Tan Hai Long 2 Ho Chi Minh City

... silence constantly violated by Billy's incessant jabbering. Classic comment: "When I young man, I have many girlfriends. I a playboy! Yes, I a playboy! But now I have wife. My wife Vietnamese and she very ugly. But I love her, because she very good cook!" He also stated outrageously, and completely deadpan, that some Oriental races have narrow eyes because they eat so little compared to Westerners and therefore have to really strain on the toilet. He offered this pearl of ...

... past. Just like in India where I felt guilty for the British atrocities but most people were forward thinking<br><br>I went back to the hotel for an afternoon nap and had a walk to collect my train tickets. I nearly got killed about 3 times. There are no crossings, one just has to be confident and walk across the busy roads and hope for the best!<br><br>Now I have spent two hours on the internet organising my blog and updating facebook. Good night!<br>

... buses and car plus up to 4 million motorbikes whose drivers follow the rule of no rules, is fascinated to look at but impossible to handle. There is hardly any shiny new commercial buildings over the skyline, what it has is millions of narrow and tall flats, mostly 4 to 6 stories high &#8211; the city is so crowded that each lot is only 8 to 10 feet wide, may be 25 feet deep. They look really funny. But I met some interesting people though. My CS host, Dung (don&#8217;t laugh. In Vietnam ...

... in water levels and access. Wet season may mean rain, but it also means access to more remote fishing villages and canals. Most trips will include interaction with local communities through visits to schools, businesses and sometimes to private homes.<br ...

After traveling forty-five hours on four different buses, eight hours manning a motorbike &amp; countless iced Vietnamese coffees, I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, my final destination in Vietnam, on Saturday, August 23. The tour agent that we booked our bus ticket through assured us that the bus ride to Ho Chi Minh from Dalat would take approximately seven hours. Twelve hours later, the bus navigated its way through the three lane roads of former Saigon, surrounded by a massive concrete ...

... so the family wasn't interested in anything on the menu besides the beer. Konrad and I had a few ok tofu dishes and after a few more drinks we were all a bit sleepy (and jetlagged too, I would imagine), so decided to head back to our hotels for a nap/dip in the pool. <br><br>Konrad and I weren't able to reserve a room in our favorite guesthouse of all time (California), so we had booked into a more expensive option a little farther from the Metropole. We ...

... didn't let go before the zip reached the end and was spun up in the air doing about 3 somersaults before hitting the water. They also had a long, steep homemade slide, made out of concrete and lined with bathroom tiles. Damo was first up to try this one, and they made him sit in a rubber ring as he went down, this made him go at supersonic speed, and he really hit the water hard and winded himself, and was covered in more bruises the next day. Didn't stop him going back and ...

... br><br>Our walk back to the hotel involved a few bouts of tears from me (still pretty anxious!), although to be fair I did suffer a near-death experience! As I was crossing a main road, the lights changed suddenly and I was left stranded in the middle of the road (long-legged Jon had already made it to the other side), facing hundreds of speeding mopeds with no intention of braking. There was no choice but to stand still and wait for the lights to change again. I ...

... was like London in comparison. The roads were a nightmare to cross. Main roads would have 8 lanes, with no public crossings, with constantly flowing traffic. Everytime you crossed a road you were risking your life. Imagine the game Frogger, but for real. You just had to step out and HOPE the bikers would swerve around you or stop. It was actually quite fun].<br><br>Inside, the cathedral was split into 7 levels leading up to the front 'altar' (basically a giant sphere with an ...

... had been widened for tourists and some that had been left as they were. We didn't make it very far in the original tunnels but suppressed our claustrophobia enough to make it through the widened ones. We were rewarded at the end with a shooting range that had different kinds of machine guns, the AK47 being Mike's weapon of choice. <br>On the way back to Ho Chi Minh we ...