Final day of our adventure - Saigon

No alarm and no early start this morning - hoorah! We managed to get up in time for breakfast at the hotel. Our taxi pick up was not until 9pm and we did not have to check out until 4pm. We were also allowed to use the Club Lounge until our departure but NOT the Happy Hour - boo!

Our hotel is very close to one of the big markets in Saigon. It is more for the tourists now but it is still quite interesting and you have to barter - very hard. We did a bit of last minute shopping and continued on our exploration of Saigon.

We headed to the Apartments Cafe block. Basically, an old apartment block has been taken over by tea and coffee shops. The block is about 10 stories high and there is at least one beverage shop on each floor.

We took a lift to the top floor - having paid the lift lady about 10p each for the privilege, and made our way up. We chose a coffee shop called BOO and had our first iced coconut coffee, yummy.

We meandered along the riverside and did a loop back to our hotel. Quite a treacherous route as the traffic here is madder than anywhere else we have been to in the world. In Hanoi, they do actually slow down for you and avoid you. In HCM they don't always slow down but they have managed to miss mowing us down.

We were ready for a final dip in the pool before packing and checking out. Packing did not take us long, we have not been anywhere long enough to warrant unpacking! We have just lived out of suitcases for 3 weeks.

We decided to try a restaurant very close to our hotel called 'Cyclo Resto'. It was number 3 on TripAdvisor. It was hidden down an alley and did not look much from outside. The walls were covered in graffiti of previous guests. Before we left, I added our own tag. If you ever go, have a look for it... right-hand side, halfway down restaurant at table height!

There is no choice of food, they just bring you 5 dishes; the most amazing crispy bread-crumbed prawn spring rolls, melon soup (courgette really, not melon at all), vegetables in garlic with pork, lemongrass chicken, Mekong Delta fish stew, and rice. Dessert was an egg coffee (see Hanoi post). The meal for 2 of us with 3 beers was £10.

So our time in Saigon had come to an end and it was time to return to the Club Lounge of the hotel for an hour whilst we waited for our taxi to the airport. Farewell Vietnam, we've had a ball.

"Goodnight Saigon"