Backpacking on a pension: We're busy doing nothing!

Our first full day began with breakfast on the rooftop dining area, don't think we've gone all posh though, the laundry is done up there as well! It was a bland plate of scrambled eggs and baguette for me and an omelette for Lynn, coffee was almost undrinkable - time to find a decent cup somewhere.

After a quick walk round the block we found a bar called Booze Cruise - looked like an Irish bar, owned by an Aussie - par for the course then. We got something resembling an almost decent cup and then proceeded to the beach.

Our days were spent virtually the same for four more, indeed, we were classing this as a rest from all the frantic travelling of the previous three weeks. We actually chilled, can you believe it?

During the time by the sea we established some sort of pattern of breakfast, beach, shower, eat snack (bought from mini mart along with beer and wine), me write blog - Lynn read book: out for food at about 7. Why bother with anything else, we are now semi-retired, during this bit of the trip it just began to sink in.

One memorable meal was the fish BBQ at Aurora along the seafront. Basically, for £7, you are sat at a table with a cut out hole in the middle containing a BBQ. You go to a buffet counter, fill a plate with fish and meat. Fill a pot with veg. Take it back to the table and cook away. Repeat as many times as you want - easy.

Some of the meat on offer was a bit ropey though. Frog and pigeon were some of the more unlikely choices and of course there was crocodile, quite fishy actually. Hope ours hadn't been fed on human!

Another place we ate was at The Sailing Club, just behind our sunbathing area and a place we had considered too swanky for our budget. Nevertheless, our money was as good as anyone's and we had some great local food in there one late afternoon - the toilets were better than our hotel as well.

We took breakfast in there on our last full day, well, there's only so many bland eggy breakfasts a couple can handle.

That evening we tried Galegal, a Vietnamese restaurant where street food is cooked inside - it was fantastic and authentic. I even tried the countrywide favourite dish Pho Bo, Google it!

We finished up in Booze Cruise. It had become our local, late evening hangout, as the staff all made us welcome. The meet and greet girl was Rose? We found out her mother lived in Doncaster, as you do as an ex-pat Vietnamese woman in England! All in all, good craic, ropey toilets though!

Sadly another early night beckoned as we were up for the 5.30am taxi to the airport. Destination, Ho Chi Min City - Saigon In old money.

All you can eat, and, cook it yourself