6.20 am alarm.

Heads in bits but we made it to the city tour. We waited at the pick up point for a further hour. Our first experience of Vietnam time.

The stops on the tour:

- War Remnants Museum

The tour guide was a nightmare. He barely spoke any english and just followed us around reading the captions from the photos and asking strange questions that were mostly incomprehensible. Matt told him twice that we thought it would make for a better trip if we just looked ourselves but he didn't get it. And as for the war museum it just had lots of pictures and exhibitions telling you what they were but not how and why. We left with a hundred questions about the war rather than answers.

- China town

We walked to see two buildings which the significance was unknown but the tour guide kept saying "The population is mainly Chinese, this is because of the name Chinatown!"

It became hilarious as we tried to trap each other in situation where we were forced to talk to him.

We thought we were supposed to be visiting a few more places but all of a sudden the van stopped and the guide said 'Trip over' as he open the door. So we just got out and that was that. You can't win them all. However, we were pretty glad when the train wreck morning ended.

By this time the tiredness from the airport sleeping and the night out were really taking its tole but this did not stop a trip to Saigon's famous guitar street. This is a street dedicated to Luthiers (guitar makers) and guitar shops of a high quality. It has come to the point where Matt can finally buy a guitar as we will not be flying for a few months. We must have looked in 20 plus shops when Matt held the one. He knew instantly that this small handmade acoustic had to be his. On enquiry the price was 3.5 million dong. £101.80....."We'll take it!". There was a slight problem. There were no ATMs in sight and we were unfamiliar with the withdrawal situation in Vietnam. We didn't know how much we could get out, how much would it charge us, which were the best banks to use it even were ATMs common to see? Finally in the distance we spotted one but it wouldn't let us have cash. Even after multiple card attempts.... Nothing. Then it froze and wouldn't release our main card. NIGHTMARE. After a few panicked minutes of hitting every button there it spewed out the card. Reluctantly we tried again and the machine gave us only 2million dong (£60) and charged us £6 for the privilege. This withdrawal had to be made twice in order to purchase the guitar. Vietnam is going to be pretty expensive if these charges are common, so we must find a cheaper way of getting large amounts of money.

Char has now lost Matt to his guitar.

M & C xxxx