Hello from Vietnam! A nice, but touristy, with crazy people, country. I (eventually) arrived from Cambodia. The bus was good - picked me up on time, left on time, had a man on board to get us quickly through the border and, shock horror double shock ACTUALLY ARRIVED ON TIME IN HO CHI MINH CITY!! And yes, that is meant to be in capitals to portray my shock at being on a bus that actually got to its destination at the stated time. Myself and a Welshman I met on the bus started a hunt for a guesthouse and eventually found a really nice one run by what seemed to be about 6 generations of the same family. They also had a lucrative business set up in the lobby making birds nests - as far as I could gather these are made out of rice using either bird spit or some liquid found in an actual bird nest. I'm still not too sure what exactly they are but they are very expensive and are used to make "birds nest soup".

In HCMC (Saigon) I visited lots of touristy sites including the Cu Chi tunnels where I crawled for 75 metres through a tiny tunnel previously used by the Viet Cong army to hide from the Americans. It was horrible and brought on immediate feelings of claustrophobia not to mention aggravating the aforementioned wrist injury. You could shoot an AK47 there but I thought that was slightly distasteful. I also visited the Reunification Palace which was very interesting, the War Remnants Museum, which is unsurprisingly very anti-American which made it a lot more amusing than it should have been and wandered around the town. It was very modern, a lot more than I expected and one of the more touristy places I have visited. It was also very hot and humid and rained pretty much every afternoon which resulted in minor flooding on a daily basis. I went on a two day/one night tour to the Mekong Delta which was pretty disappointing as it involved being ferried to one shop/factory after another and very little of the Mekong Delta. I returned to HCMC and wasted a few more days before leaving for Nha Trang, a fun beach town. Apart from it isn't fun in the pouring rain! I visited a mud spa which was thankfully under cover. I left after two days of rain, on a sleeper bus, to Hoi An. The sleeper buses actually involve bed-like cubicles where it is possible to sort of lie down. I couldn't lie down straight but very nearly could so they aren't that bad. What is bad is the driving which means you get no sleep whatsoever. The road was in disrepair due to recent flooding and combined with constant horn honking, brake slamming, corners taken at break neck speed and ridiculous pot holes it isn't easy to sleep. Until we stopped for two hours in a traffic jam. A traffic jam caused by a totally burnt out shell of an identical bus surrounded by dazed and confused backpackers! I eventually made it to Hoi An, unburnt but four hours late, and promptly booked a flight for my remaining leg from Hue to Hoi An. I can't do another sleeper bus. Hoi An is a really pretty town, but again, very touristy. Package tours, Japanese tourists following umbrellas, that sort of thing. It is the place to get clothes made which I am taking advantage of and I am now off for a fitting!

Smallish update - clites were made and I am very pleased with them! I then moved on to Hue, famous for it's crumbling Citadel and Imperial City. This was after another annoying transportation story - I awoke at 6.30am so I could have breakfast before being picked up at 7.30. At 7 they were banging on my door saying I had to be taken to an office so no breakfast for me. We actually left at 9.30; needless to say I was irritated. Hue was nice but the cyclo/moto drivers were infuriating. I stayed in a hostel which had one hour of free beer a day which was, to be honest, the highlight of the place. I then came to Danang yesterday as I had booked a flight to Hanoi today and didn't want to risk missing it due to delayed bus. I shouldn't have worried. The stupid airline phoned me to say we would not be departing at 5.50 as planned but at 9.20pm. Suspicious that they knew this at 10am, and the exact same thing happened yesterday. I will see what there response is to my email of complaint. As you may be able to tell I am getting slightly annoyed with Asia now - the incessant car horns, people shouting "where you go" "you buy something", not taking no for an answer. I am looking forward to meeting my friends in Bangkok next week

Photos for you

Thailand http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2509929&id=61410081&l=d163075bab

Laos http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2509931&id=61410081&l=4b05735089

Cambodia http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2509945&id=61410081&l=194e577506