The heat is on in Saigon!

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Xin Cao from Vietnam!

My Cambodian travel group and I arrived to Ho Chi Minh City for our final night together. Unfortunately I am the only one continuing on to Vietnam, so I've had to say goodbye to all my wonderful new friends I have spent the last few weeks with...sniff sniff...

After a few weeks on the road and averaging about 3 hours sleep each night, we decided for our last full day together it was time for a little pampering. Here is where I mention that massages over this side of the world are not relaxing...unless you consider being thrown this way that that, having 80kg men standing on your back and little old ladies sticking their boney elbows into you, then you have come to the right place. If you prefer the more relaxing kind as I do, then just wait til you get home!

For anyone planning a trip to Vietnam, don't miss the War Rembrance Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. The exhibitions, particularly the photographic exhibition on the Children born with birth defects from the US's malicious use of the chemical Agent Orange is very moving. How is it that we are taught so little in Australian schools about what really happened in the war?

My Vietnam trip has only myself and another Australian girl (Eliza) in it, so very different from traveling with 12 others for the past few weeks.

Our first day took us down to the Mekong Delta, where we were staying with a local family for the night. Despite homestays becoming quite popular in the region, Intrepid Travel take their groups to undiscovered areas so you quite literally are in the middle of nowhere and far, far away from the other travellers.

We boarded are "has seen better days" wooden boat and cruised in and out of canals into what I can only imagine the Amazon looks like. The scenery was absolutely breathtaking. We arrived to our homestay and were welcomed by Mr Hi, the head of the family for some rice wine and a late lunch with his friends. Despite no one being able to speak a single word of English and Eliza and I only being accomplished in saying hello in Vietnamese, we some how managed to hold down a conversation....it may have had something to do with the strong rice wine also???

That afternoon we hired bikes and a local guide took us through a maze of villages and roads that seemed to lead to no where. We visited a local school and and had afternoon tea in the home of one of our guides friends. There the women showed us how to make bamboo & straw mats and we practiced speaking English with the families children.

Tonight were off on an overnight train to Nha Trang to check out the beaches for a few days.

Until next time xx

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