From the last post until now.. Adventure continues.

DAY 2 by John:
Well on Day 2 in VN, we decided to take a cyclo tour of the town with our Cyclo guy, Son. Son and his buddy, Bai (pron. Bye, By, Buy) Son took us to the War Museum which was interesting, disturbing and I again got targeted by a guy peddling crap. The museum was not too bad, so then we headed to the Ho Chi Minh Pagoda (Buddhist Temples). Bai took us around and showed us how to get good luck from Buddha with the lighting of incense.
Side note: It would appear Vietnamese are fascinated with Big White Men. That's right. They love me. The attention is fantastic.
Anyway, from the Pagoda, we headed to the Hong Kong Market because both Shannon and I needed shoes. After looking around at some crappy shoes that would never fit either of us, ever we headed down to the produce level.
Shannon was buying some coconut candy (best. candy. ever) when a woman approached me from behind, offering me her baby. Unfortunately the hotel we were staying at did not have self-catering facilities, so I could not eat it. I declined on the baby.
We headed to a street that had only shoe stores on it, and I ended up getting a pair of "Tommy Hilfiger" pluggers."Not Copy, Original". Lies!
After that we went back to our hotel, and ended up at a place called the GO2 Bar. There are a lot of other tourists there, so we sat and had dinner. 36,000 VND, or about $2.80 got us a massive Vietnamese Curry, rice, and entree. It is here a Security Guard called "Frederick" took a particular interest in me, so we took a couple of photos of me towering about a foot over him and monstering him. Had a few more beers and headed back to the hotel.
Crashed pretty early because we had a whole day tour of the Mekong the next day...

DAY 2 by Shannon:
We haven't stopped since we got here! On Tuesday we went on a half day Cyclo tour with Son and Bai (those Cylco dudes we met on Day 1). They took us to the War Museum first up, it was quite small and though I wouldn't exactly say it was good, it was definitely educational. They
have the most amazing photography from in amongst the fighting... very confronting stuff. We looked at the usual, tank and artillery and as we were looking at one of the tanks a guy with no arms from the elbows down came up to say hello and get us to buy stuff. He was selling maps
and books. It turns out he sat on a land mine after the war, it was a pretty sad story only made not so much by the fact he had obviously rehearsed it and made quite a bit of money praying on tourists sympathy.

Stuff like that happens a lot here, after the War Museum we Son and Bai took us to the Hong Kong markets, (I wanted to get some shoes but it turns out my feet are massive over here and no one stocks my size. After a quick glance at my feet, then a giggle, they promptly inform
me that my feet are too big). I digress, I was saying how misforunate people play on that alot over here, we were in the food section sampling some awesome Coconut candy, (which I have fallen in love with and want to bring back tons of!) when this lady with a baby came up to John, she didn't speak any English and it appeared she was trying to hand him her baby. At last, it was my opportunity to purchase a small child so as I could carry it around in my handbag and teach it to steal peoples watches! However, we realised that we would have trouble getting the child through customs so we gave that one a miss.

We then continued outside to the Fruit & Veg section and got to sample all sorts of tropical fruits, they had giant grapes but they were very bland, John bought some fruit similar to lychees but not - almost- same same.

We've had an enormous amount of trouble NOT speaking broken English over the last few days and have taken up saying things like "Same same" when things are similar or have the same difference or things like "I go to Mekong", next thing you know I'll be saying "Me sing me
perform for you!".

After the markets we went to a pagoda to put some incense in sand which apparently gives us good luck. At the pagoda there was a lady with a tiny cage full of about 20 or so pretty little birds, she wanted us to pay her to let them go! I have a photo of her to name and shame the woman, although I'm getting used to a lot of things here, stuff like that still shocks me.

Then it was time for lunch so Son and Bai took us to their usual hang out for lunch. Once we sat down about 3 young Vietnamese waitresses pounced on John, wanting kisses from him! He politely declined. We are still not sure what there go was, they hung around the whole of lunch
at our table and kept trying to get a kiss, then they brought over one of their friends, Vietnamese girl (and by girl I mean lady-boy) who had very white skin due to bleach and powder then asked John if he liked her and asked how old he thought she was, he then told her 35, she was pretty upset as she was only 23 - She soon buggered off.

We went to try a few more shoe stores, no luck there with sizes so after booking a trip to the Mekong River for the next day, we went back to the hotel for much needed sleep.

DAY 3 by Shannon:
At 4am I was woken up by the incessant beeping of the traffic, they use the horns as almost a sonar set up. It was the day of our Mekong trip - HOORAY! It cost us like $8 US each and included lunch and afternoon tea.

We met out the front of Sinh Cafe - the tour guide place at 8.30 and after more offers to buy people babies and sunglasses and watches and tissues and gum and all sorts of other crap, we set off for the Mekong River. It was a 2 hour bus trip, which went by quickly due to air con
and reclining seats. The sights from the bus were amazing, there is so much construction going on in Vietnam at the moment, which is great. Our tour guides name was Son (A different Son, I think the name is like John) and he informed us that Vietnam was getting better in terms of its poverty etc. compared to the last 50 years and this was happening because of overseas investing, it turns out RMIT has a campus or something just out of Saigon.

We got to the Fish Sauce Factory and jumped off the bus, much to my displeasure at the STENCH! We then jumped on a little boat that was quite rickety and headed over to one of the islands in the Mekong. The scenery around the Mekong so amazing, you can see such decent houses neighbouring shacks. There are also people fishing along the Mekong and bathing in it.The first island stop was where they made rice paper, we had a look at this and then had some lunch. The specialty was Elephant Ear fish, glad to say John and I passed on this experience as when it came out for other people it was a whole fish standing up and looked like it was covered in maggots - Vomit.

Then it was back on the boat and to another island where we sampled a honey tea drink, tasted some local fruit and listened to some very awful Vietnamese music. We saw a squirrel in a cage and I crossed a very rickety bamboo bridge - fun times to be had.

Then it was a short walk to some horse and carts where we chatted to some lovely old Canadian people and was pulled along to the next destination where we sampled some more honey drink and I got to hold a massive Python. John decided not to partake in this as he felt his
sheer awesomeness would make the Python explode.

As the day was nearly wrapping up, we then boarded some canoes and were paddled up an estuary by a small Vietnamese woman with a bamboo hat - conical -for the wearing of, to a waiting boat to be taken home.

The day was not yet over for Shannonegans and Johntastic, we had beers with the Canadians, then went for a walk to find an elusive bar called the Blue Gecko which apparently sticks Australians, we gave up on this search and found ourselves back at Go2Bar. Luckily we heard the melodious twang of an Aussie accent and met two Australian girls with
whom we consumed more beer. A great day to be had by all.

DAY 4 by John:
This morning we awoke with a hurry as the alarm didn't go off and we were booked into a half day tour to go to the Cu Chi Tunnels. After all the excitement of the day before at the Mekong, we had high hopes. After wading through the usual sellers peddling their crap, Sunglasses, Zippo Lighters, Cigarettes, Gum, Copied Books, and today HAMMOCKS, we made our way to the Sinh Cafe to jump on the bus.
Our guide, a bilingual Vietnamese man named "Graham" told us all about the history of Cu Chi on our 2 hour ride down to the countryside. Of the 2hrs, 1hr is taken up just trying to leave Saigon because the traffic is so busy 24/7.
Eventually we got out to the jungle, after a 2hr ride that left Shannon feeling a little nauseous, we headed into the thick of the jungle and did some sight-seeing.
"Graham" was very good at making politically-incorrect jokes about a sensitive topic, and lots of people laughed. Except me and Shannon (because we are narcs and didn't find it that funny) and whoever didn't understand his accent.
We went all through the jungle looking at all the different sights, Shannon jumped down into an actual size tunnel, I however, could not stick my leg down.
I did however find it necessary to take politically-incorrect photos with mannequins however, and as a result will probably go to hell. Watch this space.
We eventually ended up at the tourist tunnel, which was still bitchin' small, dark, smelly and dirty. We headed down though, completed one level and out again. I have never been happier to see daylight. Didn't help that I had Shannon's derrière in my face the whole time.

A little bit more crap, the usual walk through the merch area, and back on a bus to Saigon.

We had lunch (I dropped mine all over the floor) at what appears to be Vietnamese Hungry Jacks, I did however have some chicken. I use the word chicken loosely, as I am 99% sure it was cat. Delicious nonetheless. MMMMMM.
Now I am here at an Internet Cafe in Saigon trying to figure if we want to skip Cambodia, or visit?

Will post again soon.
John.