Blogs from Ho Chi Minh City, Southeast, Vietnam, Asia - page 244

14th May (Sun) - We took a bus from Phnom Penh to the Cambodia-Vietnam border. The tiny bus was packed with passengers and the road was damn bumpy. At the Vietnam border, we queued for a long time because the immigration officers were paid by travel agencies to settle the passports of the people in the tour groups... Since we were not in any tour groups, we couly only helplessly watch the tour operators pushing piles and piles of passports to the immigration officers. After sometime, my mum and some fellow passengers in our bus were fed up and they complained loudly in front of the tour operators and the immigration officials... The tour operators, being scared by our loud voices, finally let us go through the immigration first... After another 2 hours, we finally reached ... read more

OK, first up, let me apologise for not having posted anything on the blog for several weeks. I am tempted to blame Stef but I have to take full responsibility here. Up until now, Stef had been doing most of the writing whilst I was in charge of the photos and other 'techie' bits of running the blog. I did promise Stef that I would write about our first parts of Vietnam and I have been procrastinating constantly. Whilst this is entirely in Character, part of me thinks that I have been delaying it because, to be totally honest, Vietnam has not been the experience we were expecting. In fairness, Vietnam is a country that is experiencing massive growth in the tourism industry, particularly from the backpacker and flashpacker crowds. As a result, the attitude amongst ... read more

Well what was going to be the relaxing couple of days in the sun turned out to be anything but, I think I may have mentioned in the last blog Jane had booked a trip on a tourist boat out to a couple of Islands with some snorkeling, well what a trip. We did not stop laughing from the start to finish, the guides on the boat were a couple of characters one calling himself the Funky Monkey, when we left the harbour with creedence clearwater revival playing over the biggest speakers I was a bit unsure. It is hard to describe what an amzing day was had by the whole family, all of us snorkelling in crystal clear water, amazing tropical fish and an enormous lunch on board the boat. Floating in the south China ... read more

So we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City in the late afternoon. we jumped on the local bus which would take us to where we planned to stay. Ho Chi Minh, was Saigon, is so busy. In Vietnam there are more motorbikes than any other form of transport. The next thing we noticed was that all the woman completely cover every part of there body as they want to be white and dont like the sun, weirdo's. so we arrived at Yellow House Hotel and settled in. we had a balcony that gave us a great view of the city. All the buildings are long and skinny and really bright colours. So once settled in we went and got dinner and then planned for the next day. On our second day we went a tour of ... read more

From what we'd heard along the way we were a bit unsure of what to expect from Saigon. Most stuff we'd read made out that we'd be robbed within minutes of stepping off the bus or would be had by any number of possible scams. I'm sure it has a reputation for a reason, however, we found it a great place to hang around for a couple of days. no hassle whatsoever. There didn't seem a huge amount to do though. We checked out the War Museum which focused on the French and American wars, pretty interesting stuff but very one sided as you can imagine. The old pre-75 governement palace was unfortunately closed for renovation. Its been left exactly as it was when the war ended and they choose now to restore it! Oh well. ... read more