Ho Chin Minh (Saigon) 21-24th April

Well the journey to Saigon was real smooth until we hit the flood water, which was about 5 minutes after we left Mui Ne. The rain was monsoonal and the water rose so quickly people had no time to prepare! We were happy to be in our bus well above the flood water, those riding motorbikes weren't so lucky, many had stopped at the side of the road to do quick repairs on their bikes, others had just given up and sat in shops waiting for the waters to go down. All comfy and raised up on our bus we had felt untouchable until we arrived in Saigon and realized our bags particularly mine (Alex) was soaked with dirty flood water (I had just had my laundry done the previous day!). Soph got away luckier than me and even after another go in the laundry my clothes look like they may have been dipped in dirty toilet water. At the moment I'm going with the sewage water stained look, I think it might catch on!

Saigon is a crazy city, If you think people live fast in London Saigon is like London sped up! One of the best (and only slightly risky) things to do is get a moped taxi across the city, the rules of the road are more or less non existent and it makes for an interesting trip. We got one of these to reunification palace, the picture of this is up (not very impressive) we thought it might be a bit grander than this. After that we walked to the war remnants museum to get a Vietnamese view of the Vietnam War. It certainly was a Vietnamese view but it really hit home to us some of the horrors of the war and war's in general. At lunch after this we were both a bit subdued.

On our last day we went to the Cu Chi tunnels just out of town. This is where many local villagers hid and used guerilla tactics against American GI's. The ingenuity of them is amazing but to live down in the tiny tunnels must have been horrific, even if the Vietnamese are half our size.

Love Alex and Sophie xxxxx