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  Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Tuesday, January 15, 2008

We have spent the last four days in Vietnam after taking the express boat from Cambodia along the Mekong River.  We loved Cambodia and would recommend it highly.  We spent the last couple of days touring around the city, visiting the museum, which was a beautiful building and buying a new camera at last (ours was stolen in Sihanoukville along with four memory cards and pretty much all of our photos from northern Thailand onwards).  We also visited the killing fields and the S21 prison (a former school) that the Khmer Rogue used whilst in power during the late 70's.  Both of which were indescribably tragic, sad, brutal and moving.  

The boat journey to Cambodia was pleasant enough, with some photo opportunities and took around 5 hours.  We spent one night in the Chau Doc, the port (or restaurant/hotel/bar) that the boat drops you off at.  Not too much to do in the town there so the next day we headed to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) via a bumpy bus journey.  We met an elderly gentleman on the bus who took it upon himself to teach us some Vietnamese, as he just so happened to have his English - Vietnamese dictionary and his very old military police translation dictionary on him.  What a nice man!

We both loved Ho Chi Minh City.  We stayed in the 'backpacker' area called Pham Nga Lao, which had some cheapish accommodation and some okay bars, cafe's etc.  We bumped into a friend, Jayne, we met in Koh Chang in Thailand, pretty much as soon as we got there, which was cool.  There was lots to do and see in HCMC, and the place had a pretty good vibe to it.  Most people (contrary to some reports) were friendly.  Other than one of the cyclo drivers who tried to completely rip us off for a short ride and didn't really take us to where we wanted to go.  Stupidly we didn't check the price before getting in, so he ended up asking for $7 (it should of been about a tenth of that).  I told him that he was a bad man, and refused to pay such an exorbitant amount, however we we still ended up paying over the odds by giving him about $4. 

We walked around the center of the city in one day, taking in the sights, the war museum and the Ho Chi Minh City museum etc.  We spent yesterday morning shopping in the Saigon Tourist Centre (like Selfridge's) getting some very needed new clothes and essentials (new, clean, soft clothes with no holes - great).  We had some delicious Pho for lunch, which is a local staple, of meat broth with vegetables, it really was excellent - yum!  Then Mike, Jayne and I took the short flight to Danang, which is on the east coast, about half way between Hanoi and HCMC , and a taxi to Hoi An from there.  Our taxi driver took us to a hotel he recommend (as many were booked up) and was generally quiet helpful.  The hotel is AMAZING!!!  The room is beautiful, antique french colonial style furniture, soft comfortable bed, clean, private balcony, a bath (very rare), room service, a pool, free internet and bike use, you even get kimono robes and umbrella's should you need them.  Heaven!!  The staff are really helpful and friendly too, we are lording it up for a couple of days at the bargain price of $22 a night - great!!  Apparently Hoi An has some of the best and cheapest accommodation in Asia, and it seems so.  The town itself is beautiful too, with many of the old buildings being spared from the recent and devastating wars.  Last night we went for dinner in a fantastic restaurant where we dined like kings for about $4 each.  Then onto a late bar for drinks, we decided to give the pool/beach party a miss as we are going to go cycling around the town today.  May have a massage later too, after all the cycling etc think we will need it!!

Hope all is well back home,

Lots of love

Shelley and Mike
xxxxxxx

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