Lavender Hotel Ho Chi Minh City

... did glean from this display was that the tunnels were often on four levels (2 metres, 4 metres, 6 metres, 8 metres) and could at times be as narrow as 80cm x 80cm. There were all sorts of rooms, such as dorms, bedrooms, toilets, and meeting rooms. Amazing to think that people managed to survive like this, sometimes for weeks on end, without going above ground.<br><br>After this, we went back outside and had a wander round the forest, stopping to look at various sites and exhibits ...

... spent there the more disbelief as I felt as I learnt moire about the war. I didn't know that Americans kidnapped many civilian children, raped and disemboweled them. The US army also sprayed 100 million litres of toxic chemicals that wiped out rainforests, entire towns and caused some horrific birthing difficulties including missing limbs and deformed faces. People here though are very philosophical and tend to look more into the future than into ...

... They would participate half-heartedly but would clam up as soon as I steered the subject to nowadays&#8217; politics in Vietnam (and of course I shouldn&#8217;t have done that). <br><br>For a city that big and that well-known, I found out that there are not that many interesting sightseeing spots for its large number of visitors, besides tons of drinking spot or massage places, how professional they are I didn&#8217;t try to find out. The city is crowded, the traffic, with so ...

... including Pandaw, Bassac, Le Cochinchine, and Toum Tiou. There are also a few smaller boat operators whose trips are wholly within Laos and shorter Cambodian and Vietnam adventures. Cruises depart throughout the year but routes can vary because of seasonal ...

... remained positive. We rushed down to the lobby and quickly hopped into a taxi to zoom back to the Metropole and look for the wallet there. I ran up to the room and.... my wallet was sitting on the bed. Ah, the power of positive thinking (not by me, but by everyone else!). <br><br>Relieved and hungry, we decided to head to lunch at a vegetarian place we had visited three and a half years prior. Apparently, the buffet breakfast at the Metropole was quite ...

... journey having a laugh. At the end of another long day travelling we arrived in a room in a hotel down some dark alley but we were just so glad to have somewhere to sleep. We figured we could find somewhere a bit nicer and a bit closer to the city in the morning. We did, we checked into spring guesthouse while the tuk tuk driver waited for us, then went to The Killing Fields and the old school which had been turned into a prison. They were really interesting and well worth a visit.

... have a drink and they all had zip lines and swings, which Damo had to try out of course. He was really good on the swing, and looked like he had once had a job in the circus. I was tempted to have a go, but then this big American girl let go of the swing straight away and landed face first in the water, very dazed and coughing up blood, with her bikini wrapped around her neck not her body. So I decided not too. I thought about the zip as well and then the girls boyfriend went on it ...

... quite as impressive as Paris but charming all the same). Then we went to the War Remnants Museum, showcasing some of the effects of the Vietnam War (or the American War as it's called here) in particular the damage caused by napalm and other chemical weapons. It was quite depressing, not helped by the fact that I was fraught with anxiety still waiting to hear my uni results (although Jon did get quite excited, as boys do I suppose, by all the US tanks and helicopters ...

... taking some photos of the building from a square in front of the church doors, a teenager on a motorbike was cut up by another driver in the traffic in front of us, swerved and crashed. The kid was thankfully okay but his bike was a complete write off. I think I saw more road accidents in Vietnam than anywhere else - the roads in Saigon were crazy! No wonder as apparently Saigon has 8 million inhabitants and 10 million motorbikes! [Rich: The traffic on the roads were crazy ...

... the roads an exciting event and people watching can be quite entertaining, particularly the group aerobics in the park every evening.<br>We went to see the Cu Chi tunnels just outside Ho Chi Minh. They are the largest tunnel complex used by the Vietnamese during the war, supposedly over 200Km long. They are very complex and narrow and we got to go into some tunnels ...