Well we had to catch an early bus to Ho Chi Minh City from Dalat. We were one of the last ones on the minibus so we had to only 2 seats that were left, Zo sat on a single seat and I sat next to an Australian lad named Geoff, across the aisle from Zo. The conversation in the bus was already well underway between those around us, it was not difficult to work out what the topic was…Geoff. He looked like he had literally been beaten to a pulp, with a large black eye, swelling all around it and cuts and crazes all over his face and arm closest to me. He had actually been drunk and fallen off his moped. Thought it was funny that he blamed it on a dog. The rest of the journey we mainly spoke to Geoff, Shal and Kerry (also from Australia) and Tom and Lisa from New Zealand. They all had a lot of good things to say about their countries and gave us some good advice for when we are there. When we arrived in Ho Chi Minh in the early evening it began to rain and rain hard. There was no way that any of us was willing to go searching for accommodation in that weather and the bus had conveniently dropped us outside a bar, I don't need to tell you what we did next. After we finished our drinks and had been given a pep talk by an Ozzy living in Ho Chi Minh we decided to go in search of a guesthouse he had recommended, ponchos at the ready! The rain never let us so we ended up eating at the restaurant directly opposite the guesthouse with Tom and Lisa. It turns out Tom and Lisa had two seats booked on the same flight as us back to Bangkok.

The following day we had booked a trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels with Tom and Lisa. The tunnels were used in the Vietnam War by the North Vietnamese to try and attack the Americans and South Vietnamese. They also used it as a good vantage point to try to take over Saigon, now known as Ho Chi Minh City. It was named after the Northern Vietnam communist leader after the north won the war. The tunnels were very fascinating; they were also very small and cramped. We got to see many of the deadly booby traps the North set during the war and finally at the end of the tour we got to crawl through one of the tunnels, roughly about 100 meters long. I thought it was tight to begin with but it only got tighter, there was one point we really had to stretch out. God knows of the Vietnamese managed to stay down there for days and weeks at a time. In the afternoon we had small walk around Ho Chi Minh and make a stop at the post office to send some bits and bobs back home. The post office was right next to the Notre Dame Cathedral which, along with post office as well, was a building worth taking a picture of.

The next day we caught a plane back to Bangkok; this marked the end of the Vietnam leg of our trip. At the airport we ran into Slava and Karina again, they were getting a different flight but got a coffee and bite to eat with them. Once back in Bangkok we caught the Airport train into the city, if only we had known about this when we arrived the first time. So much cheaper, quick and very comfortable. Once in Bangkok the worry about the floods was easy to see. Lots of the shops had built concrete walls outside that we literally had to step/climb over. The travel agent we eventually used had even brought a rubber dingy to work with him just in case…no joke! When searching for a way to get to the south islands, it seemed the only option, well the only cheap option, would be to catch a bus. Once we had booked the ticket we headed for the MBK shopping centre to spend the rest of the day. I was quite glad we hadn't found this on our first visit to Bangkok otherwise I'm not sure I could have convinced Zo to go and see anything else. Before we got onto the bus Tom and I popped to 7eleven to get a couple of compulsory bottles of Chang for the journey. Before this leaving home on this trip I had never seen a dead body, when we got to the outskirts of Bangkok I saw my second. Again it was due to a traffic accident. A person was just layout on the road with a white sheet covering them. The bus played the film 'Drive Angry' which was good enough to burn some time before I felt sleepy.