Sorry for the delay guys, but with Bec starting school and catching up on all the washing, I haven't had a chance to load the photos and blog from Vietnam! Now with a few minutes to spare, I thought I'd let you know what we've been up to.

Sam and Michael arrived with Bec and off we jetted to Vietnam - the first big overseas trip for Sam & Michael. We landed in Ho Chi Minh where Sam and Michael faced their first obstacle - converting to local currency, the dong! When the machine refused to give them $5000 dong, they realized that they were trying to withdraw 30 cents! They proudly returned announcing that they had withdrawn one million dong - which Rick told them was great - $75 bucks was going to get them a long way on their holiday!!!!! This conversion drama followed them around the whole trip, but also ensured that they didn't spend too much as they went.

Ho Chi Minh was great - busy, bustling and full of motorbikes - you cross the road with a combination of closed eyes and steady determination, but once you get used to it, you realize that the motorbikes will move around you if you don't make any sudden moves. We made it to the War Remnants Museum, which had a pretty graphic display of the "War of American Aggression", with photos, tanks, guns and lots of info about the Vietnam war. Looking at photos of the aftereffects of agent orange etc was pretty upsetting, but we all agreed that we were glad we had visited the museum, and that we had learnt a lot. We had our first dose of spring rolls, which we felt we had to then trial in every restaurant on the trip for comparisons sake and our first chicken pho - the national soup dish, which was lovely, fresh and satisfying.

Our next stop was Hue (pronounced Hway!) which was a lovely town - much quieter and more countrylike. It's a walled city and has a lot of historic sites to visit. We stayed in a lovely old hotel which had been there since the colonial times and hired a group of motorbike riders to be our guides and transport for the day - they put one of us on each pillion and we went on a fantastic tour of the walled city, including pagodas and the lake.

On the drive to our next stop Hoi An, we climbed the mountains and made a rest stop at an old war site, which was covered with scattered old bunkers. As we emerged from our van, a horde of local women from the local leper colony (I'm not kidding) fell on us like locusts, with their trinkets, postcards and other bits and pieces for sale. Michael showed just what a hard bargainer he is, by buying everything they had - he ended up with about 20 bracelets and was only stopped from buying more by Sam, who had managed to keep her head about her. The usual cry from the women is "For me and my baby" but you begin to realize this is a selling technique when the woman saying this is 60 in the shade! So aggressive were some of them that I tried to take refuge in the van and even paid one woman to leave me alone!!

Upon finally extracting ourselves from the women and racing off down the mountain in the van, we counted what dong we had left and compared bracelets - you know what you're all getting as souvenirs now!!!

Hoi An was an old river town, with great art and custom made clothing their notable trades. We all found paintings and knickknacks to bring away, and the gang managed to find a lady who would hire out her precious motorbikes for us to tour the town at our leisure. Sam made a break for it the first time she got control of the bike, and took our intrepid tourists on a tour of the local food market - where I don't think the locals were too happy to be dodged by speeding bikes through their meat, fruit and vegetables. Serious head injury was only avoided by the use of helmets, as Rick remembers quite a number of items bashing off his head as they zoomed through the stalls.

Hoi An was incredibly hot and humid, so we tried to cool off in the hotel pool, however, when the water is warmer than the air outside, relief aint so easy to find. We had great meals and continued our quest for the best spring roll in Vietnam. From here it was back to Danang and then a flight to Hanoi.

Hanoi was the busiest town we visited - traffic was unbelievable and the heat oppressive, but it's an exciting town. It was only a brief stop, as we were transported in a sardine can to Halong Bay - a world heritage site and magic place. We and a few other tourists took an old junk called the Red Dragon for an overnight trip on the bay. We kayaked, explored caves, toured a local fishing village and looked at fish farming in the bay. Bec's biggest highlight was jumping off the boat into the bay for a quick swim on the return voyage.

Back to Hanoi, and Sam had some serious shopping to do. In between haggling, we sampled coffee which had been regurgitated by weasels, walked for miles through the old quarter of town, and ate at Koto, a restaurant which trains street kids to be chefs, waiters and bar staff and gives them a hand up in the world - a pretty fantastic place. It rained a lot in Hanoi - and when it rains in Hanoi you get soaked.

By the time we got back to Singapore, we had all had a case of traveler's tummy, we were tired and were looking forward to getting home. But Vietnam is an amazing place and well worth the visit. The people are wonderful, warm and hospitable, the countryside is spectacular and the cities a bustling and exciting experience.