Good Morning Vietnam ...

Day 133 ... After waking Adam up just after 9am (hotel rooms without windows are dangerous for oversleeping!) we walked to a nearby coffee shop I found on TripAdvisor for breaki. Manila isn't really a touristy place, apart from people like us who use it as a stopover for flights, so we were the only white people around and didn't we know it! Every other person stared at us like we were aliens. Technically, that's what some of the airports call foreigners!! We've seen signs at airport passport control for 'Aliens' believe it or not!! This hotel was one of the first we've stayed in which we didn't have breaki included but it was only just over £20 for the night so we can't complain! I'm actually pretty glad it wasn't included as the hotel breakfasts have been a little ropey to say the least (for me anyway, fussy bum over here!!). So it was nice to go out somewhere for breakfast and I'm so glad we picked a good one! We both got scrambled eggs on soda bread with mushrooms, tomatoes and sour cream. It was sooo good, the scrambled eggs were the best we've had in the last 4 months I would say, so fluffy and light. The ones in Boracay were sooo salty and oily they were almost inedible for me! So after checking out of our hotel at 1pm and making a pitstop at Starbucks for a caramel Frappuccino

(I'm officially addicted, I'm worried this maybe an issue when we're home!), we went back to Bluesmith Coffee & Kitchen. After looking at the menu, I enjoyed my breakfast so much, I ordered it again for lunch, nice and healthy too after my frappuccino treat! We walked back to the hotel to pick up our backpacks and book a taxi to the airport ready for our flight to Ho Chi Minh City at 7.25pm

Day 134 ... After arriving late last night we headed out to find some food as it was 11pm and we hadn't eaten. We found the Ben Thanh Street Food Market which was full of small food stalls selling all kinds of foods. We decided on a fish and a chicken burrito which were so yummy! So we came back for lunch today. It gets really busy with lots of tourists. Its the main food market in HCMC I think so people come from all over to eat there. Luckily it's only a 2 minute walk from our hotel so we can come most days for some tasty food! We have booked a city/food tour for today. We were picked up from the hotel at 4pm by 2 girls on scooters. They took us to a few of the main sights of the city including the Central Post Office, Notre Dame Square (pictured), the flower market, Book Street which is lined with book shops on one side and coffee shops on the other, Nguyen Hue Street which is like the Las Ramblas of Vietnam, which has been decorated for Tet with so many floral sculptures and displays the whole way down. It was more of a sight seeing tour than a food tour so we didn't try that many

different Vietnamese foods, but the ones we did try were not that great. We were taken to an 80 year old cafe which was pretty busy and well known in HCMC. They brew coffee in pots on coals on top of an 80 year old stone pot. Adam really enjoyed his mini cup of coffee with condensed milk which is how they drink it over here! Then we went somewhere for some fresh summer rolls which were so chewy they were almost inedible. But we felt like we had to eat them while we were sat in front of the girls taking us on the tour. Next up was Banh Xeo which translates to sizzling pancake. This was filled with pork and prawns, which were then wrapped in wasabi leaves along with quite a few other fragrant herb leaves which Adam and I aren't the biggest fans of. Plus the fact that when I was half way though eating it I noticed my prawn was a full prawn, head, legs and all. As soon as I saw it, I warned Adam, but it was too late, his huge bite had included the whole prawn without realising! I hid mine underneath the rest of the leaves I didn't want to eat and left it there! Next up was another restaurant and a beef noodle soup, the noodles were like spaghetti pasta, the broth was again very fragrant and the beef, don't get me started on the beef! It was like thinly slice dried beef, although it wasn't meant to be dried! It was probably the worst beef I had ever tried to eat. So chewy Adam had to discreetly spit his out. I again hid mine under the herb leaves one of the girls kept pulling of and putting into my bowl. So the sight seeing part of the tour was good, as we saw a lot of the city we wouldn't have seen on our own, but the food hasn't left us wanting more!

Day 135 ... Valentine's Day ... After a very average breakfast at the hotel, we had a relaxing day in the hotel with Adam coding and I was having a productive travel dairy afternoon. Off to the street food market for lunch and a Baileys coffee smoothie with my burrito. Adam's getting his chicken wrap fill while we're here. We went back tot he food market for tea and had a lazy night in watching Me Before You. Super laid back Valentine's Day. We kind of feel as though we are just waiting to go home now, especially while we're in a city. We're just really not city people, so we haven't really been out exploring the city as we saw most of the main sights on our tour the other night. There is a trip to the Mekong Delta but we have had our fill of boat tours recently and Adam isn't too keen on going. We're using the city time to be productive and we'll get out and about more when we get to Hoi An as everyone we have met/know has said how nice it is there.

Day 136 ... Another quiet day before we catch our flight to Da Nang, Hoi An tomorrow. So for lunch, of course, we walked to 2 minute walk back to the street food market, just as we were crossing the road we noticed it was closed and will be for the next 4 days for Tet. There was also what looked like a traditional Chinese dragon dance going along the road which I managed to get a video of. This obviously has something to do with the Lunar New Year, although I'm not sure if it was the Chinese or something to do with the Vietnamese culture. Seeing as our favourite eating place was closed and I wasn't going to get my Baileys coffee smoothie, we tried out the coffee shop on the corner across from the street food market. The food was pretty nice but no proper iced coffees so we went for a walk to Starbucks, but that was closed too!