Saigon

After a few tears in Melbourne, a 5 hour wait in Sydney, followed by a 5 hour wait in Bangkok (including being reunited with Georgie- Pat's sister and her friend Sanaya), then another 1.5 hrs in the air it took us 25 hours after take off to arrive in Saigon.
I feel like a wide eyed little kid. There is so much going on all the time, everywhere.
The traffic is organised chaos, alot of nudging and beeping with not much roadrage,
Aparently the rules as a pedestrian are to walk forwards, slow down if you have to but don't walk backwards.
We found our guest house in a little alley way off one of the main streets and after a small tap on the bum and being told "you're vewy nise, yes" we had a brief visit to our room and were off to take a look around.

The architecture here seems like a higglety pigglety juxtaposition of grown up cubby houses. All the buildings are tall and only one room wide (taxes used to be paid on the width of buildings not the height).

Pat decided he needed a haircut and lead me to one of the hairdressers down the alley and after agreeing to pay a whole dollar for a hairut we took a seat (everything is fantastically cheap; $2.50 is on the expensive end of the cocktail continuum). While Pat got his head shaved I made faces at a girl in the shop across the way, not long after she was in the hairdressers spinning me around in circles on my chair and waving her sword of straws at Pat (took some pretty cute photos-they'll come soon).

We had a walk to the markets and got harassed most of the way there, and not unlike the rest of the city they were cram packed.
Afterward we took a visit to the North Face store; I bought a pack for $40 (aparently real-good quality regardless).
(Sorry mum, went against your advice and bought the pack... Its alot easier to carry. Our suitcase has been lovingly donated to a guest house in saigon.)

Dinner was delicious and a massive $6 and included 2 cocktails and plates between the four of us. After attempting to party on I crashed at about 10pm and struggled to push out the last hour before heading back to our room.


Today we travelled to Dalat on a 7 hour bus trip.
Infront of us sat Ed....
Ed was a nice American... However he had the most amazing ability to out talk anyone I've ever met (almost; he didnt quite beat the other American I met on a flight on a previous trip who talked to me with my ipod in, confessed that she had seen over 100 countries, couldnt recognise a blister on my hand yet was a doctor, nurse, lawyer and psychologist...).
Ed could probably talk underwater...
Luckily most of his chatter was addressed toward Georgie and Sanaya, who by the end of the trip were struggling to give Ed the attention he wanted.
Ed resorted to chatting to us while we read books and slept and told us every life story possible. According to Ed, they have lines painted on the road in America which helps control traffic, they also have road rage, and in Southern America, the people have accents! -who knew?

Georgie resorted to yawning while he was talking at her (not with), the next tactic was to hit her head on the seat infront of her, then feeding him pineapple to stop him talking. All of these stratergies hadn't worked, so diversion was the next option. It failed, as Georgie was soon after asked what her name was, was then told a brief history of her name, and then informed that she had "peaches and cream skin", followed by an explanation of what peaches and cream skin was.
All the while I cried with laughter, took photos of the girls faces and pretended to sleep when he turned around to Pat and I for a chat.

Anyhoo, Im off to go check out Dalat and have some dinner!