Geeze it's hot here..

Still struggling with photos but Dom is due here in an hour so that should help. Thanks to Annika and Adam for facilitating his departure - he's lucky to have such attentive siblings. Jules and I are well and have finished our two weeks in the northern area of the country. We've had a great time, as you do with a pocketful of money, a map and an ability to ignore responsibilities farther afield. The two big tourist traps in the north are Halong Bay and the Sapa mountain region from which we've just returned. It's on the border with China and the trecking is not too demanding but very scenic. We did a two-day hike with a sleep-over in a hilltop tribal village - very authentic. Vietnam has only really allowed tourism since the mid-'90s and it's still very fresh. It will probably be like Bali in ten years or so but it's a beautiful country and I'm pleased I've finally had the chance to come here without carrying a machine gun. The young people here don't have much sense of the war so there's no obvious resentment, although there are hardly any American tourists. Understandable, I suppose. When Dom arrives we have a trip planned by boat into the Mekong Delta region and then a few days at the beach. What he's looking forward to is a visit to the underground caves the Vietcong used to get close to Saigon during the war. There's a rifle range on site with all the weapons used in the war and you can buy bullets, grenades, rockets etc from a market stall and fire them from the weapons. Dom has never fired a gun before - I think an AK-47 to start with and I'll move him up from there. Stay tuned...