Saigon and on

After three weeks in Vietnam we have arrived safe and sound in Ho Chi Minh City or Saigon as it's know to most people. It's a fascinating city and a welcome return for us to the hustle and bustle of urban life. It was nice to get away from it for a while in Mui Ne and Dalat but it seems Grem and I are both city dwellers at heart and it's good to get back to a busy place after a short chill out.

Having briefly walked around the main areas somehow Saigon feels more like the Vietnam I expected than Hanoi did. Perhaps this is because we're more used to the country and it's so much hotter down here! I think it's averaging the upper 30s celsius and it's only going to get hotter as we head into Camdodia later in the week.

One of the main highlights of Saigon so far was the very moving War Remnants Museum. Grem visted this last time around and it left a big impression on me despite knowing very little about the war and the political situation at the time.

There were the usual war exhibits with tanks, helicopters, planes and artillery from the era but two exhibits in particular stood out among the rest. Firstly a gallery dedicated to the war correspondents and photographers who died during the war, complete with a selection of stunning and sometimes shocking photographs depicting the scenes they witnessed. Secondly, and more harrowingly, there was a gallery exhibiting the 'war crimes' committing during the fighting. Such acts ranged from imprisonment and torture, through to large scale massacres by US and South Vietnamese Marines and finally the results of the bombing campaigns using napalm and agent orange herbicides. Admittedly the content of these exhibits was one sided but despite the bias it shows just how much terror and torment the Vietnamese people went through during this catastrophic period.

Well, enough morbidity. We've booked ourselves on a three day, two night trip around the Mekong Delta which takes us over the border into Cambodia and to the capital city, Phnom Penh. Another country, another jump upwards in temperature!