The rain in Spain stays mainly in Dalat

After our daytime sleeper bus trip we arrived in Dalat, which is like Caerffili only a bit wetter...

After a brave attempt at seeing the towns sights in the drizzle, we eventually decided that a bus tour was the way to go. Off we set on a Magical Mystery Tour of discovery...

First we went to a flower farm - our sheer excitement made us forget to upload the picture of this : /

Tehn we went to a coffee farm and learned about the delightful process involved in making 'Weasel Coffee', Then Matt ate crickets at the cricket farm...

Yum

After this it was a fascinating trip to a silk factory.

Then a brief and muddy struggle down to the Elephant Waterfall.

and a visit to a fat, happy MASSIVE Buddha:

Can you spot Matt?

The highlight of the tour was a trip to the local 'Crazy House', which was built by the daughter of Ho Chi Minh's successor as president. It looked like something straight out of Alice in Wonderland and you could stay the night there if you wanted!

I spy more than a passing resemblance to Barry Island's infamous Log Flume here...

And for the day's grand finale, we finished off with a tour round an embroidery shop

Soon we realised that we could take no more excitement and we thought it best to get out of Dalat and head for sunnier (and sandier) climes!

Current monk watch scores by popular demand (hi Dan), Matt 262 - Jenny 261. Note: Monks are now appearing in the brown variety and nuns are cunningly disguised as monks so there have been several fake monkings, penalty of 1 point per fake monk.

Goodnight Saigon (Knives, Knives, Knives!)

So good morning Vietnam and all that! Hooray we are in Saigon and country number four in the trip. Saigon is a huge, bustling, fun city with crazy driving and loads to see and we managed to meet up for one last shindig with our ol' Pai friends David and Lisa. After a cheap and delicious curry, we headed out for some 5,000 dong fresh beer (thats about 15p a glass)

David and Lisa are here front left, and they introduced us to some cool people, including Paul who had cycled from Hanoi to Saigon in 19 days.

So we set about the immense task of exploring Saigon, first taking a stroll through the Botanical Gardens where we were attacked by some fierce creatures:

If I keep really still and try to blend in, maybe they won't see me...

We stumbled upon a display of Vietnamese Water Puppetry in our journey round Saigon History Museum. Don't forget to turn the sound on!

That night we returned to our guesthouse in the torrential rain, only to find that our third floor room was flooding...

As we ventured out for food I found the water on the road came almost up to my knees! I had to take off my flip flops and wade home for fear of losing them under the water.

We spent a few days exploring the War Museum, Reunification Palace (where the North Vietnamese tanks crashed through the gates at the end of the war to take control) and some of the local parks.

Reunification Palace

One of many rooms with phones at the Reunifications Palace

Fisherman's Friends Bench

Notre Dame Cathedral

Jenny and some friends and the Ho Chi Minh City Museum

Then we went for some Franco-Vietnamese ice cream:

We decided to venture out of town a little and visit a local theme park called Dam Sen. It had loads of fun rides (haunted houses, dinosaur lands, jungle adventures - even a roller coaster) We found in the midst of all this in the 35 degree heat, an ice palace.

Dam Sen had a water park too, but we decided not to visit it in the end as we were the only non-Vietnamese people in the park, and that seemed to attract a LOT of attention, so when the rain came in the afternoon we headed back to the city.

The next morning we struck out with some other people to be Viet Cong in the Cu Chi tunnels. These are a network of tiny tunnels built underground for about 250K to fox the American soldiers in the war. Our guide was actually a 'Tunnel Rat'  - a small Philippino man employed by the US to go down into the tunnels where they themselves couldn't fit.

Our guide Mr Bean showing us the entrance to one of the tunnels

My bum halfway down one of the tunnels -

they got a LOT smaller than that - we couldn't make it to the end

Spikey Man-trap - eek!

Here endeth our time in Saigon - On to Dalat...

Phnom NOM NOM NOM Penh

Off we trotted then to Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh for some city sightseeing. We found some lodgings in the Lakeside backpacker area, which had a sort of grotty bohemian chic to it, with its bars full of board games, cushions and finally brandy! We even found a place which provided a pub quiz and a Sunday roast :)

Our Phnom Penh residence

After settling in and getting to know our area, we set off into the city centre to visit the City's main cultural attractions:

Vietnam/Cambodia Friendship Monument

- O Russai Market which stank of fish and scared Jenny!

 - There were live chickens in bundles!

The National Museum (+ Matt)

We visited our third Grand Palace in SE Asia so far, in the middle of a huge thunderstorm. See below for impressive buildings 1 through 3:

The 'Chocolate Stupa'

I'm a little Teapot

After this we took a break from visiting cultural attractions and civil war atrocity sites (not pictured) with a relaxing dip in the pool : )

Now its off to Saigon, see you there!