Good Morning Vietnam!!!

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Dear Blog,

Woke up feeling so excited. I have been dreaming of visiting Vietnam for so many years that I couldn't believe that I was actually going to see it in the flesh. Me and Rachel used to while away many an uneventful night at the Radders pretending to be american commandos whilst cooking up fish and chips for the punters. Ah my mis spent (read sad) youth! Anyway, after a lovely lie in I caught the bus to the airport and endured a terrifying journey through the traffic. I have since come to understand that it is customary to drive like a lunatic in Asia, but at the time it was safer just to shut my eyes. After that the rest of the journey was fine. Checked in with no problems and the flight was fine too. Flying in over Saigon was pretty spectacular as it is a massive city and with the huge Saigon river running through it it looked pretty impressive from the air.

I met Dave at arrivals which was a lovely surprise, and we caught a cab to a swanky hotel (with a massive bath- bliss) that he had booked us into earlier. Spent the evening catching up with each other and wandering around the streets of Saigon soaking up the atmosphere.

The next day we spent the morning mooching around Saigon which is a pretty nice city, stopping for a coffee and reading the paper and having my sandals polished (and getting totally ripped off in the process), and trying not to get run over by the mopeds which are everywhere. To cross the road you just have to walk slowly into the oncoming traffic while they drive around you beeping their horns for all their worth which basically goes against all your survival instincts. But you soon get the hang of it otherwise you would never cross the road. After three hours walking in the sweltering heat we made it to the War Remnants Museum alive only to find that it had shut about 30 seconds before. So a bit disillusioned we caught a cab back to the hotel to cool off, and spent the rest of the day just relaxing.

Am starting to flag now so will have to write more later. I'm off to Halong Bay tomorrow on a tour of the islands which should be cool,

Bye for now

Lindsayx

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