Happy St Patrick’s Day!

How could I not write?  Happy St Patrick’s Day from Ho Chi Minh City! 🍀

I have a friend from Australia who moved to Belfast when we were kids and moved back after a few years.  She used to be my first editor in everything I wrote (I was an avid diary writer from the age of 13).  She is now married and lives in America and from what I can gather is still writing and still editing.  It is her birthday today and being St Patrick’s day somehow I still always remember it, in a day before Facebook reminds you.  In a day when people really mattered.  This post is for you.

So here we are in Ho Chi Minh City!  And what a difference it is to the quiet pace of Siem Reap.

There is one word for this place – Traffic!

Every part of my vision has been inundated.  Even my ears are still ringing from the blasting of horns.  I had myself a headache today and slept early.  It’s now midnight and I’m wide awake – brilliant.

Our hostel is down a wonderful little alleyway where locals peer curiously at us as we walk past.  I am conscious, but also curious so I peer just as nosily back.

We have had a productive day and sorted our ‘sagging middle bit’ itinerary.  Today and tomorrow explore in Ho Chi Minh, then Thursday and Friday will be Mekong Delta.  I am so excited about this!  Floating markets, rich paddy fields, an over night stay – it will be fab!

Tomorrow we have a busy day – our aims include the Jade Emperor pagoda, The Reunification Palace, Water puppet show, Market and Sky deck.  Sorry I’ll get the names of the last two for you when I can.  Our major aim however is getting our train tickets for our journey up to Hoi An on Friday night.  I hear it can be a bit of a mission!  If all else fails, we may just get the bus.  We will also need to find somewhere to stay and figure out what we are doing there.  Getting some silk dresses made is a must I hear.

Our Vietnamese dinner washed down well with Vietnamese coffee.  We went for a stroll in the park where people were running, walking, playing football, badminton and all sorts of various forms of exercise.  See, if the UK was this sunny I would totally love exercise!  (Not).

Our thing today was people watching.  If I can I’ll upload a little one minute clip I have of the traffic.  It was unreal, a perfect system of organised chaos.

But for now, you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Happy St Patrick’s Day my little leprechauns around the world!

Tiny