Good Morning Vietnam, and Xin Chao to one and all.

I arrived at Ho Chi Minh airport at about 11am since they are 1 hour behind China. As I exited the airport I tried to locate the bus stand to get a local bus to my hostel in the backpacker area of Pham Ngu Lao. As I attempted this I was greeted by numerous taxi drivers telling me bus no longer runs etc etc. It was ver similar to what I experienced in India and greatly differant to what I had experienced over the last couple of months!!! Eventually I located the bus and 3000 dong was the fare (about 10p) to take me virtually directly to my door. However the journey did take about 45 mins due to severe traffic and the biggest number of motorcycles I have ever seen in my life...... Once in hostel I had a wander around to get barings of place and found everybody here to be extremely firendly and apporachable. Darren (friend from UK) turned up that evening at about 9pm and we ventured out for some dinner and a catch up on whats been happening both on my travels and back home. The first time you cross the road here it is a case of just stepping out into traffic and walking slowly across while the motorbikes dart around you. Everybody tells you this is how it wokrs and stragley it does (although a guy in hostel a few days later was hit by a bike and spent the day nursing his injuries in the dorm, poor sod!!)

The next morning we booked trips to Cu Chi tunnels (from Vietnam war) and also the Mekong Delta river trip for next few days and then headed out to get a motorbike taxi to the Reunification Palace. Motorbike taxi was great fun and although streets are chaotic and appear suicidal there is deffinately some kind of method to the madness and it all seems to work (once again that said I did appear to see a motorbike crash every single day I was here, some minor scuffs a couple full blown multi bike take outs!!). Once at Palace had a look around outside and decided not to go in since did not look anything too special to us and instead got a cycl tour of the city from a couple guys hagning around outside palace. These tour guides spent the whole tour pointing out massage parlours to us and saying yeah happy massage, you like boom boom? In my pure innocence I presumed this to be a Vietnamese form of massage technique!!!........... due to the unforgettable massage in Delhi massage parlours were currently off the menu!!! After an hour of tour we were taken to the War Remnants Museum and dropped off here. Very interesting place giving full insight (although maybe one sided) into the war that took place just 30odd years ago, however at the same time very disturbing with some of the photos which were on display here.

Went out in the evening for a few beers that night. The next morning we were due to be at reception at 7:15am to head to tunnels. Neither of us woke and Darren was awoken by the staff at the hostel and he got up. The staff then proceeded to shake me whilst darren was punching and throwing elbows at me. I was totally oblivious to all of this and continued my merry little sleep. (OK when I said I had a few beers the night before maybe a few turned into a few more and then followed by a few more for afters, see I wasnt lieing I said a few!). Now to me somebody being punched and shaken and not moving would indicate some potential seious problem but to Darren it meant nothing and off he trotted to the tunnels (thanks pal). When I did awake the staff told me about not being able to wake me and even gave me a refund for bus ticket!! Crazy people my own fault and still they refunded see what I mean about great people, cant see that happening too many other places!!!! I was absoulutely gutted to miss tunnels but given time I had to travel was confident I would still be able to see these at some point. That evening we met a couple Irish guys in pub we had seen night before and played some pool before heading off to a funky dance club called Gossip.

The next day I was up and about early and this time ready for the bus to take us to the Mekong Delta. When we arrived we got on a boat and as we were departing shore we crashed into another boat..... This was going to be a journey to remebr I could tell already. Some very ropey driving going on in this boat and was happy when we got off this and proceeded to some smaller canoes which would take us down the narrow bckwaters of the Mekong. Fantastic fun and really strange to have all this tucked away in backwaters when just across the trees and reeds was a big city on other side of river, very surreal. Then stoppped off at a village and had a selction of fresh fruit which was fantastic (so much variety and as I was to find out during my stay in Nam the fruit always tastes so fresh, far better then anything available back home...). We then proceeeded to another village and were shown how a local sweet called 'Coconut Candy' was made. Really nice tasting and this was follwed by a meal in the restaurant. The main dish they were pushing to sell here was a local fish called 'Elephant Fish' which is only found in rivers here apparently. The big thing about this was apparently once cooked the fish stands up and is only fish to do this??? When brought to table it ws in a big wooden vice forcing the fish to be upright, now dont get me wrong but surely any fish placed into this would therefore stand up?!!! I assume what they mean is it stands up in the pot when cooking but who knows what this crazy jungle fool was muttering on about, tasted good and thats all that matters where Im concerned. Were due to do a two day tour on river but due to what we had already seen and because Daz only had limited time and because it began to poor down with rain we decided to head back that day and got a boat (bit more of a speed boat type) back to Saigon, which actually turned out to be really good as got t see loads of lcal villages and locals fishing on way.

Following day myself, Daz and guy from dorm called Tahoe from New Zealand decided to head to Waterpark so grabbed a taxi here, and once here we also met a Swedish guy called Emanuel. Really odd because tourists are given their own changing area and lounging area which is security guarded all day long?? Very strange and bizzare to see tourists being treated better then locals........ Loads of slides here and all of us being big kids had great fun here. In the wave pool we decided to have a 'sitting on shoulders' wrestling match and we did not realise the attention or havoc that this would cause!!! All of a sudden all the locals (and there were loads due to it beig a public holiday) were facing us in a circle and cheering and sreaming, totally crazy atmosphere but excellent fun. After this the locals joined in and the lifeguards spent next hour or so constantly on whisltles trying to regain order in the pool which exploded into a crazy frenzy of splashing and general chaos, whoops a daisy!!! GREAT FUN!!

That evening we all went out with a couple of local girls (Yuki and Ngoc) from a restaurant we had eaten at and went totally overboard on ordering bottle after bottle of dark rum which we were drinking on the rocks......... (seemed like a good idea at the time). Had planned to hire bikes the next day but due to not getting in until 8:30am after grabbing breakfast on way home we slept until about 5:30pm!!! Doh! Anyhows good end to stay in Saigon and after this we were heading to Dalat in the morning for some action activities.

Watch this space!