We didn't see Vietnam until our wheels touched the runway at Hanoi airport. The rain soon stopped but the cloud still remained and it was more like a smog that remained for the rest of our stay in Hanoi.

We stayed at the Sheraton Hotel which was really good and were able to arrange tours with the travel desk in the hotel. The next day we did an all day tour to Ha Long Bay which took 3 hours to drive to the east before catching a boat to tour around the bay. This is a limestone area and we were taken to one of the islands where there is a cave right through it. The whole area of the bay is dotted with limestone rock formation. We had a meal on the boat, elephant ear fish and about 7 courses. We were on the boat for 4 hours and the weather was clear and sunny with a nice breeze. The next day we had a full day city tour, we went round all the Ho Chi Minh memorials in the morning and in the afternoon after another Vietnam meal in a local restaurant we walked around the Old Quarter of the city. It was very hot, very crowded, very busy and all the shops were very well stocked with goods. There was a brass street, book street, iron street, tin street, gold street etc. and book street only sold books etc. Tony played badminton in the street with some ladies who just took their own nets along and hung them to trees at the side of the pavements that were already marked out as badminton courts.

We then moved on to Ho Chi Minh city (Saigon), this was far more westernised and much more modern than Hanoi. We had an old French colonial hotel called The Majestic on the Saigon river, but its location was right in the centre which would enable us to walk around the city. The Sheraton at Hanoi was quite a way out of the centre so we were not really able to walk around. Again we made arrangements with the hotel travel desk and took private tours while we were there. The first night we went to see a water puppet show which was like nothing we had seen before, very amusing and lovely music on local instruments. From there we were taken to a river boat for an evening meal and a trip down the river.

Next day we again had the hotel car on a full day trip to the Mekong Delta south of the city. Again we had our own boat (as we did in Ha Long Bay) and visited the various islands and saw the different fruits growing and again we had a local meal. On the islands we were carried in horse drawn carts and down hand carved canals on small boats as in the picture above. Our last trip was to Cu Chi Tunnels that the Vietcong dug during the war. We managed to go into some of the tunnels, however, some were just too small and you could only get along on your hands and knees, it was an insight into just how small and supple the soldiers were. Thea's tummy was not good so we only went straight there and back, but the tunnels were quite informative although we had to watch a highly provocative propoganda film beforehand.

We did some walking around Saigon and even managed to cross roads without getting taken out by about 2000 scooters. The traffic was something else and it was no good if you were a nervous passenger as they were going in every direction. There was obviously some sort of system to the directions that they took and who went where, but it was hard to see and we were absolutely amazed that we managed to cross a street on our own. After doing the sights we finished up at a local market and again this was something else, there were that many stalls it was hard to walk round and if you stopped you had a job to get away from the sales girls, but there were some bargains.

As this was not a planned trip (Vietnam) and we only saw the two major cities we were quite pleased with what we saw, but feel the country had more to offer than what we saw, as we were shown other areas to visit which were more countryside or beach places rather than cities. We wouldn't go back to Hanoi but Saigon you could easily spend time there as it was more westernised and easier to walk around.

We are now in Bangkok enjoying our last few days relaxing and will put Vietnam photos on later as it's not easy uploading photos.