Vietnam

Entering Viet Nam (as the Vietnamese call it), was a sheer joy. I paid a lot of money to get onto a VIP bus, which supposedly made going through customs hassle-free, this isn't the reason I hasten to add, it was because the cheaper buses were all fully booked. The landscape of Vietnam is lushiously green and seems far more developed and organised.

I started in Saigon, bagged myself a really nice hotel room (which turned out not to be as cheap as I thought it was going to be) in the backpacker district. Location was fantastic, really close to all the things I wanted to see and reminded me of a classier Khao San Rd. The city is very colonial and as it is Tet, the streets were all decorated and people were running around in their posh frocks. I headed to the American Wars Crimes Museum (it's not actually called that anymore), which is totally horrific, although looking around you wouldn't know that twice the amount of bombs were dropped here then during the whole of WWII.

Went to the Mekong Delta, it ended up being more of shopping trip then the tour of the delta we were expecting. It was lots of fun though and managed to avoid the snake wine! The tour guide was called Duc (pronounced weird, I called him Doug), he was the highlight, he kept making jokes about the natives kidnapping blondes, so fair people should buy a hat and talking about Stiffler from American Pie?!

I think I nearly had my bag snatched about 3 doors down from the hotel. You get used to gambling with your life every time you cross a road and motorcyclist scooting really close past you. This happened and I felt a grab on my shoulder, I turned around and the cyclist was looking at me...hmmm. He'd be lucky, there are about 4 books in there, even Geoff Capes would have problems!!

They do open tours here, basically you book your destinations and 24 hours before you want to leave, you reserve your seat on the bus. My first stop was Nha Trang. This is their sea-side resort and is really nice, lots of expensive hotels and lovely beach, although the sea is really choppy. Had a bit of a panic when I arrived, as all the hotels and guesthouses were full, so ended up paying a whopping $26/night.

Hoi An is a lovely little town, lots of really old buildings and little shops full of arts and crafts. They have these little wooden townhouses that belonged to the merchants which were really cute. The hotel is fantastic, I have my own bathtub and there is a swimming pool. Although it's starting to get colder the further north I go. I had my first experience of a sleeper bus, it was hideous. I had to sit next to an old Vietnamese dude, when he wasn't yawning loudly, he was snoring loudly!! Men have to make such a song and dance about everything?!

Hue wasn't what I expected. It has the citadel, which is like a mini Forbidden City. Other then that, there is nothing here. Other then a cool bar called DMZ, named after the Demilitarized Zone, which was the buffer zone between north and south Vietnam during the American war. Got a bus to Hanoi, thinking about my last couple of towns in this fantastic country when I realised that the hotel didn't give me back my passport when I checked-out, doh! My head started racing of all the things that could go wrong, maybe they sold it on the blackmarket, maybe they've lost it, maybe they can't get it too me...I got it back, after paying the delivery boy 100,000dong or 4 pounds for travelling 17 hours on a moped to get it to me.

Checked in to this really nice hotel in Hanoi old quarter. I've prided myself on never getting lost and having a good sense of direction, but the old quarter does my head in! It's a maze of little narrow roads, packed to the rafters with little shops selling everything imaginable, you end up walking round in circles, you can't find anything even stationary objects and you have to deal with a million mopeds aiming straight for you! I expected David Bowie and his tight lycras to show up, how I manage to find my way to the hotel, I will never know?! For example, I booked plane tickets to Laos (to save myself a 24 hour bus journey) and had to go back to collect the tickets (remember those), made a mental note "it's on Ta Hien Street, next to Dragonfly bar', I walked past said bar about 4 times with no sight of the travel agent and behold suddenly it was there. The French quarter is where I should be staying, but I still haven't found that Russian billionaire. It is like a little piece of Paris has emigrated here.

The climax of the trip is Ha Long Bay, a site that attracts many visitors and is the must-do for any trip to Vietnam. The day was spoilt by a mass of tourist all of the same thought. Apart from the Japanese, who make the worst tourists, the bay was incredibly beautiful. It's absolutely amazing, all this massive limestone formations dotted around the sea.