Saigon

In Saigon, we stayed at a family run hotel down a side street away from the main bustle of the backpacker district, which was great as we got to see some real people everyday. It was quite entertaining to watch the neighbours sitting in their living rooms singing kareoke!!

We both really liked Saigon, it felt different to Hanoi, a bit more 'spacious' and a bit edgier, with more motos though, which we thought would be impossible until we arrived.

On our first day we visited the war remnants museum,which houses the most horrific pictures I've ever seen. As with most of the museums we visited in Vietnam, there was no real context or background to the Vietnam war, just images and snippets of text about the ''ïmperialists''. Yes, the whole place felt very one sided but it's hard to argue with the images of people who are still horribly disfigured from the effects of agent orange.

Despite it's fairly recent history though, Vietnam and its people seem to welcome all visitors, whatever their nationality, with eagerness. Nowhere has progress been so evident as here. Everywhere you go, people are building houses, shops, businesses and making money.

The next day we visited the Chu Chi tunnels just outside of the city and saw the tiny networks of tunnels and traps used in the resistance.

Our guide was really interesting and gave us a brief summary of Vietnamese history from which we learned more than all our museum visits combined!! Throughout our time in Vietnam, all of the people we've met have been really candid about the future of the country and the government, which actually surprised me (think I had my own preconceptions about what people may or may not want to say). The guide made it clear that everyone in Vietnam is grateful to ''Uncle Ho'' but despite that they don't feel truly ''free'' because they still aren't allowed to vote in free elections - a sentiment that was echoed by many of the people we met....

While on the tour, tourists were given the chance to have a go on the shooting range... After weighing up the options we decided (rightly or wrongly) to have a go. As we know nothing about guns we just picked one at random and walked over to the gallery...

Turns out that the one we picked was the machine gun that they used in Rambo....

Needless to say that we both missed the target, much to the amusement of the guy loading the gun. I think the scariest thing was that it just felt like pulling a trigger on a toy gun....

I think the best thing about Saigon was just people watching. The bustle in the park during the evenings and at 6am as people did exercise classes, skateboarded, did martial arts, tango dancing...

In the evenings we sat in a bar at the corner of a major junction and saw so many random things including a family of four and a FULLY GROWN golden retriever on a moped; A family of four on a moped with the eldest kid slumped over the front asleep; Two minor bike crashes and a robbery....

All the guide books forewarn about robberies in Saigon - and I suppose they're actually right. It wasn't a tourist that we saw robbed though - it was a local.
The girl had stepped out on to the pavement to take a picture and two seconds later the camera was swiped out of her hand by a passing moto driver. I think the girl must have been a track athlete as she actually gave chase into about 10 lanes off on-coming traffic. She didn't catch him though....