Hello Everyone!
It is hard to believe that I have been here nearly a week now, and already there is so much to update you on! We arrived safely in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam around 7pm on monday evening and managed to get a taxi from the airport straight to our hostel, Yellow House Hostel. There waiting for us was a letter from my friends that we were meeting out here, it was all very exciting! So off we went to meet them in a restaurant down the road from our hostel - there was lots of hugs and excitment!

Ho Chi Minh City was so busy, i have never seen so many scooters in all of my life, there are millions everywhere! There was no such thing as giving way to pedestrians or even using the correct side of the road, they loved the use of there horns - most of the time they they just beeped away for no apparent reason at all!! Crossing the roads was an experience in itself, the first time we crossed a busy road we screamed the whole way across!!! I am happy to say now that we are some what more experienced...you just keep crossing, never stop and just let the scooters weave around you!! Despite how busy Ho Chi Minh City was there was still something very laid back about the locals way of life.

On our first day in Ho Chi Minh we went to a waterpark and the local market. We also decided so book our 2 day Mekong Delta trip, that would being us all the way to Phnom Penh in Cambodia which was to be our next destination. We booked it for the following day as we thought we my aswell start moving on as there wasn't an awful lot to actually do in Ho Chi Minh City, it was great to be able to see the city.

The mekong delta trip was amazing! Most of the travelling was via boat acorss the mekong river. We departed at 8am from Ho Chi Minh City to Cai Be. In Cai Be we had a boat ride to enjoy the view of the Cai Be floating market were locals were selling, buying and exchanging goods from their boats. We then walked around to see local producing goods such as orchard and rice paper. We got a free lunch, which we were told was pork, but that was very debatable!! There was also live Vietnamease tradional music playing. After our "pork" lunch, we had a boat ride through a village to see the peaceful tranquil life of villagers. The natural setting of the Mekong Delta was stunning, all the vegetation was so lush and green. We then had another boat ride to Vinh long were there was a coach witing for us to transfer us to Chau Doc were we were to stay over night.

The next day, we had to leave by 7am for our rowing boat trip to vist the floating houses with caged fish breeding, a village of cham ethnic minority, andmoslem mosque towel weaving. The rowig boats we were in were hilarious, any sudden movements and there was no doubt about it, you would be in the river!! It was good fun though and being able to see locals way of living and their houses first hand really interesting, very sad though at times though, as i am sure you can imagine how poor some of the living standards are.After our rowing boat trip we had another 2 hour boat trip to the vinh xuong border and after the boarder another 3 hour boat trip to Lek Luang ere we would have a transfer to Phnom Penh waiting! On the final part of the boat trip we got talking to some guys from Essex which was good fun, and we have all stayed together in Phnom Penh , it has been nice to have a large group of people.

We are staying in the area called Lakeside in phnom penh which is a backpackers area. Cambodia is avery beautiful country, even despite the poverty of locals. Our hostel is situated over a lake and there is a jetty with hammocks to lie out on, it is so peaceful and has a really nice atmosphere. Tommorow moring we are going to the Killing fields and the s-21 prison here in Cambodia. Then on tuesday morning we are moving on to Siem Reap and Angor wat to see all the temples, it is meant to be amazing so i am really looking forward to it.

Well, i must dash, i have a hommock waiting for me over the lakeside!!! I really hope you are all well, keep me posted with news from home. I miss you all very much! Take care.........xxxxxxxxxxx