Luan Vu Guest House Ho Chi Minh City

We're on tag team blog again. Rachel: After a long bus journey from Nha Trang on Friday we arrived safely into Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon, though many people still call it Saigon). The bus dropped us into the touristy backpacker area, District One, which itself is actually known as Saigon. We found a budget hotel with a spare room and checked in. Once we'd freshened up we headed out for a bite to eat and a wander around. We were really tired so had an early night with the plan to get u...

BANGKOK We got in our first taxi out of Bangkok airport and within 20 mins our driver had fallen asleep at the wheel during rush hour..after a few pokes and several sniffs of a dubious looking smelling salt we were on our way again - arrived at D&D Inn Kho San Road, checked into our ant ridden room and so immediately left and went for a massage to relax us...got led upstairs and told to strip - lauren was lucky enough to get a male masseur who particularly enjoyed resting her head in his ...

We arrived into Vietnam and well happy to be away from Bangkok. By all accounts Bangkok is a hole of a place!!! The flight only took around an hour and what a difference that hour made culturally and geographically. The people in Vietnam are so much nicer, they are all smiley and lovely. Another massive difference was the transport!! They are on motorbikes everywhere! The only cars really on the road are taxis ferrying us 'Westerners' from the train stations and airposrts to hostels, or tour ...

11/01/2009 We had to be up pretty early for our flight, so early that when we came downstairs to checkout, the night hotel staff were still all asleep on the floor! As I was not great still, we'd opted for a taxi from our hotel rather than getting the Vietnam Airlines bus to the airport. We got there pretty early, checked in, and had to wait for one plane to go before ours. It was a pretty tidgy plane and as soon as we'd had a drink and a quick snooze, we appeared to be on our way back down a...

13/01/2009 Today we were taking our Mekong Delta trip with the Sinh Cafe. We were up early so we were there in plenty of time to work out the bus situation. But no worries, it was all very organised. There was a huge crowd of people outside the cafe as we arrived, but as each bus came up, the destination was stuck on the side and people soon filtered onto there various buses. We were going to see the area around My Tho and Ben Tre, and some of the other surrounding islands. The drive was quit...

15/01/2009 Chris realised that he needed some more passport photos done, as he wouldn't have enough for the various visas we would still need to get. We asked at the guesthouse and the directed us to a place around the corner on the main road. We wandered along until we could see a shop with "Kodak" plastered along the front. Chris got his picture done, and we decided on an hour processing for cheapness. We wanted to go to the War Remnants museum that shut during the middle of the day. So if ...

14/01/2009 Today we were taking a second tour with Sinh cafe, but it was only a half day. Having been out the day before with them, we were now used to the scrum outside the cafe. Our bus driver was the same as the day before, said hello, and was still joking about his "Tiger beer", but the road rage luckily seemed to have subsided. Our tour guide for the day was a little easier to understand than the day before. On the way to Cu Chi we stopped halfway for the obligatory stop at a factory for...

He bien nous voila finalement arrive a Ho Chi Minh dans le sud du Vietnam. Nous somme arrive hier soir vers 22h, la ride de taxi jusqu'a notre auberge a ete assez impressionnante - euh je sais pourquoi ils disent de ne pas louer de char ou de moto sans un chauffeur... c'est le chaos total. Enfin... nous nous sommes rendu a l'auberge en un seul morceau. En marchant dans la ruelle vers notre auberge devinez ce qu'on a croise... un maudit gros RAT! ouf premiere image en arrivant y'en a un qui es...

Here are now my pictures from Vietnam. Please have a look and enjoy.

This is my first day in Saigon. I have only walked around to get an overview, see the river front, see the daily street live. Nothing special.