11 Feb - An early start at the homestay today. All the traders get moving about 5:30 in the morning, to get to the markets for 6. I guess in the old sampan days this was a fairly quiet affair, but times have changed and a chorus of two stroke engines gently roused us from what had been a very good night's sleep. We had a quick breakfast - coffee, rolls and omlettes, and then said goodbye to Bao and Huong, our hosts. As we puttered out of the harbour, en route to...

The next day we woke up at sixish. After packing our bags we went downstairs to check out, and had planned to meet our bus at the hotel. There were a bunch of Aussie backpackers still giving it stick in the alleyway outside, and clearly enjoying the relaxed approach to liquor licensing in Saigon. It was a pretty good effort, as they'd been at the same bar table when we checked in the day before, and the Tiger beers were still flowing ... we watched in amazment as...

Today was a little bit of a non-day. Part of the problem with arriving for Tet is that it lasts for such a long time! We hadn't made any plans to progress on from Saigon, and many of the travel bureaux (particularly the ones recommended by the Lonely Planet as good!) were closed for a few more days. We decided to move hotel, down to the Pham Ngu Lao area, which is really backpacker central in Saigon, and then to have a wander around & plot our next move. We ...

So we woke up in the morning, booked for a trip to the Cu Chi tunnels - the scene of some of the heaviest action (ground and air) in the Vietnam war. We strolled down to the travel agent's office in Pham Ngu Lao (well actually we took a taxi, as we'd slept in) and had a whole ten minutes to spare before the 8AM start. We let the guy know we'd be having a coffee next door, which was our first mistake of the day, and the bus left without us. This wasn't a problem t...

Well it's been a little while since I've written anything - being in Africa was strangely disconnecting (no power, phones or water on some days, and no broadband at all!). I've made some notes, though, so will try to respospectively post some thoughts. Anyway, on to the present - so after a couple of days acclimatising to Asia in Singapore, it was north to Vietnam. The planning, as always, was possibly a little bit short-horizon; we rang round in a slightly fren...