Yellow House Hotel Ho Chi Minh City

January 27- Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)January 28- Cu Chi TunnelsJanuary 29-30- Mekong DeltaJanuary 31- February 3- Mui Ne

Hi All!! I'm here! I arrived safely after two long flights. My first flight from NY to South Korea was OK. I wasn't able to reserve a seat online so I got to the airport 4 hours early hoping to be able to switch my seat. I did and they gave me the best seat. A window right at the bulk head. Except there was about 5 feet of room because the emergency door was HUGE. I wasn't so lucky on my next flight to Vietnam. However, I did try my first Korean dish. I forgot the name but its a classic food ...

Due to time constraints I decided to get a flight down from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City (formally known as Saigon). My flight was with Jetstarand due to leave Hanoi at 0910 for the 1hr 45min flight. Having had
little sleep on the Sleeper train from Sapa I dozed off almost as soon
as I got into my seat (which the crew had given me next to an emergency
exit so I had extra leg room!). I was half awake as we taxied to the
runway and began our take off. Then the fun began. I was woken fu...

Vietnam has been, uh, different but good so far. It's amazing that you can hop in a vehicle and drive for about 8 hours and be in a COMPLETELY different world. Vietnam is no exception. There's so much more development and urban areas than Cambodia and Laos. It's good. Saigon was okay. It's a sprawling city with about 6 million inhabitants, and EVERYONE owns a moto. Crossing the street is pretty full-on intimidating. The War Remnants Museum was very interesting and extremely graphic. I'm talki...

Arrived into Ho Chi Minh City a bit late due to traffic although that is to be expected as it's a huge city. On arrival we were approached by a tiny woman who worked on behalf of the city and she showed us where I our hotel was - for free. Amazing as not much here is free.

We were given a room on the third floor again - we seem to have bud luck with rooms on top floors! After a shower and change of clothes we ventured out onto the streets and had dinner at a great little restaurant. I...

Well the journey has begun. After years of planning, dreaming, scheming and way too many hours working we have finally started our epic year long world trip. We left Brisbane 6 days ago which was an experience in itself. Getting a vietnam visa is the biggest mission in Australia! Especially for unorganised people like ourselves. When we arrived at the Brisbane airport a Qantas she-devil informed us that we would have to buy a flight out of vietnam to be allowed into vietnam, afffffff indeed. ...

The bus was a minivan affair with one person allocated one seat, which I thought was novel! I was on the back row next to a very old man who managed to fall asleep within 3 minutes of us pulling away. On my shoulder. On my other side was a man who took a bit of a shine to me, so much in fact that he asked to marry me! Well I think that's what he meant but seeing as the entire conversation was conducted in sign language it's hard to be sure! Whenever the bus slowed down enough, food sellers wo...

Got into Saigon yesterday and struggled to find a hotel. Ended up having to stop in a shithole at $14 a night which i wasn't too chuffed about. Have changed to a dorm accross the roa today though in another hoste s o should be OK. I'm so impressed with Saigon! I thought that it might end up being like Hanoi, but its more vibrant, cleaner and just that little bit more european, its ace! Bumped into Paul from the Hanoi Backpackers (as i have done in every town so far. Keep bumping into peopple ...

So we got the bus to Ho Chi Minh City, I had to get my breakfast pancake to take away (ER btw, hi!) as it arrived exactly when the bus did. We had a whole coach all 40+ seats to ourselves for most of the way (until we picked up about 4 Cambodians), was plush! We had to get a ferry across the Mekong at one point and there was a local bus next to us, it was a minibus with about 40 people inside and 10 people on the roof, looked much warmer than our air con affair... Cambodia-Vietnam border was ...