I'm getting to like Saigon, as we get used to it. The biggest challenge is crossing the road. There are thousands upon thousands of scooters buzzing along every street, every alleyway, and pedestrians appear to have no rights whatsoever. The trick is to step out into the road confidently when the flow eases off slightly, and keep going at a steady pace in a straight line. So long as you don't do anything unpredictable, the cars and bikes will steer around you. You have to walk along the edge of the roadway most of the time because the pavements are all cluttered with goods for sale, noodle stalls and parked scooters. But even if you do find an unobstructed footpath it doesn't help you because the scooterists will be riding along that as well... You might be wondering how the native Saigonese deal with it. They don't have to. They've all got scooters! Only tourists walk anywhere.

But the people are lovely. Always helpful, always polite. Everybody we've had to deal with has spoken enough English to get by...lucky that, because I don't know one word of Vietnamese yet (note to self: look up the words for hello goodbye & thank you). There's people trying to sell you stuff everywhere, and cyclo riders wanting to whisk you away on pedal powered suicide machines, but unlike in certain countries I could mention, they know what the English word NO! means.

We did some sights today. There's a park of sorts across the Pham Ngu Lao river of death from where we're staying which is mercifully traffic free, so we walked along it to the Ben Thanh Market. Eurasian Tree Sparrow was my first tick therein. Some quite large butterflies fluttering around the acacia trees too, but they wouldn't keep still long enough for a look. We've seen swifts & parrots today as well, but I can't be specific because if I get binoculars out of my bag I'll soon get flattened by some motorised vehicle or other. One has to be alert at all times.

The market was a big covered hall, a riot of colour and activity within. You name it, they sell it. "Weasel Coffee" seems to be one of the favourites to sell to tourists. They feed the coffee berries to weasels as soon as they're picked...work out the rest yourself...yeergh!

From the market we had a quick look inside the city's only Hindu temple. Very colourful and Disney-looking, the gods and goddess' all had a slightly Chinese look to them. Choking fug of incense smoke even though it was all open to the air.

Then we walked to the Independence (Reunification) Palace. The seat of the President of South Vietnam during the war, the original 19th century building was bombed by the communists in the 1960s, and it was rebuilt as a modernist 60s type building, all open-plan and lots of big glass windows. But very impressive as such architecture goes.

Lunch for me was a big bowl of noodle soup with eel in it in quite a smart looking restaurant across the road, but as always it was very reasonably priced. Robbie had veggie rice rolls with beansprouts and lots of strange leaves which she enthused over. No problem finding vegetarian so far...

Then for more war nostalgia we went to the nearby Museum of War Remnants. I knew what to expect but nonetheless it was very saddening and still shocking even though I've seen most of the most graphic images before. It was all anti-American propaganda and very one-sided, but the displays of photographs of US atrocities and post-war victims of agent orange were nonetheless horrendous. Outside were a number of tanks, planes & helicopters, exciting to those that get excited by such things. I've never seen a Chinook up close before - never appreciated just how massive they are.

We got kicked out of the museum at 5pm prompt, and walked back keeping to the parks as much as possible. They're just dismantling all the Chinese New Year decorations right now - huge polystyrene dragons coated in yellow dried flowers. It must've looked great if we'd been here last week.

A rest at the hotel, then we booked our onward journeys to Cat Tien forest and Dalat at a travel agent at the top of our dark alley. If it works out, we've done it for less than half the price the Forest Lodge Guest House wanted to charge us. We walked to the market at the other end of the park for dinner at a veggie restaurant that was Lonely Planet recommended, but when our first dish came out it was stone cold and not at all what we'd ordered. The staff just couldn't be bothered, they were closing up the shutters on us, so we walked out & went to the place we went last night, but then got waylaid by another place offering vegetarian a few doors before it. Not as good as last night, but quite OK for about £7 for 2 people, including 3 beers...