Stranded in Saigon

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Crossing the border into Vietnam was a bit of a faff. First of all they led us off the bus and took our passports, disappeared for some time, and returned appearing to have done nothing whatsoever, then piled us back onto the bus and drove about 20 yards down the road where we had to get off again.
We were taken into Vietnam immigration, where we had to wait to be called individually by a stony-faced officer who couldn't pronounce anyone's names, which led to some confusion. The process, which could have taken a few minutes, ended up lasting almost an hour, but eventually we were back on the bus and onto Vietnamese soil.

The remaining two hour journey gave us our first look at Vietnam's countryside, full of rice paddies and lush forests.
As we entered Saigon (now called Ho Chi Minh City, however we prefer Saigon so will call it as such) it began to rain, and when the bus stopped we hurried to find our hotel. We were pointed in the right direction by a wizened Vietnamese lady and reached 'Yellow House' guest house, tucked down a dripping alleyway in the heart of backpacker land in District 1.
We were taken to our room by the friendly management and were pleased to see that it was both spacious and full of natural light. Furthermore, the fact that there were twin beds made a pleasant change, as we'd grown so accustomed to sharing a double.
The hotel was great, the only downside being that Greg's phone was stolen by one of the cleaning staff halfway through our stay - and that we were powerless to get it back.

Unfortunately, for some reason, the visas we'd been issued with in Phnom Penh only allowed us 15 days in Vietnam, as opposed to the standard 30 days. This wasn't nearly enough time, therefore we spent the following day trawling travel agents in search of the best price and easiest way to get them extended. We eventually concluded that the only way to do this would be to pay for a new visa (our original ones had been issued under a non-extendable category.) This ended up costing 50 US dollars each, and meant we would be stranded in Saigon for at least seven days until our passports were returned.

We made the best of a bad situation by soaking up the buzzing atmosphere of District 1 and making friends with an amiable restaurant owner and her cats.
Because we spent so long in Saigon we ended up doing less than if we'd only had a few days. The only trip worthy of a mention was to the War Remnants Museum - a fascinating yet sometimes horrifying collection of photographs, biographies, weapons and assorted military vehicles from the America/Vietnam war.

Considering we had nine days in Saigon, our date of departure came quite suddenly, and to our regret we missed out on visiting the Cu Chi Tunnels - the network of underground passages utilised by the Viet Cong in their fight against the American invaders.
We picked up our passports with their newly-issued visas on Friday 28th March, and had booked a bus to the coastal city of Nha Trang for the following day.

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