Good morning Vietnam!

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I am in love. This city is intoxicating.

I have dreamt of coming to Vietnam for so long – it has always been a place that has fascinated me – and from day one, when we landed in Ho Chi Minh City, it has not just met my dreams but blown them out of all tangible proportions. Having gone from the familiarity of London to the stagnancy of Dubai to the mesmerising streets of Vietnam within less than 48 hours, words are not entirely my strong point but I am truly dazzled.

As soon we got there, we walked through the city streets just looking at everything. There is just so much to look at, to take in, so much going on. The colours, the noise, the constant hooting of car and bike horns, the incredible smells of unfamilar places and foods, the face and personality of a brand new culture. Not to mention the scorching heat and incredible humidity. Groups of older men sit on tiny colourful stools concentrating intently on a game of backgammon spread out on the floor. On street corners, people make tiny fires to burn their rubbish. Street sellers offer everything from fresh fruit to little wooden toys and packets of cigarettes. The girls selling cigarettes wore sky blue silk tunics which matched the colour of the cigarette brand perfectly. They carried one packet in a sealed, transparent box as a showpiece and the rest around their waist. It was a very unique sales technique, that's for sure.

In the markets, there were vendors everywhere pushing carts piled high with coconuts. We stopped and the man slit the coconut open in front of us so we could drink the juice. It was so fresh and so delicious. The market stalls were piled high with unique gifts as well as a multitude of bags, shoes and clothes that looked identical to what you see on the UK high street shops but at a fraction of the price. C made me a bet at this point that we will return home with an extra suitcase... I'm not confident on winning this one.

One of my favourite sights are the countless numbers of street 'restaurants' with tiny plastic chairs and tables and little old ladies handing out steaming bowls of pho noodles. We chose beef pho, which was mouthwateringly good, and drank sugar cane juice with it.

Then there's the traffic. How can I even begin to describe it? I had been warned countless times about how impossible it is to cross the road in Ho Chi Minh City. To those who warned me, you were not kidding! But we've easily slipped into the Vietnamese way, just walking straight across the street as an entire wall of motorbikes hurtles towards you and somehow clear a pathway for you to weave between them. They're almost like a metaphor for the city itself - colourful, fast, bright and completely haphazard but running smoothly.

It didn't run smoothly straight away though as I committed the cardinal sin - I stopped in the middle of the road when a whole host of bikes appeared as if out of nowhere. I've never seen C (who had already reached the other side) look so panicked. He's not the type to look ruffled. "What are you doing?!" he shouted over the roar of the motorbikes. "I stopped!" I replied, which seemed somewhat self-explanatory. As if we were in some Z-list film, he ran back into the road, scooped me up and threw me onto the other side.

Lesson of the day - just walk. The dramatics were funny though.

For dinner the following night, we found another street cafe on a side road that was completely packed with young Vietnamese people having a catch-up on Friday evening after the week's work. The menu was extensive so we ended up asking the waiter what we should have. With a total language barrier, he resorted to pointing. First he chose deer. As a back-up, he recommended something called blood cockle. In the end, we decided it may be best to decide ourselves and chose some dishes with more familiar meat that turned out to be absolutely delicious. A slight spanner in the works presented itself when, upon finishing our chicken dish, the waiter came over and put down another plate. He pointed to the menu where our chicken dish was named and back at the plate.

I swallowed. Then said to C, "If that (pointed to new plate) is our chicken dish then what exactly did we just eat?"

Let's just say I'm not entirely sure it was Kosher.

That same night, Thailand were playing Vietnam in a huge football match and the streets were lined with people watching the game on big screens. Little kids sat atop their dad's shoulders with the Viatnamese flag painted on their excited faces, cheering along with the crowds. The atmosphere was electric. We walked through the streets – the Reunification Palace that I have read so much about looked just as striking as it does in pictures, particularly as we saw it for the first time at night.

So this concludes our first visit to HCMC. I'm looking forward to coming back here in a few weeks after we've travelled the rest of Vietnam and continuing to discover just what it is that makes this city so special.

Next stop - Hanoi.

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