Saigon

Next stop the newly renamed 'Ho Chi Minh City', still refered to as 'Saigon' by everyone who matters. While it is no longer the capital city it is the largest city in Vietnam, the most important economically and the most westernised.
As we arrived in Saigon we were met by the heavy rain that seems to be whispering 'stupid tourist, why would you visit Vietnam during the rainy season' and so decided not to play our normal hotel finding game that goes something like this - how much is it - really, next door we can have it for much less - well ok, can we see the room - thank you we will come back in a minute. Instead we just chose one quickly to save us a soaking.
We had two complaints about the room, one was that the air con we were paying for didn't work and second that the door would lock. After a night's issues gave us new fire to go out and find another room. We trekked around Saigon for what felt like hours from one dirty overpriced room to the next, eventualy deciding to just go back to our original room and complain. Any gueses as to the problems in our room? well the door didnt lock because the do not disturb/please clean sign was getting trapped in the door, and the air con needs to be turned on to work, good use of a morning huh!

Next was to the revolutionary museum, this place was almost entirely unremarkable, apart from the endless stream of newlweds ligning up to have their picture taken on the stairs which we all found hillarious, especialy when the majority of the men had to where high heals or stand on higher steps so as not to be overshadowed by their taller wife.

After an unbelievable value lunch of a drink, rice, a main meal, soup and a desert all for 30,000 dong (1pound) we moved on to the war remnents museum. This was perhaps the most shocking museum I have ever been to. One must note before entering that in britain we certainly see the american point of view to the war, and in the museum there is a strong vietnamese bias, however even with all this in consideration some of the poictures of crimes commited by the americans are shocking. They dropped a chemical called agent orange, it is impossible to aim this perfectly and so thousands of innocent civillians were affected. Disfigured children continue to be born today as a result of the dropping of agent orange.

We finished off the day with a goat fondue, yes you heard right. Tom and I arrived at this highly recommended restaurant before tiffany. They had no english menue, and no english speaking staff. Tom and I decided to order a beer each while we waited. Clearly they misuderstood and brought a cauldren of soup, or so we thought. We knopw the restaurant only serves goat so presume the large chunks of meet floating around were goat, and the small pieces we were given to dip in were also goat. Personaly this was my favourite meal by a mile.

Day two was fairly uneventful, we went to the laos embassy to get a visa, and this was near enough it. Strangely while going for a walk i bumped in to Jo, a student teacher we had met in Ha long bay. She promised me she would talk us out and show us a good time in saigon that night, and seeing as she walked 15 minutes back to the hotel with me, and then waited in the lobby while i ran up to get toms number so she could call us and let us know the plan. That call never came. Jo, if you are somehow reading this, I hope you are proud of yourself!

Last day in Saigon and we went to see the famed 'Cu chi tunnels' a network of tunnels about 200km in length built to hide from the americans. For me the most amazing thing were not the animal traps they used to catch and kill american soldiers, or the fact that people lived in there for 17 years, or even the fact that girls as young as 12 wielded guns and fought the americans, for me it is that the tunnel entrances are completely open. The americans knew where the tunnels were, and how to get in, but they knew that they were not vietnamese, they would be lost and as good as dead in the 80cm by 80cm tunnels.

That night we went to a nightclub full of vietnamese prostitutes, a worthy way to celebrate our last night in vietnam, next stop phom penh in cambodia...