We arrived in Ho Chi Min City to the anticipated hustle and bustle of cars, motorbikes, vans, lorrys and just about anything else with a motor. The place had an incredible energy that was totally infectious as well as a little scary. We found a bus to take us into the main part of the city and braced ourselves for the mad rush that awited us.

We found some cheap accommodation down a back street alley which felt like luxuary after some of the places we had stayed in. It was the first time we had seen wachable TV in a couple of months so we enjoyed a couple of movies and English TV after days out and tours. The local people are incredibly hard working, friendly and hospitable. It seems to be a world ruled by women who you definately would not want to get on the wrong side of. Some of the older ladies have formed a kind of mafia. They will be shouting, screaming and whakking each other with brooms one minute and then hugging each other in fits of hysterics the next. Whoever said that the Vietnamese like to keep everything behind closed doors had obviously not been to HCMC. The foods and local flavours are the best we have tried so far. There is alot of love put into the food and interesting mixes of flavours. We love the lemon grass with chilli and chicken in cashew nuts. It's definately inspired me to try out some new cullinary skills when we get home. I have also become slightly addicted to iced coffee. It has enough caffine to keep you awake for days but tastes divine.

We found the history of Vietnam fascinating and spent a day being driven around by an old local guy on a cyclo sight seeing. The highlights were the war museum and the surreal scene of seeing the local sites in our ponchos whilst the daily monsoon was bucketing down. Within minutes of the heavans opening up there was a foot high river flowing down the road. It's quite funny to see the Westerners flying around like scared rabbits whilst the locals carry on cycling there bikes and the children come out to jump in the puddles with just their underwear on.

We tried to get an understanding of the Vietnam war whilst visiting the war museam but the war had such devestating effects on the locals that much of the information given is full of propoganda and not all that useful. The pictures shown of the after effects of the Orange Agent and other toxins used in the war are heart breaking. You also see the effects in every day life with third and fourth generations born with missing limbs and mental dissabilities. We decided to buy books to get a better idea of what the war was all about and signed up to a couple of tours - The Mekong Delta in South Vietnam and Cu Chi tunnels.

The Mekong Delta is like nothing I've ever seen before, it's effectively a city and community living and going about their daily lives on an array of rivers. It's a maze of rivers with floating restaurants, houses, locals on paddle boats selling everything from coffee to eels to coconuts to boats. It almost feels like that movie Waterworld where everything revolves around the water. Its a unique, inspiring place where people make the most of their situation and get on with daily living in such an extreme environment. They make a 9 - 5 job at home look like a walk in the park.

As part of the sites (all along the river systems) we went to the coconut candy factory and witnessed the end to end process for making these divine coconut sweets. We bought a pack but devoured them in a couple of days. We also went to the honey farm and had some tasty honey tea. I found my self putting a huge python around my neck whilst Trevor fumbled with the camera (purposly) to take a photo. I don't thing it will go down as the best experience of our trip.

Following this we rowed down some smaller branches of the river with locals on a small boat (with our Vietnamese hats on of course) and got a feel for what its like. The old ladies are amazing. They paddle these boats down the river with huge great oars that are bigger than them. The boats are loaded up to the max but it doexn't seem to faze them.

Towards the end of the day, and a few monsoons later, we made it back to the mainland and got lifted by two locals on motor bikes to our home stay accommodation half an hour away. It was a crazy ride but we survived to have a lovely night with the local people in their home stay along the river. They cooked a beautiful meal for us and revealed a couple of the secrets to some of the beautiful flavours we keep tasting. We were joined for much of the evening by a local called Tree who spent a lot of time singing to us and expaing Physics in a mixture of Vietnamese and English. He was very entertaining.

Early the next day we went cycling around the local markets and saw all the food on offer. These markets bring a new meaning to fresh food. They kill their animals at about 3AM and have them chopped up and ready to buy by 4:00AM. One stall had every single part of pig laid out on the table ready to be consumed. The fish were still flopping around, chickens, ducks, eels, rats, mice are all skinned and and looking very much still in tact. It's pretty tough on the stomach first thing in the morning. The following day we cruised some more on the boats and spent time at the floating markets which were awesome. People would buy their entire week of fruit and vegetables from these markets and you can also pick up a mean noodle soup and coffee to get you going in the morning. We had the rest of the day to obsere all the interesting sites including the rice noodle making factory. We also saw one of those land fish flopping around on the land which was pretty cool.

The next day we decided to go and see the Cu Chi tunnels - this was a really good way to get a better understanding of what went on in the war and how people lived. We were lucky enough to have a Vietnamese war veteran as our tour guide (he fought with the south Vietnamese people allied with the US against the Viet Cong) he was an interesting, passionate guy who was full of knowledge which he shared with us. The tunnels are crazy, it's a network of about 200 km's of underground, hand dug tunnels which the Viet Cong used as a base to attack the south. They actually lived underground and did everything from cooking, to smoking to giving birth to launching attacks against US troops. The terrain here was extremely dense and the tunnels were brilliantly camouflaged. We later got told this was one of the main reasons the toxic chemical agent orange got used. It's a super potent weed killer that was used in an attempt to remove the foliage that was being used as cover for the Viet Cong. I guess it partially served it's purpose but knowingly or not it had terribly brutal affects on humans. It's been classified as the most potent chemical known to man and the after affects have led to millions of people been horrifically affected. I can't even begin to describe what we saw it's just awful that 1st, 2nd and 3rd line people are still suffering from the affects of agent orange. It was also interesting to hear that more than 65% of the population are under 30 due to all the fatalities with the older generation, needless to say orange agent has since been banned and destoyed.

We saw all the booby traps that were used against the US - pretty hectic and gruesome and we crawled through the tunnels and hid in the tiny camouflaged dug outs. The war must have been terrible as over 3 million people were killed in this gruesome battle. I think many of the Vietnames believe that the war was a pointless battle and many people are quite perplexed as to why it happened. There is still alot of animosity towards the US with the older generations however the youngsters are embracing the capitalist world with arms wide open.

Vietnam is blissfully easy to travel about in with a network of buses that travel up and down the county stopping at the main hubs along the way. We left HCMC for Mui Ne and spent a couple of days being wind swept on the beach and visiting the sand dunes. After the intensity of HCMC it was nice to chill out for a couple of days in this sleepy town. We found alot of Americans and Australians had moved there to escape the rat race. It was a little quiet for me but you can see the appeal. We had great fun at the sand dunes charging around on quad bikes and flying down the dunes on plasic mats. We finished the evening watching the sun set over the dunes which is how I would imagine it would look in the Sahara Desert.

We hopped on another bus up to Delat and were greeted by an incredibly odd town where the people seemed to be very strange. It's situated up in the mountains and had a very French feel about it. It was one of the last places to loose it's french colonisation and still holds the palace that the old French royal family stay in when they come to visit. We spent a day on a city tour seeing some lovely views of the montains, lakes and waterfalls, checking out the temples and seeing the palace The temples were quite interesting as the Vietnamese have formed their own religion. It's preominantly Buddhist but there is a Catholic feel to it as well.

One full day was enough in Delat so we got on another 5 hour bus ride the next day up to Nah Trang. We loved it here. We found a hotel right on the beach and spent a week running up and down the promenade, swimming in the sea and generally catching up on some sleep. I didn't realise how exhausting travelling could be until we stopped for a few days. Fortunately this coinsided with the start of the Rugby world cup so we were ably to catch the opening ceremony and a couple of matches. Luckily England and South Afica do not play each other which saves any potential arguments :)

We found a bar that advertised for Volunteers to teach English to the locals close to the hotel so decieded to take a look at what went on there. It was very informal and just a case of signing your name the day before and turning up for a couple of hours. We both went along and had a great time teaching a variety of people aged between 10 - 40. There wasn't really any structure to the lesson so we just chated with them and helped with their pronounciation. The school was closing for two weeks the following day so a group asked if we could carry on teaching them whilst the school was shut. It was a perfect oppertunity for us to learn more about Vietnam and for them to practice their English so we met at a coffee house for a couple of hours every morning and had a blast with them. They are so knowledgeable and their level of English was extremely impressive. They were extremely appreciative of us taking the time out to help them but it felt more of a joy than a chore for us. It came at a perfect time for me as I had been toying with the idea of training as a teacher prior to this and it just reaffirmed that this was a career path i would like to follow.

After a week in Nah Trang we felt rested and healthy and ready to embrace the 48 hour journey up the coast to Hanoi. We experienced our first sleeper bus between Nah trang and Hoi Ann which isn't nearly as bad as it sounds. The buses consit of two layers of three rows of beds. The beds just about fitted us on but you wouldn't want to be much taller and the extra weight we had lost whilst travelling was definately a blessing. We left Nha trang at 8 PM and woke up in Hoi Ann 12 hours later. Genius idea :)

We had a few hours to kill in Hoi An before continuing up the coast later that afternoon so we visited a couple of the tailors. The clothes were devine and far too enticing to not purchase anything so I ended up with beautiful tailor made trousers and Trevor had two shirts made for him. Everything was ready in 2 hours and fitted perfectly. We met a couple further up the coast who had their wedding dress and suit made there at bagain prices. This was a little strange however as they weren't engaged. I guess it pays to be prepared. It's impossible to leave the place with out a few extra items in the back pack. We killed a couple more hours by walking around the town and playing playstation in a cafe. We then caught a bus up to Hue and a further 15 hours later finally arrived in Hanoi.

Hanoi has been brilliant but I will write about it in my next blog or else I will bore you to sleep. We fly to Thailand tomorrow and meet up with Mum in Chiang Mai on Sunday which we are both very excied about.

Thanks again for emails and updates from home, it's lovely to hear from you.

Till next time. goodbye x x x