Hello all, trust that life is treating you all well and that you are all having as much fun as us!

We are headed towards Hanoi after a couple of tiring weeks. We had planned to stay in Ho Chi Minh city (or Saigon as everyone in the South still calls it) for 3 or 4 days, however, we met up with Minh and Odette one evening... (Minh left Vietnam to study in France around 1950 where he met Odette and settled. They were visiting Saigon for a month for Minh's niece's wedding.)

In the way that cosmic world moves and intertwines, we were cordially invited not just to attend the big party on the Saturday but to take part in the wedding itself on the Friday with the exchanging of gifts on behalf of the groom to the bride. Naturally this was a great opportunity for Virginie to go shopping, we had a traditional silk wedding outfit or Ao Dai made for her - needless to say she looked breathtakingly beautiful (and we carefully avoided red and white, the colours associated with the bride.)

The Bride's wedding party was made up of her two sisters, the two sisters of the groom, her two cousins Quak Mai (half vietnemese and half french) and Mai Lien (half vietnemese and half italian) and Virginie, the grooms party was made up of his brother, four friends, Sergi (Mai Lien's boyfriend - Catalan) and myself.

Friday morning saw me on the back of a vespa riding across Saigon with the other gift bearers (Ushers is the nearest description I can come up with.) Dressed in a traditional blue Ao Dai and hat (yes it is a long dress, thank you, and no it wasn't my idea, and yes the others were wearing them too ,though the groom was in gold)



If you have never been in Saigon, to give you an idea of traffic, it is as unrully as India with a lot more motorbikes, now imagine riding in formation with four bikes and two others with photographers flying around all of us. Manic doesn't even begin to describe it! We did a full tour of the city to stop in front of certain monuments including the french cathedral of Notre Dame - where all the tourists ran out to photograph us all.
Everyone seemed to think the whole thing was rather amusing, but far more so when they realised that there were two foreigners robed up and taking part.



The gift ceremony was very touching and was a symbolic demonstration by the groom to care for and support his new bride. No surprise to hear the parties were great. The dinners can only be described as feasts, seven courses on the Friday and nine on the Saturday with dancers singing and processions. The Sunday was a more relaxed affair, but again, lots of food in a beautiful location.

During our time we managed to have a pretty good look around the city and visited the reunification palace and various museaums including the war museaum, truly a chilling experience and one that left us both cold. After visiting the city and the area round about, Agent Orange is much more than just a name and the Vietcong tunnels(Cu CHi) are far more claustrophobic than one had previously imagined. Nonetheless a fascination few days.

From Saigon we headed for the coast of Mui Ne for some R & R and caught the tail end of a typhoon so a had a fews days of big wind and waves, Rob S, you would have absolutely loved it - however it was a bit rough for our windsurf standards so sat on the beach and watched them zoom in and out of kite surfers, all fun.

From there we headed up to temperate Dalat but we can't rave about it as much as some, we found it rather on the tacky side and though much cooler than anywhere else we visited, the ancient sewers left a little to be desired so we headed on to Hoi An where we had a lovely couple of days of eating and drinking in this pleasant ancient city.

I think that is about all I can cope with writing for the minute, so hope you all enjoyed, as always, we love to hear comments! Love Rob & Virginie