What a difference a day makes. Got up at 4.30am (again) to meet a 5am taxi at the hotel. Predictably enough there was no taxi waiting for us. Anyway one was rustled up from somewhere on short notice. You might think that the streets of HCMC would be empty(ish) at 5 am. Not so. Still a bun fight to get across your average intersection. Vietnamese Airlines were a model of efficiency and after 50 minutes we were on the runway at Dalat. As Milla astutely pointed out, "look Dad, there's nature right up to the edge of the runway..." Clearly she prefers the verdant hills of Dalat to the seething mass of humanity and motorbikes that is HCMC. A short taxi ride had us in Dalat where we needed to find a hotel. The kids were ... read more

Julie your challenge if you choose to accept it, is to complete the following on your trip (with photographic evidence as specified): 1. Buy all the tacky Vietnamese socialist tourist merchandise (eg. red T shirt with the star, flags, hat, shorts etc - there are no limits to the amount of these items in 'Nam!!!) and get a photo of yourself standing outside of Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum in Hanoi waving it all about patriotically!! 2. To eat and document the experience of trying as many local dishes as you can (and avoid getting any travel bugs) 3. Bid someone "good morning" in Vietnamese (Chao buoi sang) 4. To find one item in a market in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and to include all three in a handmade gift for next year's Christmas gift. 5. To ... read more