Good morning Vietnam!

So! After almost a year of dreaming about it, finally we found ourselves landing in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City).  Between Auckland and here we've already had some adventures, including not having an exit ticket to leave Vietnam (and so the airline technically shouldn't have let us board), not locating a passport when the boarding call was announced, and having a visa that was valid one day too late.

Saigon is ... Chaos. And charming. Exciting. Intense, busy, bustling and hot. There's scooters all over, racing towards us at a million miles per hour, even on the footpath. I mentally high five myself after we've crossed most streets! 

We're staying in a little hotel in District 1, right smack in the middle of it all. The Ben Thanhi markets have huhu grub lookalike beetles, in case they're on your shopping list. You can also buy any flavour of soccer shirt you fancy, plus a massive assortment of sequin slippers, fans and sunnies.  

We love wandering down the alley ways, checking out locals munching down their kai, with scrawny dogs and chickens wandering around. 

Notre Dame cathedral is an impressive piece of red brick architecture, where we joined with a throng of locals taking refuge from the rain. Little trees grow from the spouting halfway up the spires. Inside, candles burn and choirs sing. Today we saw two wedding parties. One brave photographer lay down in the multilane roundabout to get his money shot while his sidekick held the umbrella & looked nervously into oncoming waves of scooter traffic.

Horrifying is the only way to describe the photography and exhibits at the Vietnam War Remnants Museum. So much cruelty and suffering for one species to inflict on itself. The graphic reality of war crime confronts you everywhere you turn. And the more nauseous you become, the more compelled you feel to take a closer look, read further, learn more. But the more you learn the less you understand.