Saigon. Sin city. The name to me is as synonymous with the Vietnam war as B-52s. Thankfully the reality was completely different. Saigon turned out to be one of my favourite cities in SE Asia. Melanie flew in from Perth to join me while Julian had the uneviable tasks of driving our car, on his own, all the way from Thailand to Singapore. We didn't drive into Vietnam. We couldn't. For historical reasons (think cold war), Vietnam doesn't allow foreigners to bring there own vehicles in to their country which wasn't particularly bothersome as isn't a country we had to drive through to get to Paris. We really wanted to see Vietnam however and another troublesome country provided the solution. Burma (Myanmar) and China together form a geographical wall that must be crossed in order to get to India by land. Burma doesn't allow anyone to drive across it's borders and China wanted about AUD$12,000 in permits alone to allow us to drive through China. In the end we decided to simply ship the car from SE Asia to India, thus bypassing the troublesome countries. Whilst the car was being shipped we would fly to Vietnam and see the place on foot.

The Bitexco tower is one of the highlights of Saigon. I loved it's elegant curvy shape and how it stood out from it's surroundings so much. The industrialist who built it wanted it to be a symbol of Vietnams modernity. At the top there is, predictably, a viewing platform from which one can view Saigon. Sadly my hopes of wandering onto the helicopter platform didn't eventuate but the view was impressive none the less.

A personal highlight for me was a lunch special they had that included A CHEESE BOARD and a good selection of wine. I was starved of both (not to mention vegemite, balsalmic and olive oil) and it was pure joy for my taste buds to remember the taste of wine and cheese. God it was good.

Saigon was welcome relief from Thailand. It was quite green, there was some asthetic beauty that was so sadly missing from most of the rest of the region and it had an excellent nightlife. There were footpaths for you to walk on that weren't entirely covered in scooters which allows you to look around as you walk along. This can be difficult to do when you have to walk on the road. There are of course a million scooters and endless tooting of horns. Plenty of crashes too. The french influence is obvious with Napoleonic boulevards and some public spaces for people to gather and socialise. In this part of the world these seem to be found only in places that the French have shaped.

Vietnam is not a good spot for a car enthusiast to indulge in his passion. Any communist country is obviously going to be a bit challenged in this regard and Vietnam was no exception. We didn't get to drive here unfortunatelely and we only had a week or so in all of Vietnam so we basically did the tourist trail. With the car there is a bit more authenticity to your experience of a country because you don't just see the touristy sights but also the things in between. Tis a shame.