I woke up early at 5.30 before my alarm which must have made me overconfident as I took a while getting ready but then I didn't want to wake the others. I also couldn't find the key to the locker which was annoying so I had to borrow one from reception. I left at 6.20 and took the metro to the main station where I struggled to find the bus stop I needed. Then there was a big queue and I didn't want to miss the bus as I might not get checked in. I was 4 from the front and the ticket guy asked for 1 more passenger and I didn't wait for anyone else to decide and grabbed the seat. The bus was a lot quicker than I thought and I was at the airport around 7.30, checked in and my hand luggage was less than the 7kg limit, one thing about Air Asia is people had been carrying 4 bags in as hand luggage but here it was just 1 and they did weigh it. I tried to sneak some water through customs by completely filling the bottle so that there would be no air bubbles but they spotted it, maybe because I had an empty bottle as well in the bag. On the other side it took a while to find a water dispenser which is rare for Taiwan as they are normally everywhere. The flight was longer than I expected as Vietnam is an hour behind so it was almost 4 hours and I slept a bit. We arrived and had to queue at customs I hadn't gone to the landing visa place so I thought there might be a problem, but after a couple of questions he stamped me for 15 days which is ok as it was free. I went and changed my Taiwan dollars for 1.3m Dong and skipped the sim cards as they were 280,000 which is £10 as I wouldn't be there for a whole month to make it worthwhile. I got a bus which went to the centre for just 5,000 Dong and things were going ok. Then I had to walk a few blocks and the pavements were not very smooth and traffic was quite busy with lots of motorbikes but that's normal for Asia. I went a bit too far and turned back into the road and saw a place called PP backpackers so I thought that was the place as I had a google calendar reminder for there but they didn't have me listed. I checked the Agoda reservation once I found it and the address listed had a gate over it and some kind of eviction notice. I thought maybe they'd closed and the google calendar reminder was for a rescheduled place as I'd paid already so I went to the address which was a hotel and the woman there was unsure but then agreed that I did have a reservation and took me upstairs (climbing 3 narrow flights) to a nice double room. I started unpacking and was going to Skype my brother but then the woman came back and said I didn't have a reservation but I could stay here. It was probably a fair bit more expensive so I left but still used their internet to cancel my hostel which Agoda managed and then I booked another place nearby. I went there and it was up some stairs, not great with my suitcase. My brother was busy so I left to get some food and see the city a bit before the free walking tour I'd booked for 6pm. I crossed a park where some Vietnamese students were practicing their English with some of the many tourists in the area and I found a shop tgat was ok so I got a few things and paid with a 500,000 note and didn't get any kind of smile at all from the girl working there. I checked my change and it was 100,000 short so I went back and she checked before giving me the full amount. I had heard they do things like this in Vietnam, but 2 hours in and a closed hostel and a dodgy shopkeeper, welcome to Vietnam. I walked through another park and somehow got lost but then made my way towards the Chinese embassy and found a roundabout fountain structure which was pretty cool. The embassy was shut and open from 8 to 11 the next day so I decided to walk on a bit further to a park where people were playing badminton. I headed back and found a decent church but there was mass on so it was crowded. I got to the war remnants museum and then the Reunification Palace which I found out opens at 7.30 in the morning. It started raining as I headed back in the late afternoon and I'd read earlier that it's dry season in Vietnam, finally I had thought I was in the right place at the right time, maybe not. I got back to the hostel and didn't have enough time to talk to my brother as the guy from Saigon free walking tours turned up on a motorbike. He asked which of 3 meals I wanted so I chose the rice one and off we went on his motorbike to a restaurant. He wasn't eating and I tried the pork with pork and more pork with rice dish. It was ok but a bit plain and could have done with sauce. He was a student and apparently there are 200 tour guides like him in the company so groups usually get a guide each so I had him as a tour group of 1. We left with the restaurant adding service charge to the bill and went central to the Notre-Dame cathedral and the post office. The guide was called Viet and he didn't really describe things that well. We continued to the city hall promenade area where the fountains switched on and got dome people wet and talked a bit about what career he could do and I briefly went over the history of England. We went across the river to an area being developed for the new financial area of the city before heading back to have some pudding but they had sold out of whatever he thought was amazing do we had flan instead which was ok for 12k except for the coffee flavoured milk around it. We finished back at the hostel and I tipped 100k him and he said he didn't have change but I said it was ok. He went off and I looked at my money and I didn't have as much as I thought so I thought I'd given him 1 million. I messaged him as he'd wattsapped me and then went upstairs to read. I got a message from him and it was 100k I'd given him and I remembered that I'd only gotten 1.3m in the first place so it was fine. There was a smoker upstairs from Burnley so I gave him the cigarettes I bought in Puerto Princesa to give to the prisoners. We sat talking with 2 Aussies and he was called John-Paul and they were George and R.... , no not really they were Harry and James. John-Paul talked a lot about his motorbike, his brother and his time in the Philippines and we were a bit loud in front of the dorm room. I went to sleep around 12 as I had a tour at 8am the next day.
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