This morning, we travel to Da Nang Airport, a one-hour journey, to catch a lunchtime flight to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).

We have loved our time in Hoi An. It has been great to take things easy and relax in the hot and humid temperatures.

When we arrived at Da Nang airport, we found out our flight had been delayed 45 minutes.
We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City at 4 pm. The temperature was 34c. At the taxi rank, we met numerous taxi firm salespeople aggressively trying to win our business. We were quoted 300,000 VND to go to our hotel, but we said that was too much, so he went to 250,000. When we went to walk away, we agreed to 200,000 VND, which is around £6.

We are staying at La Vela Saigon, a 4/5-star hotel in the city’s center. The chaos on the roads is worse than in Hanoi; there are still a majority of scooters but lots more cars. There is still the same total anarchy with apparently no road rules about where people can go, turn, or cross from one side to the other.

In the evening, we went on a three-hour scooter tour of the city (8 pm to 11 pm) as pillion passengers with XO Tours, a company run by women with all-women drivers. We were driven by three very enthusiastic young riders: Han, Anh, and Thao. They also had a male rider, Thinh, who followed them around to keep an eye on them and to help with things.

The tour was excellent. You would expect to be frightened riding as a pillion passenger in the madness and chaos of the traffic, but the girls were so skilled that you just relaxed, and it was great fun.
We visited Chinatown, which has a population of 300,000. It was 8 pm, but the food and vegetable street market was still open and very busy, with vendors sitting on the road with their produce piled up beside them. The vendors sleep on the street by their produce and open again the following day.

We then visited some very old and run-down flats where the founder of XO Tours comes from and where many of her relatives still live. The government wanted to knock the apartments down, but residents fought against it. We went to see one of the flats. It was very tiny; five people all related were living there. It was divided into living spaces by blankets. The cooking area was in the same area as a tiny bathroom. There was no wardrobe space, so all the clothes were hanging on a washing line throughout the flat.

The flat was owned by Mai who is known as Aunti Mai or Co Mai for endearment. Mai said that when she was growing up 14 people lived there, with some sleeping in a void between the ceiling and the roof which is about 18 inches high with no light or ventilation. They accessed this by climbing a ladder and crawling through a small opening.

Some homeless people live in what were originally bin rooms in the flats. The residents are happy for them to do this as long as they keep the space tidy and clean.
Auntie Mai was a lovely woman. She had the most amazing and welcoming smile. She said she had grown up and lived in the flats all her life, was very happy there, and did not want to leave.