italian and Vietnamese food. We had to put them to the test and Tom had a Chilli Con Carne that wasn't actually that bad, Charlie had crispy noodles with beef which she really enjoyed. Full bellies we headed over to the night market to look for souveniers. Best not to say what we actually bought in case they're reading but we hope they like our purchases. Quite weird doing Christmas shopping in August though!

Next morning we decided to treat ourselves and had a full english breakfast, wasn't exactly like Dad makes it but was good enough and we were ready to head out for more shopping. Headed over to the large covered market to look for more presents, again best not say but got plenty of haggling practice. Presents bought we went to the post office to send the rake the of presents we've amassed home. Was suprisingly painless to do as well, found a nice guy who spoke good English. We gave him all the stuff and he found a box and wrapped it up for us. All we had to do was fill out a few forms and then pay for the postage (and ouch best part of £40 for 3kg of stuff!). We might try and hang on to the rest of our gifts from now on!

Loads lightened we had a good lunch at the same place as yesterday, Tom learning his lesson ordered the cheese burger and was very happy. and Charlie had her last ever Pho Bo (sniff sniff!)

After lunch we set off for a little walk and achieved very little other then seeing a new part of the city. This was very nice though and we were happy not to spend anymore as its getting pretty tense as to whether were going to have enough Dong to see us out of Vietnam!

That evening we returned to a restaurant from two nights ago and had a really nice meal of spring rolls, crispy noodles and sautee duck. Very happy to finally have a meal that fit the title of last meal in a place we headed to the cinema.

We treated ourselves to another film this time "Cowboys and Aliens", fairly forgettable to be honest. The highlight was easily Harrison Fords explanation for why the Aliens were hording all the gold. "What they gonna do? buy something?" after four weeks of being asked to buy something this reduced us to hysterics in the cinema.

Unfortunately a nice last night got spoilt on the walk back home. Crossing the road Charlie's bag got snatched by some t*** on a scooter. He even had the gall to sneer at us while he drove away down the road. It was a real shame but fortunately he picked the best time possible to grab the bag since it had a total of about $20 and zero valubles in it. So for that we were kinda grateful and hauled ass back to the hotel to cancel Charlie's credit card. Shame about the bag though...but lesson learnt.

Really fun time exploring Vietnam and some incredible experiences but this country is bloody hard work to travel especially to try and minimise getting ripped off with EVERY purchase. Were looking forward to Cambodia!