Good morning vietnam! Sorry i enjoyed it on the last blog so ill do it again. Good morning uk and good overcast day from Vietnam. This blog will for a change be quite short and sweet due to 2 factors. One being that I need to catch up from ho chi Minh and the other being that ho chi Minh activities were fairly minimal.

Let me take you back to the start of ho chi Minh having arrived by plane. Tina's nerves were at an all time high due to the fact that she noticed the Vietnam visas office had got her date of birth wrong although they had cleared both of entrances to the country. Luckily we manage to clear this up with the not so friendly immigration area at the airport and we were on our way.

Our taxi took us to our guesthouse called 'bich duyen' at the heart of ho chi Minh and down a small alleyway full of guesthouses. It seemed a friendly family run guesthouse but I grew tired of the lad that greeted us every single day as he would always ask me "good morning (regardless of the time of day), how are you? Where do you go today? Ok see you later have a nice day".
It seems wrong to speak out of term but I mean he actually said all of this everytime I saw him and when I went to give him a response he would just continue onto "ok see you later have a nice day". I think my mood was slightly shaken due to us having to climb the steepest staircase known to man just to get to our room.

We did our usual and went for a quick drink of the new Vietnam beer (choices ranging from saigon beer, beer 333 or beer hoi- i will come to this later) and a look around the city. The walk around the city led to us getting lost and of course Tina found me to blame for this. The difficulty with our arrival in Vietnam has been due to the weather as it has pretty much rained since we arrived. Although it is monsoon season so we shouldnt be so surprised, we still do the typical English thing and act surprised it rains and complain to random strangers about the clouds looking like more rain.

The following day was a write off as Tina was feeling pretty rough to what she believes was the dreaded food poisoning so it was a laze around and not much to say. The day after was a large trek around to see the reunification palace and then onto the war remnants museum. We did the initial photographs outside the museum (my best top gun impression next to the planes) and then had a look around. As you can imagine it was quite brutal given there were stories of how American soldiers in Vietnam had bombed villages, executed many and used their unspeakable firepower against masses. Some of the images were very graphic with beheaded bodies, mutilated corpses and then the plain facts of the bombs and weapons used. It's difficult not to be shocked by as it's alot easier to watch platoon and the many Vietnam war films that still don't have the same feeling as seeing it up close and personal in photo form. I took some photos of the facts, quotes from the war and artillery which comes close to it but I couldn't bring myself to take pictures of some of the bodies as it just felt wrong. Maybe next time I quote apocalypse now "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" I might actually have an idea what this napalm can actually do to human beings.

Anyway completely out of context to the visit to the museum I had agreed previously with Tina to go and watch the twilight film with her if it rained as we discover there was a cinema there. Unfortunately the gods conspired against me and my poor eyes and I had to sit through the drivel of watching a pastey vampire get a human girl pregnant while a werewolf was in love with her. Heather I hope you are reading this as I have to say what the hell is going on and why do you love it so?! Its nonsense put it that way, how Tina can slag off star wars (im talking the originals here not the crap last 3 with ja ja binx rubbish) and bill Murray films when you have vampire and werewolf love triangles go on.

Anyway to my favourite ho chi minh- drinking and funny stories, a gasp of surprise from you all I'm sure. Best thing to do in Vietnam is disregard normal tourists places and go to their local Market areas for drinks. It's basically a little open plan room with one draft beer pump with a little old lady at the helm and plastic chairs outside. The pump is for their local beer called 'beer hoi'. Its a nice taste but it's so cheap due to the fact they deliver straight from brewing it but it only lasts for 24-48 hours before it goes off. Locals usually drink it with ice (it's still wrong with ice even if the Vietnamese do it) but she had it cold on the pump. It's about 3% which can vary but the many locals and backpackers come for this alone. I loved it and what was even better we had about 14 pints between us (Tina obviously less of these) and our bill came to £2.40, yes that's right £2.40! I already have an order in from Ed for the coddenham country club but im thinking it might be easier to kidnap the little old lady. I don't know her name but her wrinkled complexion and the way she poured my under 20p a pint will remain with me forever, a robbie c salute to you raisin like Vietnamese woman. As we were there a while we got chatting to an English chap who had lived in Vietnam for a year and taught English to the local school (still can't believe he gets $25 per hour for the pleasure and he didn't need to speak any Vietnamese) and we got chatting to 4 Vietnamese old guys who can be seen on Tinas photos. I learnt to count to 3, learnt cheers in Vietnamese and how to say excuse me older lady. we got invited to his family's house for dinner and music but sadly we were off the next day so I had to decline and plus the old lady and her beer hoi wasn't attending anyway. We tried the local snacks of rice type crackers and quails eggs which about 10 of the eggs and they dip in salt all for about 40p.

Amusingly we got to witness the police turning up and the show they put on. The bars are not allowed to have people sitting in the road by the bar but as it was so busy people had plastic chairs on it drinking. The police don't punish the drinkers but instead arrest the chairs. They take all chairs on roadside an the bar has to pay to get each one released. Funny enough the police charge 80000 dong per chair to release them but the chairs cost 90000 dong brand new- simple math and kind of sums of the police here.

Sorry I appear to have written a lot more than originally planned but it'd sometimes fun to re-live moments from a few days ago. Last point is regarding the traffic. Oh my god, the traffic I have never seen anything like it as it's mainly motorcycles with people not following any logical code. I'm surprised to survive everytime we cross the road here it's just crazy. I can't describe it but I will try and get a video of it at some point. I have been told that to pass the motorcycle driving exam all you need to do is drive along the line a figure of 8 three times and you have passed. To be honest I'm surprised they even do that and many motorcycles carry about 4 people on, crazy crazy stuff I tell you.

Anyway that's me done for now, I will be quickly following up with another blog Nha trang as we have now done that as well.

Robbie c out for now.

Also Ipswich 5-3 win, cheers!