Pictures from Mui Ne, Vung Tau and Ho Chi Minh City

Sunbathing in Mui Ne.

Jesus statue watching over Vung Tau citizens, but not Mia.

A Ho Chi Minh local helping Mia to cross the street.

Christmas Eve celebrations with Paula, Davina, Neal, Tim, James, Clive and Gareth.

Christmas Day celebrations with the same group of people.

Local nastiness in the shape of rice vodka.

Christmas celebrations

Christmas Eve wasn't exactly spent in a very traditional way but what can you expect when it's 40 degrees hotter than we are used to, all the Christmas songs are sung in Vietnamese and you get robbed the day before? We spent our Christmas in Ho Chi Minh just sorting out things after the robbery and decided to move the celebrations to Christmas Day. It didn't stop us from going to one of the small road bars serving big Saigon beers for 10 000 VND (30 pence!) and where we befriended people from Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and England. We got along so well we all decided to meet up and celebrate Christmas Day together.

Christmas Day started with a well deserved lie in and then we headed out to buy presents! Ben Thanh Market is huge, hot and hectic and perfect for Christmas shopping. We set up a budget of 100 000 VND (I'm going to miss this currency, it's a very special feeling withdrawing two millions in ATMs) and managed to get really good presents for each other.

During the day we had deliberatly been starving ourselves to really be able to enjoy a pricey special Christmas dinner. It was indeed very special actually, and absolutely the first time I've ever had curry on Christmas! After that we met up with our new friends, went to yet another road bar and had loads of rice whiskey, something I suspect we are all regretting today. But all in all a very nice Christmas and now we feel ready to move on to Hanoi in Norh Vietnam even though we are not exactely looking forward to mere 20 degrees and rain.

Ho Chi Minh City

After a fifteen hour busride which included stomach cramps (food poisoning finally hit the both of us), a very weird border crossing and a serious lack of food we found ourselves in Ho Chi Minh City. The plan was to stay one night and then take a bus to Mui Ne on the coast but the long busride left us pretty traumatized, especially with the stomach cramps and everything. The decision to stay another night turned out to be a very good idea, we've completely fallen in love with the city!

There are beautiful parks pretty much everywhere and big flowerpots are put randomly along the streets. Everything is so green and leafy and the Vietnamese people are all lovely and extremely helpful, even the MAD traffic has its charm (at least after you've crossed the street!). The former French colonialism is sometimes very obvious in the shape of boulangeries, small squares where plenty of cafes and coffee shops are situated side by side, there is even a Notre Dame Cathedral here!

Soon we're heading out for some proper Vietnamese food. I'm having a good feeling about this, it's probably going to be very hard to get used to Shoreditch's Vietnamese restaurants again when we get back to London.