Blogs from Ho Chi Minh City, Southeast, Vietnam, Asia - page 255

Hanoi: Hanoi is a charming city that mixes the old with the new. It lacks the cosmopolitan air of Saigon but it's hectic narrow streets provide good opportunities to shop, or enjoy a coffee or vietnamese tea in a cafe bar whilst watching the buzz outside. Women in pointy bamboo vietnamese syle hats joke with you whilst they carry goods on two large baskets on a both ends of long stick. Old men with berets and goatie beards play chess alongside the riverside whilst young couples coourt at sunset.. Thousand of people whizz by on mopeds and bicycles make crossing the road a test of nerve, the traffic parts like water around a stone as you slowly edge your way across. We joined the long line of pilgrims, chatty schoolchildren, tourists and to see the embalmed ... read more

So a few of you have been asking what my address is in order to send me Christmas and birthday parcels ;) but i'll give you two addresses. If you are sending me a letter my home address is fine which is: 541/117 Huynh Van Banh P.14 Quan Phu Nhuan TP Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam If you are looking to send parcels (this is more for my brother's information so he can pass it on to the parents) please send them to my school's address: ILA - Vietnam 402 Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Quan 3 Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam Blog will be updated soon :) Just need to upload my photos first this time! Chao for now! Rooj xxx... read more

I had to call this blog that. It was that or lost in Saigon but seeing as i haven't yet been lost yet it was the logical choice. That plus the fact that my first night in Ho Chi Minh resulted in my still out drinking at 7AM made this the perfect title.... I flew in from Singapore on the 2nd of December and instantly decided I liked Vietnam. Mainly because the night I arrived Vietnam beat Malaysia in the football - the atmosphere was amazing. I seriously thought I'd missed something major and they'd won the world cup or something! The streets were packed and people were fleeing up and down the roads on motorbikes waving Vietnamese flags and banging empty oil tins. A great welcome after sensible Singapore! I headed out to one of ... read more

Sorry this blog has taken a while, and that it's actually 3 blogs compressed in to one, there are reasons for this, laziness being the prime one, Internet being pricey is another and the fact that we're can't really remember much about the last 3 weeks is perhaps the most relevant, so on to the story, we left Hoi An and headed south, destination Saigon but with a couple of beach breaks in between.......................... We had to leave Hoi An otherwise we would have bought more and more clothes!! So, we decided to head for Mui Ne before getting to our final destination in Vietnam, Saigon. We took yet another horrific taxi journey to the train station in Danang where we would get our 12 hour train to Nha Trang, stop for the night and then ... read more

The 16-day, 1000km Bangkok to Saigon cycle challenge culminated on November 26 in a rather thrilling way: riding into the manic city streets of Saigon, where motorcycles number three million, and managing to hit one (well, the odds were high)! No one looks where they're going, but traffic weaves in some shambolic fashion and it seems to work. On bicycles we had access to many parts of the three countries (Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam) that we wouldn't have otherwise. The routes took us through tapioca fields and rice paddies, ethnic minority villages, past rivers, streams, hills and temples. At times the roads got rough - one so tough it reduced me into a fit of tears: Imagine the dustiest, rockiest, bumpiest and most pot-holed road you can, stretch it to 80km, add a sun that beats ... read more