Yeah, yeah. Calm yourselves! I just mean I’ve arrived in Ho Chi Minh City. I’m here for one night only…. that’s all!

And the don’t judge me part? Well. I just arrived, checked in, decided my spirit of adventure had probably stayed an extra night in Hoi An, and came to eat here…

So yeah. Don’t judge me 🤣🤣

It’s been a long and difficult day – only partly of my own making. My itinerary had me on a flight leaving Hoi An at 17:00, which meant a leisurely morning – I was planning to take a cookery class – and leaving my B&B at about 14:00. However, I woke with a start at 4am, remembering that I hadn’t checked in – lucky, really, as when I did I saw that the flight had been brought forward to 15:30, which meant I needed to be on the shuttle at 11:00. So I got up at 8:00 and had breakfast with a lovely pair of Mexican students, who were heading up north to do Halong Bay. They’d come from Cambodia by way of India and were full of really good tips for getting the best out of Angkor Wat.

I got so engrossed in their stories I forgot the time, and finally bombed upstairs to pack at 9:50. Before my Hoi An shopping splurge, I had packing down to a fine art, but I now have a new bag, which had to accommodate the old bag plus all the usual stuff (oh Lord. Please don’t judge me!), plus the new stuff. It was a squeeze and I spent most of the rest of the morning wondering if I’d be over the luggage allowance. (Spoiler: I wasn’t).

The other thing that threw me off kilter this morning was an email from tonight’s hotel to say they’d overbooked and couldn’t accommodate me after all. Booking.com confirmed this is so, and offered me a refund (clue. Hellfuckingyeah you’ll refund me, you dicks) (which isn’t very gracious, is it? Don’t judge me… 😏). So I spent the bus journey to the airport scrabbling around for another hotel. Luckily I found one, only two doors down from the original as it turns out. And then I had to get hold of the Vietnam team for Rickshaw and advise them that I won’t be where they were expecting me, tomorrow.

The journey from the airport to the hotel was the first time I haven’t pre-booked my transfer, but negotiated the hordes of taxi touts. I paid about 50,000 VND more than Grab quoted me, but I got to wait indoors in the cool… perhaps unsurprisingly, the traffic here is even more intense than Hanoi. I’m either now perfectly acclimatised, or this is more like a large western city than anywhere else I’ve been so far. It’s all high rise buildings and big neon signs and far fewer obvious streetfood stalls. The traffic is *way* more intense than Hanoi, although that could also be a factor of arriving in the rush hour.

Actually, that’s a really interesting photo for two reasons. First, everyone is wearing a helmet which has definitely not been a typical sight, elsewhere. Secondly, you see the woman with the purple helmet? Well she’s wearing a special apron that women here wear specifically for riding mopeds. It’s a long apron that velcros at the back and must be cut in an A Line, and it covers her legs while she’s riding. I’m prepared to bet she’s wearing shorts underneath. And note also the face masks, designed to stop you breathing in the pollution. They don’t *obviously* have any kind of filter in them, but I haven’t looked at one up close.

Anyway, I got to the hotel. And it’s the best hotel ever, because the reception is staffed by Fred.

I pet Fred. He is very friendly to everyone but when he’s not saying hi and licking guests’ hands, he likes to sploot on the tiles. That’s because HCMC is very hot and Fred (who admittedly is splatted rather than splooting, here) is very hairy. 13/10. Will definitely pet again.

So, yeah. I checked in to my room and totally ran out of energy for any further adventures, today. Don’t judge me.

Besides, I need to get a decent night’s sleep because tomorrow…. I’M GOING TO THE JUNGLE!!! This is not a euphemism, folks!

I’m back in HCMC on Monday, and there may be radio silence in the meantime as I’m not sure that the jungle lodge will have WiFi. So don’t panic… I’m told it’s highly unlikely we’ll see tigers (although apparently there *are* some). So I won’t get eaten by one of those. On the other hand, we *will* see crocodiles and they may well snap me up… specially if I sing that bloody song at them (Dad, I’m giving you a hard stare, here 🤣😘)