Good Morning Vietnam!

We figured leaving Singapore with a monsterous hangover, having to get up at 4.45am to catch our flight would be no mean feat. Little did we know the hurdles we would face that long day on January 2nd. We trailed ourselves out of bed, packed up quickly (becoming experts at the rucksack packing these days) and left our lovely air conditioned room behind to confront the constant humidity of Singapore's streets. It's fine we told ourselves, we'll catch up on some well needed sleep on the flight to Saigon. It turns out our lack of proper research into traveling to Vietnam prevented us from catching up on twenty winks. We arrived nice and early at the airport, the girl at check in took our passports then asked us where our visas were to enter Vietnam. We looked at her blankly and said no one told us to get any. She blunty put it that it was up to us to do our research into visa requirements for entry in vietnam and that we would not be flying without them. Great. So we missed our flight and spent the rest of the day frantically trying to organise emergency visas. We took an expensive taxi to the Vietnamese embassy in Singapore and of course it wasn't open for another two hours. By this point we were both hot and bothered and to say we weren't in the best of form would be an understatement. The fact that our taxi driver told us we were 'very careless' just rubbed salt in the wounds. Don't you just hate it when complete strangers are so right! Anyway, it turned out to be an expensive mistake. We payed 200 singapore dollars each for an emergency visa and had to fork out to have our flight changed to a later one. At least we still flew on the same day and a lesson was learnt!

Saigon came as a bit of a shock to the old system. It's manic! Moped's, motorbikes, buses, taxi's, dogs and pedestrians fill the busy streets. It's every man for himself where crossing the road is concerned. Few traffic lights, zebra crossings mean nothing and the mopeds don't tend to slow down when you are forced to walk out infront of them to cross the street, thankfully they just seem to magically avoid you. It's really interesting just walking around and taking in how the local poeple live here as alot goes on by the roadside. The food is great, the fruit is so fresh and cheap and the majority of people are really friendly. Although, constantly being asked if we want to take a ride in a cyclo, rent a moped or buy a fake lonely planet guide book does get slightly irrating!

We went to the war remnants museum which brutally documents the atrocities of the American War. On display are some heartbreaking photos of children born with deformities due to America's use of chemicals, such as agent orange, during the war. Hard to believe a war like that went on only forty years ago.

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