Our first couple of weeks in Vietnam, we paddle down the Mekong in a downpour, Robin gets ill and we find out if the Perfume River really smells...

We flew into HoChiMinh (Saigon) City from Bangkok, after a "tough" week on the beach in Koh Samet, Thailand.

We expected the City to be just crazy busy, based on what we heard from people and read in the guide books. Well, it was busy, but not nearly as bad as what we thought. We spent a day touring the City and dodging the bicycles and scooters across five/six lanes of traffic. Can't imagine what it will be like when all the scooters become cars!

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Here's a photo of the HoChiMinh City Post Office, which is a very grand building, with a large portrait of Uncle Ho staring down at the people...The architecture in HCMC is very interesting too, the buildings can be extremely narrow.

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We then decided to take a three day bus/boat tour of the Mekong Delta. Tours in Vietnam are cheap, mainly because they want to have the tourists where they want you..Our tour consisted of a series of bus and boat rides down the Mekong and tributaries with stops at various "factories" that ! interestly doubled as gift shops! Very enterprising folks. The tours of small canals were pretty cool, the size of the Mekong River here is much larger and more industrial than it was when we took the slow boat down to Luang Prabang.

We visited a floating market on the River where people sold their veggies and fruit from low barges. You can tell what's for sale by what's hanging on the bamboo pole on the boat. Here, we got some pineapple which was very tasty.

Here's a shot of the temple we visited located on a large hillside.

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On the last day of the tour, we were treated to an open rowboat ride in the pouring rain. After two hours of paddling around seeing some more "factories" we were soaked to the bone. We then had to spend another four hours on a "luxury" (their term, I swear!) boat back to a bus for another four hour ride to HCMC.

Since Robin was ill, we opted for a short flight to Danang, then hired a car to take us to HoiAn.

HoiAn is a World Heritage Site and a great place to just hang out and have clothes and shoes custom made! A very cool combination.

This is a picture of the typical architecture in HoiAn.

We met up with our friends from Lao, Nick and Lou, who were also getting clothes tailored and enjoyed touring round the city with them on pedal bikes.

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