Blue River Hotel Ho Chi Minh City

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Because we extended our stay in Tam Hai Island, we only got one night in Saigon. So unfortunately, we didn't get to visit the Cu Chi Tunnels, which was basically the only thing we were looking forward to doing in Saigon. Saigon rocks the motorbikes like nobody else. There are some 3 million of them and they're all crazy. We discovered the key to not getting killed is to make right turns whenever we reached a corner so that we never had to cross the street. We got a very thorough tour of one s...

Just got off the night train and in need of a shower, more soon

By bus from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam was $10!!! It was cheaper than a Vietnam visa which was $36 USD. Speaking of money, both Cambodia and Vietnam seem to have two currencies. Their own, and the highly popular USD. You pay a bit more if you use US dollars unless you basically carry a calculator or have a calculator head (not I, I'm afraid). My phone doubles as a trusty currency converter, but right now, in my wallet I have 4 currencies. USD, Thai Baht, Cambodian Riel a...

Yes folk's that's right 3 million bikes get around this city each day. The road, the footpath same same as is said in this region. We had met some people who said the chaos was way more than Hanoi, they were right.

We arrived early, however on a delayed train which allowed us to arrive in daylight. On this night trip I was woken by Helen saying "someone is wrestling a Rooster next door", therefore not a dream as I originally thought.

As for Saigon as the elders call it, a chance...

We arrived in Saigon in the late afternoon and wandered off to our hotel. We organised a trip for the next day to the Cu Chi tunnels and didn't do much else because we were pretty tired (except deal with the police about my camera). The next morning we were at the travel agent at 8.10am for a bus that left at 8.15 to go to Cu Chi. I bumped into an Australian couple who had been on the bus with us from Dalat and asked them if they'd noticed anything strange on the bus. They said that they didn...

Yesterday we had our final lunch in lovely Hoi An, then hopped a bus 30 minutes west to the Danang airport. Danang is a weird little town- it's on the gorgeous Vietnam coastline, and they're building 5 star resorts on the beach. Yet right across the street is...how shall we say...less than charming. All the existing buildings are communist-era and rundown. It felt like putting a Club Med in South Central LA. Our flight to Saigon (also known as Ho Chi Min City, but no one calls it that) was ju...

So this is the end of our Vietnam adventure. For the last 2 days, we have been exploring Saigon. It's not as bad as we had thought when we got here, but it certainly isn't a thrilling city. As far as we can tell, the locals don't do much for fun except buzz around on their scooters. Hardly any movie theaters, the National Theater doesn't even bother to have a performance on a Saturday night, there isn't a lot of shopping, no real sports other than dog racing...it's one of the few big cities w...