I landed in Ho Chi Minh City (previously Saigon, although still referred to as that by most) late in the evening and was escorted to Pham Ngu Lao (the Western district!) by some kind, if a little bit suspicious, Singaporean business men I had sat next to on the plane. I exited the taxi with an invitation to a conference the following day and a mobile phone number that I would never use. “Oh that sounds wonderful. I’ll give you a call” I decided to lie.

Pham Ngu Lao was, urm, loud. It was gone 11pm by the time I arrived and the night life was in full swing. A bit like Camden on a Saturday evening, only warmer, and a much greater number of motorbikes. Although, probably less people shouting. I thought I might have trouble finding a hostel, but, even at that time of night, there were plenty of touts in the streets offering cheap rooms.

It’s always a totally different experience in an Asian city depending on whether you’re wearing a big rucksack or not. If you aren’t, you tend to get left alone. If you are, everyone wants to know where you’re from, shake your hand, or take you somewhere on the back of a motorbike.

I found something quite easily and, as I hadn’t met anyone yet, resolved to get an early night so I could come out swinging for some history early the next morning. Luckily, the banging music from the karaoke bar stopped penetrating the single French door that I was sleeping next to at around 5am. So that was helpful.

I spent the morning trying to find a quieter hostel and buying an open tour sleeper bus ticket that would take me all the way north to Hanoi via Nha Trang, Hoi An and Hue. I soon found out that Miriam and Emily were in Nha Trang and would be for a couple more nights. I decided against changing hostels in favour of getting the soonest bus I could to go and meet up with them, which would be the following night.

I spent my first afternoon at the War Remnants Museum and Reunification Palace, scratching up on my ashamedly non-existent knowledge of what happened during the Vietnam war. Whilst the information I received was clearly extremely biased, it was extremely interesting to read through the timeline from French occupancy, through President Ho Chi Minh’s election, the American-funded war with the French, American-backed government, North Vietnamese resistance, American invasion, to the “Fall of Saigon” in 1975. The Reunification Palace was the presidents home during the war, the gates of which were destroyed by tanks that infiltrated the Palace and forced the president to surrender – the event now known as the “Fall of Saigon”.

It was getting dark after the free tour of the Palace finished so I dared myself to get on the back of a motorbike back to my hostel. We discussed football, the entire way. I just agreed and said “Manchester United” whenever I thought it might be appropriate.

The next day, I had booked a trip to go and see the Cuchi Tunnels, where the VietCong were in hiding during the war. They are basically a network of underground tunnels that they would hide in when American troops were nearby. Our group crawled through 20m of these tunnels for about 5 minutes and it was one of the most claustrophobic experiences of my life, particularly when everyone in front of you stopped, and everyone behind you kept going! I couldn’t imagine living down there for days at a time. There were also exhibitions on the booby traps that they would use to injure American soldiers, all of which involved sharpened bamboo, and holes in the ground covered in grass.

The traps stood in stark contrast to what I had learnt the day before about the US Air Force spraying Agent Orange over acres of land, something which is still affecting Vietnamese land and genetics two generations later.

Next stop was Nha Trang, a beach resort around 12 hours by bus from Ho Chi Minh City. I met up with Miriam and Emily which was great fun and we took some motorbikes out to a waterfall about 45 minutes away. There was 7 of us in total. Miriam & I on one bike, Ollie & Hannah, and Carolina & Jake on two others, and Becky on her own. After getting lost and someone driving into the back of Becky, costing her 500,000 Dong (not quite as much as it might sound) or attention from the police, we finally arrived at the waterfall.

One of the nicest feelings in the world is swimming in fresh water after prolonged periods of only swimming in the sea. Don’t get me wrong, I love the sea, but there’s only so much salt water going up your nose you can take. Diving into a deep, fresh, clean waterfall pool is so satisfying.

The next day, we decided to go and check out the mud baths, which was great fun and we took loads of photos of all of us covered in the stuff, but unfortunately Hannah lost her camera, so that was annoying.

One of the weirdest feelings in the world is getting covered in warm, gritty mud after prolonged periods of water. It gets under your eye lids and between your lips, but apparently it’s good for the skin! Followed by some warm mineral baths and a swimming pool, and a day lounging around, drinking beer, and finding out at the end of the day that Becky didn’t believe in evolution. What!? Geordies, eh?

The next day all of that lot had departed southbound and I’d met two guys called Keith and Tom, who were part of a bigger group who had been travelling together since Laos and Cambodia. They were in the process of booking their hostel in Hoi An, which I gladly tagged on to. Keith, Tom and I went off to the waterfall again, and had more motorbike trouble when Tom’s tyre burst about 20 minutes out of town. We went to the waterfall anyway, and it meant that Tom had go back out once we got back to collect the bike, arriving back 5 minutes before his bus departed!

I met up with the whole group (Sarah & Peter, twins from Uxbridge, Mirjana & Mathilda, from Sweden, Dave and Tom, from Canada, and Keith, from Scotland) at the Sunflower Hotel in Hoi An the next day – the best breakfast buffet and swimming pool in the whole of Vietnam. Hoi An is one of the only places in Vietnam that wasn’t bombed during the war, and actually has an ‘Old Town’ with no cars or motorbikes. We hired bicycles and went for an explore.

We got off to a bad start when Keith got shouted at for crossing a holy bridge shirtless and on his bike. He was ushered off towards some market stalls to buy something to cover up and returned minutes later with a red vest (with Vietnamese yellow star) to match his red shorts and flip flops. Lovely. The rest of the bike ride was very nice though, and I spent a lot of it chatting with my new travelling buddies. We finished up with some beers on the river and were joined by a Vietnamese guy who wanted to practice his English with Peter, Keith and I. It very quickly turned into a game of English/Vietnamese Pictionary with all of us scribbling down pictures in his notebook.

On the way back, Peter noticed a sign for Cinnamon River Cruises – a dinner cruise for 3 hours costing the equivalent of about £10. I was skeptical at first, I guess you’re a bit more wary when you haven’t travelled in a big group before, but went with the group consensus.

It turned out to be one of the best value for money experiences I’ve had so far travelling. We got a 5-course Vietnamese meal, the boat to ourselves (with a Christmas themed soundtrack for some reason) and at the end we all floated candles down the river and made a wish. We then met our head waiter in the ‘Before Long’ bar in the Old Town and continued the party, with some shisha, in the lounge area there. The soundtrack in the bar was slightly different than on the boat and included Jamie T (Joe – you’d have loved it!) and Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros (At Home? YouTube it!) so we all had a good sing-a-long!

We were all up early the next morning. The rest of the group had bought plane tickets from Hoi An to Hanoi, but I had already paid for my open tour bus ticket. I left Hoi An at 8am and arrived in Hanoi at 7.30am on the next day. They left Hoi An at about 11.30am, and arrived in Hanoi about an hour later. But luckily, I arrived just in time to get on the same Castaway Tour as them!

Castaway Tour is a 4 hour bus trip out to a harbour, followed by a 5-6 hour boat trip through Halong Bay and a 2 night stay on “Castaway Island” which only has electricity from 8pm to 8am and has only 1 permanent resident – Wes, the island guide, from London. Day 1 is spent travelling and drinking. Day 2 is spent doing water sports, rock-climbing and drinking. Day 3 is spent travelling back and sleeping / or drinking. It was a lot of fun, and we met some great people doing it, including our tour guide Scott.

When back in Hanoi we decided to go for a nice meal, seeing as we’d just eaten the same meal for 3 days straight, and were recommended Avalon, a rooftop restaurant overlooking the lake. The food was a little bit expensive, but we had a lot of fun, and were kindly asked to leave an hour after everybody else had left.

On the way home, we bumped into Scott who was leading a group of backpackers from the hostel to the next bar as the one they were in had just been closed down by the police. Apparently the whole of Vietnam has a midnight curfew, but it’s only enforced in Hanoi, the capital. As such, at midnight a load of police storm all the bars, blow whistles and kick everyone out into the street. After that, if you don’t know where to go, you’re screwed. But, if you knock on the right shutters, you’ll be let into a dimly lit bar full of locals and they’ll close the shutters behind you. Before long, the police will work out what’s going on and close that down too, although sanctions for the places that stay open and the people occupying them seem to be non-existent.

Once all the bars are closed, you have to jump in a cab and ask to be taken to the Phuc Club (you can decide how to pronounce that!) which is the other side of the highway. You get out the cab and a man leads you down an alley, across someone’s garden, down another alley and out onto the river bank. About 100m up is a warehouse with flashing lights and banging music. We arrived at around 1am and the place was empty, but within half an hour the place was crammed with 400 people, locals and westerners. This club is outside the city limits, so the police don’t bother. We stayed until 4am and called it a night.

The next few days were very chilled out and included saying our goodbyes to Dave and Tom (off to Bali) and Mirjana & Mathilda (off to the Philippines) which meant a lot less to me than it did Peter, Sarah and Dave, who had been travelling together for 2 months, in comparison with my 5 days!

Vietnam is an amazing country, and there’s certainly a lot more to do there than I was able to discover in about 14 days. It’s a different kind of travelling though. Because everyone is doing the same route (but either from the North or from the South), you’re constantly bumping into people you’ve met before. And you can’t get it wrong, you just book a bus and make sure you turn up on time, not like in Malaysia where you’re lucky if anyone tells you where the bus you’re about to board is headed. I had a great time, and met some awesome people and did some awesome stuff, it was all just a bit too easy!

Peter, Sarah and Keith had all booked on to the same flight out of Hanoi to Bangkok on 16 March, the day my Visa ran out, so I decided to join them. After that, I’m heading north to Chiang Mai and Pai, before I leave South East Asia for good and head to India. Now that’s the adventure I am looking forward to!