Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City by the government when North and South Vietnam were reunified. However ask a local and it will always be Saigon...

We arrived late into Saigon and once checked into our hotel went out for a meal with our friends from the homestay Sonja and Kimmo. They'd been in Saigon previously so showed us a nice, cheap, little restaurant. They were leaving the next day so after a good chin wag and some beers we swapped emails and said our goodbyes. The next day was New Years Eve and we weren't sure what would be going on for it. After speaking to some other backpackers we were still none the wiser and so decided to go for a wander up to the palace and see if anything was advertised. We still didn't find anything and when we got to the palace it was closed for lunch so to kill the time we had a look round the big market and got some lunch on one of the small stalls. Then we headed back to the palace which this time was open. The Reunification Palace is famous for troops from the North dramatically crashing through the gates in tanks and taking control of the palace, ultimately reuniting the North with the South. The palace itself is really modern and the most interesting part is exploring the basement where the president built a war room and hideout. This was all very interesting but a bit too geeky for New Years Eve so to compensate we went up to the Sheraton Hotel's Sky Bar for an amazing panoramic view of Saigon and 2 for 1 cocktails. From our vantage point we could see a stage been erected in the street below and hear the speakers being sound checked, it was pretty obvious what we'd be doing for New Years Eve now...

As it was going to be a pricey one that evening we had a cheap tea and with lined stomachs headed to a cool little bar round the corner from the street party. The bar turned out to be the perfect warm up with good house music and midgets, which for me screams tonight is going to be a good, good night. The street that followed was good but also slightly surreal. At first we couldn't find any alcohol to buy and then as the clock counted down to midnight and we were ready to party the whole crowd cheered and then left!! All was not lost though as the bars round the corner from our hotel kept the festivities alive into the early hours.

New Years day was another slow one as I nursed a hangover. We headed to an empty Chinatown and spent the rest of the day popping in cafes for much needed rehydration. We called it a day quite early, mainly as I was feeling quite delicate but we'd also booked a trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels the next day. The Cu Chi Tunnels unfortunately turned out to be another example of mass tourism at its finest. First of all we were herded off the bus to, in the words of the tour guide, "admire the handicapped" and take pictures of them as they produced mosaic art work. The day got worse as we were rushed round the tunnels and missed most of the explanations and demonstrations as the tour guide didn't wait until we we'd all caught up. The only slight highlight was crawling through remakes of the tunnels to get a feel for how Vietnamese soldiers would have felt living down there for months on end. We finished our day off with more war references with a quick visit to the war musuem. The museum gives quite graphic explanations of how America left the country scorched by Napalm and ruined so many lives in the process with their horrifying chemical warfare. Namely a chemical called Agent Orange was poured over the country which has left future generations with infected land and water and severly deformed children. We left Saigon again more informed about the history but also slightly depressed at the horrors of the war there...