Day 16 - Ho Chi Minh City

Our long walk through the city started with a noodle soup breakfast at 'Pho 2000', a noodle restaurant where Bill Clinton dined some years back. Clinging on to past glories, in what is essentially a noodle bar like any of the other hundreds in this city, photographs of Clinton line the walls. After the strongest cup of coffee I've ever had the misfortune of drinking, we hit the market. We bought our obligatory beer branded t-shirts, desparately in need of some clean clothes, and walked around the market for a good hour, marvelling at the quantities of coffee and strange foods.

From the market we continued past various landmarks, including the Hotel du Ville, a huge colonial building. Here I got a bargain - a refreshing coconut for just 20,000 dong... I'd accidently payed 18,000 too much! Still, I made an old lady very happy, she'll no doubt have run to the bank to deposit her 50 pence. Best was the War Remnants Museum, an unashamedly biased view of the Vietnam War, but certainly eye-opening. This included a video which featured the terrible injuries caused by American chemical warfare, including those that have been passed on to future generations. Although a one-sided account, the exhibition told some horrifying truths about the 'war-crimes' committed by the American army.

The museums and public buildigs shut at just 4pm here, so too late to finish off our 'tour' we came back to the hostel. Both in need of some exercise, we got a cab ride to a nearby gym. It was more like a country club for rich Vietnamese men. It was actually equipped with some decent machines, not that the locals had any idea how to use them - in fact they make a mockery of the whole thing by smoking in the changing rooms after walking for 5 minutes on the treadmills. After that we watched some shitty American TV in the room, too knackered to do anything else...