Ho Chi Minh City

Sorry about that rushed ending. Right so we caught the sleeper bus to Ho Chi Minh which was pretty uneventful. Mike took some valium as everyone has been raving about it but it didn't really seem to work. He only slept once he'd stolen my really comfy extra long bunk and made me swap so I was in his mini cramped one. bluddy boy. Arrived in Ho Chi Minh at about 6.30am and for the first time didn't check into a great hotel. It was $16 a night which we now think of as a fortune and just not that nice, but they were the only place with rooms at that time. We went to Sinh Cafe and booked lots of tours for the next 2 days and an open bus ticket to Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, for under 25 pounds each! Then we went to see the Reunification Palace and the War Remnants Museum. Palace was pretty rubbish, not really worth it. Lonely Planet says it hasn't been changed since it fell to the North but there is a big gold statue of Ho Chi Minh in there so I don't believe one word of it. It was just a lot of rooms with furniture in, but no signs telling you anything. The war remnants museum was brilliant though. There was loads of information about the American War and a bit about some of the journalists who had died and their photographs which were really powerful. Also lots of information about the war crimes the american army committed which I didn't really know about. Like the Hanoi Hilton, it was all very one sided, but that still didn't explain why America did some of these awful things and seems to have got away with it. There were some really upsetting photographs of children who were deformed because of the Agent Orange chemical which was dropped on their villages, and of the Viet Cong in the prison there and the terrible conditions they lived in. I couldn't go in the cells as I was feeling pretty low. There was a visitors book which was pretty bad, it was either filled with stupidly nieve people writing things like "never again!" or just stupid angry people ranting about how bad america is.
So we left from there feeling a bit low and it was so so hot we had to stop and have breaks every few minutes. We ended up eating in a Pho 24 (like a fast food noodle restuarant) which was pretty crap and expensive. Then came back to our room and I don't think we did much for the rest of the day.
Thursday we were booked to go on a tour of the Cao Dai Temple and the Cu Chi Tunnels. We left at about 8.30am on this little bus with only 6 other people in our group. And we had the best tour guide ever. His name was Tom and he was so smiley and happy. At the end of the day he sang a song about how much he would miss us. I love him. Temple was quite a long way out so we were on the bus for about 3 hours. It was really cool though, the religion is a mix of pretty much every religion in the world, and the temple was really brightly coloured with loads of dragons and things all over it. We watched the mid day mass which was loads of people in white, red, yellow and blue walking around and kneeling while about 200 tourists with big cameras filmed them.
Then back on the bus to the Cu Chi Tunnels where the Viet Cong hid from and fought the Americans during the war. We went in the afternoon after most of the tourists so was quite quiet and we all got a go to try and fit down the tiny holes the Viet Cong used to jump down. mike and I were the only ones who fitted. The tour was really good, it's ridiculous how small and hot the tunnels that they lived down were.
Back at Ho Chi Minh and we swapped hotels to the Yellow Hotel so we could be in a dorm and meet people. Met loads of people which was good but the hotel was rubbish, even though it's in lonely Planet. The staff are very rude and unhelpful and it's not worth the money. There were 2 other places nearby where they had dorm beds for $3 or $4 instead of the $7 they charge there.
That evening we went out for Bia Hoi and then to an amazing restaurant called Lam Cafe on the same road as Yellow Hotel. The food is so lovely, about 40,000 for a meal and really big portions. Then went down to Go2 bar and met Ash and Lee and some girls from Milton Keynes. Ended up staying out till 3am playing smoke or fire and drinking too much beer while the staff played with a wiji board. Then decided that Yellow Hotel was crap as the chap who sits inside all night to let people in had got bored and gone off to see his friend, locking the door with a bike lock from the outside (so good there wasn't a fire as there is no back entrance). So we had to sit for 1/2 hour until he came back and let us in, in a very bad mood for dragging us away. Idiot.
Oh have to go as mike is back and we need to catch a bus bye xxxx