Day 2 (02-Sep-2010) Ho Chi Minh City - Mytho

A leisurely start to the day, with the bus departing the Hotel at 07:30hrs. After a brief stop to visit the inside of the Notre Dame Cathedral we went to the Presidents Palace, scene of another momentous action famously caught on film when North Vietnamese tanks crashed through the front gates to finally put an end to the fighting that had savaged a nation almost non-stop since the end of WWII. This was followed by a tour of the War Remnants Museum, a very graphic experience designed to shock the visitor – and does so very successfully.

We then jumped back on the bus for a 2 hour drive out of Saigon to the starting point of our cycling expedition. We were all truly thankful that the organisers had spared us the nightmare of having to cycle out of town, as jockeying for position among 11 million mopeds would likely have been a bloody and ultimately futile exercise. The cycle ride along narrow paths through the swamps and coconut plantations of the Mekong Delta was truly fabulous, though a little frightening at times having to cross bridges that either had no railings, or swayed badly under flimsy suspensions. Other bridges adorned a minimalist wooden construction that not only lacked railings but also swayed badly under our combined weight - well Astrid's anyway. Other hazards included low lying fruit, falling fruit, oncoming moped riders with no spatial awareness, chickens with road rage, vagrant piglets running amok, rabid dogs and the endless mindless poetry from Barry.

The 38km route itself would be impossible to recall, and had the guides simply elected to go round in circles we would have been none the wiser were it not for our Garmin Forerunner GPS tracking devices. At journey’s end, however, the truck and bus were waiting to take us on the final leg to our Hotel in Mytho. Following check-in we attended to personal hygiene, which for some had clearly deteriorated during the day (we shall not mention names, but the guilty found themselves isolated at the back of the bus). We then had a lavish dinner at some very secluded Vietnamese restaurant, washed down with some of France’s finest vintage wines – at US$10.00/bottle.