Don't "Miss Saigon" - Crudge The Comedy Genius

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It's been a mixed week.

On the plus side I have made good progress through Vietnam, moving on from Hoi An where I purchased some very nice tailor made clothes down to Nha Trang and now Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City to give it its official name but everyone still calls it Saigon). On the down side I have had a bit of a scary incident involving a motorbike accident (it wasn't me on the bike) and I have lost my damn mobile phone, or more to the point it was stolen...I think. On my travels so far I have lost a watch (just a cheap one I bought in Bangkok for a dollar), my camera - which fell in a waterfall, and now my phone. It's like somebody doesn't want me to be able to tell the time.

As I have said before I really loved Hoi An. At its heart is the old city which is crammed full of tailors and cafes. The streets are small and they haven't been badly affected by the boom in tourism like some other places in Vietnam. The only down side is that there aren't many places to go out in the evening. Me and a few friends found a place that was supposed to be open 24 hours - we kept asking and they kept saying they were open all night. So we settled in there but by 2am the lights started to turn off and they told us it was time to leave. Despite some drunken protesting there wasn't really much we could do so we stumbled out onto the street looking for somewhere to continue the night out. I had heard from someone else that there was a "club" somewhere outside of town that really did open all night so we asked some motorbike taxis to take us there and they kindly obliged. The journey was a lot longer than I had anticipated and just before we arrived we passed a big crowd that had gathered around a motorbike accident. Unsurprisingly given the way they drive over here you see quite a few road accidents (yesterday I saw a bus exactly like the one I was travelling in upside down on the side of the road) so we continued our journey to the club. When we arrived I saw someone I know well from previous nights out in Vietnam. But he was on his own and when I asked where his best friend was (a girl who he has lived next door to his whole life) he had a confused look on his face. When we told him about the motorbike accident his face turned white. He realised that it must have been his friend on the bike. He ran outside and got a bike back to see if she was ok and that was the last we heard of them that evening. Needless to say it was difficult to carry on with the night out as we had no idea if the girl was ok (the power cut didn't help either - we ended up signing Oasis songs with an acoustic guitar around candlelight). I was really relieved the next day when I found out that the girl wasn't too seriously hurt and she was able to leave hospital that day - albeit in a wheelchair.

Anyway, no permanent damage so after that little bit of drama it was time to collect my suits and move on from Hoi An. Next stop was Nha Trang, which was completely different to what I had expected. I knew it was on the beach and was a good place to go out in the evening, but what I didn't realise was that it is a really quite big resort town. There are giant highrise hotels on the seafront and a lot of the buildings are really ugly. Basically it is the complete opposite to Hoi An. The beach is ok but people constantly pester you to buy things from them so its difficult to relax and the sea is nothing special. In the evening me and the girl I have been travelling with went to find somewhere good to go out, we had been told of a few good places so we went on a mission to find them. Eventually we found the Why Not? bar which was heaving with people and was playing some good music. I had already decided that I wanted to have a big night because Hoi An was quiet and the whole motorbike incident had prevented me enjoying the previous night out. However, the girl I am travelling with wasn't really on the same wavelength and by midnight she decided to head back to the hotel. We had left all of my other friends back in Hoi An and so I was left to find some randoms to go out with - luckily by this point I had abused happy hour (which, strangely for an hour, ran from 6pm to 11pm) and so it was a pretty easy task. We went to a place called the Sailing Club which again was heaving with people but to be honest my memory from here is a complete blur. I can remember wandering on to the beach and then I must have fallen asleep because I woke up on a sun lounger with about 10,000 mosquito bites all over me. And a bit later I realised that my phone was missing as well. All in all I didn't really like Nha Trang, it's too built up and although its a good place to go out, I can do that at home.

The next move was south to Saigon and I like it here much more. It's loud, busy and bright and this is just what I expected. The place I am staying is right in the centre of backpackersville so there are loads of restaurants, bars and foodstalls. Today I went to the Cu Chi tunnels which are the tunnels that the Viet Cong used in the Vietnam war - or "American War" as they call it here. It was an amazing place to see - you are able to walk through the tunnels and even though they have been widened for tourists they are still incredibly cramped. They also showed some of the boobey traps they used to catch the Americans and they all consisted of massive spikes spinning round and trapping legs, arms and bodies. It was interesting to see the anti American perspective - we were shown a film which talked of the "evil invading Americans" and how the "strength and spirit of communism" had defeated them.

The bus ride back took twice as long as it should have because we were stuck in traffic and by the time I got back there were no rooms left in my hotel. I had been sharing with someone else but she has moved on and so now I need a single room again. I was annoyed because I had asked yesterday for a single room but they make less money from one person so they had given my room away. All my bags were at the hotel and I really didn't fancy carrying them around Saigon looking for another place to stay. Luckily the receptionist said I could stay in the spare bed in his room for $3 so I accepted.

So now I have to wait to see what that will be like, I hope he doesn't try any funny business in the middle of the night, I'm going to get well inside my sleeping sack tonight I think.

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