Well I finally made it to Vietnam and I have to say I like the place a lot. Ok, I've only been to one city but sometimes that can tell you a lot about the country. The hustle and bustle of this city reminds me a lot of India. It's been an interesting week what with getting to a new town, attempts at sightseeing and meeting the odd loony toon along the way, which is where I will start off.

As a solo traveler you kind of get used to having a few meals on your lonesome and in all honesty it's not really that bad. The usual practice is to take a Lonely Planet with you to read, eye up others doing the same and attempt to strike up a conversation. Or you can take a book and happily sit there by yourself reading and savouring your lunch. This was me two days ago after a rather haphazard and stressful attempt to do some sightseeing (more on that later). So I'm happily sitting by myself enjoying a fresh Banana shake and some food and reading my book blissfully unaware of the drunken business looking guy leaning on the bar a few feet away. "Oi mate.....where you from" he asked in a thick Melbourne accent. "England" I replied in my Kentish tones. "Ah the motherland..... I F*****g love that place.....schhtay there I'm coming to talk to ya". At this moment I wondered if I could shove my sandwich down my throat, finish my drink and pay in all of 5 seconds, but alas I was cornered. He stumbles over with 2 Vodka and cokes, one for me and one for him and sits down. I still can't drink for the next couple of weeks so he had both. Anyway he bought me another shake and then began what was an ok conversation to begin with and I though t I may just get through the ordeal of having to talk to this loon.

Then it all went a little odd. He resembled David Cameron a lot to so this added to my dislike. He apparently has an English parent so he though he was qualified enough to then tell all that was wrong with the UK. I read in one of Bill Brysons books that people he meets do this to him and run down the states. As he says, it's not the best way to endear yourself to people. As you may know I never shy away from a debate so I asked him to explain his theory. "Immigrants....you let too many of them in and it's ruining the country". Well with that opener I soon realised it wasn't going to be a rational conversation. I debated back, he wasn't that impressed particularly when I told him that by moving to the UK he would be an immigrant to. He then turned onto other topics such as his line of business. He wanted to build cars that ran on Uranium. Hmmmmm. I asked that considering the amount of cars on the road wouldn't that lead to huge amounts of depleted Uranium waste? "Easy.......we use the waste to help bolster the sea defenses of the UK". Right, ok then. After finishing my second drink I made my excuses and rose to leave. At this point he got up to and shook my hand. Then he pulled me into a massive man hug and whispered into my ear in an emotional tone "Will....when you get back to the UK......help make Britain great again..hic" I'll try my best! He's apparently releasing a book. I think it's called " The Ramblings of a Knobend"Anyway back to reality and Ho Chi Minh City. I had 2 days here and decided to get down to sightseeing as quickly as possible. So after a quick breakfast I headed off in the direction of the sights. It's only a 15 min walk from my guesthouse to the area but after walking for 5 mins in this heat, it wasn't going to happen. So I hopped onto the back of the motorbike and off we went. The driver was a friendly chap who told me all about the places I was off to see except the fact that all the sights I was going to see were actually CLOSED! This he told me when I arrived there. Great! So I had a walk around and then headed back to get some lunch (meeting the random aussie fascist along the way) and headed back out on foot this time to the sights. The ReunificationPalace and the WarMuseum were really interesting and a wicked example of Communist propaganda. Anti American much mmm I reckon so!The next day I booked a tour to go to the Cu Chi Tunnels. I really don't like these organised tour things. Mainly because your stuck with a guide (good or bad) and you're working to their time. Also you get dropped off at various "friends" shops along the way and are expected to buy something. I never do which doesn't endear me to these guys. Our tour guide was ok but he had an unstopable knowledge of cockney rhyming slang which was funny at first and then bloody annoying towards the end. Anyway off to the tunnels. It's history time. The people's liberation army built 120km of tunnels in and around Cu Chi which were used to conduct guerilla warfare against the Americans. It was an amazing place and you actually got to do down into the tunnels for an atmospheric and rather claustrophobic walk about. We then headed off to the Caodai temple which is a Vietnamese religion. It's a mix between Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, Hinduism and Confucianism. A rather efficient idea I thought and space saving having one temple for all. With that ticked off the list we headed back to the traffic chaos of HCMC. Perhaps the strangest thing that happened this week has been the realisation that I miss India a lot. I think it's because the craziness here in HCMC is very similar to India as a whole and despite the crap that happened there......I want to go back. Weird! Anyway that's been my rather random week here. I've got 13 days left in Vietnam so I'm heading north to Hoi An tomorrow. Should be an interesting 24 bus ride and I look forward as I' sure you can guess, the stops at "friends" shops along the way.LatersWill