SAIGON

Caught a local minibus from Chau Doc and arrived in Saigon 6 hours later. Settled in to our hotel before heading out to explore. First thing that we noticed were ...... ummm ...... the mopeds!!!!! Millions of them, all ridden by spotty teenagers wearing really crap helmets called Hongda or Yamada and face masks. Took us a few hours to develop the correct technique for crossing the road which is to simply not look and walk slowly, if one were to look one would never cross the road.

Visited the dentist for a check up (very impressive surgery), had a picnic in the park and then visited the war museum which was the spitting image propoganda wise of Chinese mi-information. Unfortunately it appears that some tourists actually believe some of the ridiculous claims ......

Whilst in Saigon we arranged our Lao visas (very easy) and also visited the presidntial palace and took a day drip out to the Cu Chi tunnels and Cao Dai Temple. Fortunately, our guide was excellent (we don't normally take guided tours as we have found them to usually be rubbish). The tunnels were amazing .... much smaller than I had imagined and having spent some time alone in them I became quite claustophobic. To give an indication of size, I had to take my 1 cm thick camera off my belt to get into one of the entrances ... yes, it really was that narrow. The Temple was also very interesting (if a little weird) but I guess this should be expected for a religeon set up in the first couple of decades of the 20th Century.

Whilst enjoying a drink or two on a balcony bar we saw a kid come running down the street screaming out in Vietnamese .... we thought a riot was about to start as everyone frantically started to clear the pavements moving tables, chairs, baskets, goods, mopeds etc into their stores / restaurants .... turns out that the police every now and then (usually when short of cash) have a crack down on people using the pavements. All a bit bizarre really as the pavements are NEVER empty and can't actually be walked on!