Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

On 21st March, Lucky collected us from the hotel for the final time and dropped us to the airport, about a 30 minute trip. After we'd argued at length with the lady at the departure tax desk ($25 each!) that Liam's 23rd August date of birth meant that he is 11 and not 12 so we should pay the reduced rate for him, we made it through to departures. I picked up a journal in the duty free shop for Cliff for his birthday the next day and we were soon on the flight to Saigon - or Ho Chi Minh City as it's now officially known. We'd sorted our visas online from Bangkok so it was just a matter of handing over some more dollars and a photo each to be let into Vietnam.

We headed straight to the hotel where there was a mix up with the suite I'd booked as a treat for Cliff's birthday, with them wanting us to pay for an extra bed. When there wasn't an extra bed. And on top of that they tried to charge us for breakfast for Liam, when they had clearly stated under 12's were free, and then said oh no, it's under 11's that eat free (when they'd looked at his passport). Well, it might seem a small thing but I'd had about enough of people trying to squeeze a bit more money out of us. Westerners are considered rich (and they certainly are that by local standards) and are rightly or wrongly considered fair game for overcharging. And this wasn't a private hotel but a large chain. But the stark truth is that that neither of us have a job waiting for us back in the UK and if we are going to manage to complete this trip within our budget, we have to watch every riel, dong and dollar. Staying in some cheap places (our minimum standards are that they have to be safe and clean) means that we can splash out a little now and then for special places and occasions.

Anyway, the suite was lovely and they even sent some flowers up the next day for Cliff, to wish him a happy birthday. Free of charge. There was a small pool on the roof which Liam enjoyed and was great for cooling off after another hot day in the city.

As we had a short time here and wanted to see as much as we could, we found a travel agency and booked a full day trip for our second day. The morning was spent at the Cu Chi Tunnels which the Vietcong dug to hide in and fight from during the Vietnam War. Liam and Cliff tried one of the ground entrances out for size - I wouldn't have got my hips down there :) Later we crawled down a length of a widened tunnel and it was difficult to understand how the Vietcong would have spent sometimes weeks underground, in these dark and tiny tunnels. The video we watched there was quite informative but I would not have wanted to be an American sitting there; balanced and non-partisan the commentary was not!

In the afternoon we headed to the military museum, where they had some captured US tanks and planes, a quite vivid display of the (ongoing) effects of Agent Orange and a really good exhibition about the photographers who covered the conflict.

Our next stop was the Reunification Palace, the presidential palace and the site of the official handover of power during the Fall of Saigon in 1975. The tanks that crashed through the gates are still here. The building itself it pretty swanky, having been re-built in a modern style after having been bombed in 1962. Although the president didn't have a swimming pool (I asked and was told he didn't have time to swim; he was too busy running the country), he did have a nice cinema. And a bomb shelter. Our last stops were the Notre Dame Cathedral, a smaller version of the one in Paris and the impressive Gothic post office building opposite - designed and constructed by Gustave Eiffel. Inside is a large portrait of 'Uncle Ho' - Ho Chi Minh; Communist revolutionary and statesman.
Ho Chi Minh City (re-named from Saigon in Uncle Ho's honour in 1976) has a population of 8 million people and it's reckoned 6 million motorbikes. The traffic is unbelivable and we have learned to just cross roads the Vietnamese way - walk steadily, in a straight line, don't run and the bikes will swerve around you. The good thing is that you don't see any road rage. Although Liam and I did witness a bit of a stand off between two moped drivers who were both trying to use the same bit of the pavement (clearly because the road was full), in the dark, without the use of lights.

We had three nights here before heading off on our Vietnam adventure. We'd booked an open bus/coach ticket that would take us in a fairly northerly direction to Mui Ne, Da Lat, Nha Trang, Hoi An, Hue and into the capital Hanoi. A total of 1145 kms (711 miles) in a straight line, although we were taking a couple of detours. It would be a bit of a whistle stop tour because we were flying out of Hanoi on 5 May for Beijing and we'd arrived in Vietnam about a week later than we'd originally planned, after our extra trip to Bangkok and having taken our time in Cambodia.