Highway 1 to Ho Chi Minh

Our early morning sees us onto the bus for Vietnam. It appears helter skelter at first, but it's highly organized. Soon we are coasting through suburbs, and then fields.

Roadside restaurants line the route, tarped shelters with small plastic chairs, and bikes or scooters with trays of wares. Skinny cows pick listlessly through fields where plastic bottles are more plentiful than grass.

Faded umbrellas in a group are most likely a market, with goods hanging from the ribs and we pass a man laying out thin strips of meat to dry in the sun.

Its a pleasant journey with the happy surprise that our ticket includes a welcome drink and croissant, and a full lunch. So we cross and recross the Mekong in comfort.

Until. The border. Here a process begins that we have no understanding of. Concerningly, we are requested to hand over our passports and entry visas, which are then taken away and we're told to deboard. We walk about 20 feet, the bus follows, and we're told to get back on. Great! That was very efficient. But no, a small distance further we deboard again and go into the border office. Here several lines are moving almost imperceptibly. Sharp dressed guards are installed in 1950s style wood and glass offices, and they slowly, slowly stamp and hand out passports. We are in line for about and hour and a half, no hope of getting to Ho Chi Minh City at the scheduled time.

Finally our documents are returned and we can carry on. Past one final guard at the outside stairs and we're free to get on our bus and carry on.

Barely out of sight of the border, the bus ominously pulls to the side of the road, and stops. Urgent discussions, and banging ensue on the underside of the bus. Another hour or so passes, and we're informed another bus had arrived. Finally! But not so fast...this bus is smaller, won't fit everyone. Us and a pair of South African school teachers remain to wait for another bus - 20 min they say, which no one believes.

Eventually, the broken down bus is revived and instead of another bus, we are headed onwards.

Three and a half hours late, we arrive in the absolute sea of bikes that is Ho Chi Minh City. And from there, a GRAB car to the hotel - the local version of Uber.

At this point, a short walk around and dinner is all we want. We find a great Thai place and joke that we still havent really had Vietnamese food.

We're really in the centre of the activity here, a large Boulevard in front seethes with music and activity. It's loud though and I'm done in.

How nice to get to the crosswalk to the hotel, and have the doorman run out and hold up his hand to stop traffic so we can cross!Read more