He's got a city named after him, his face is on every denomination of bank-note in the country, and 40 years after his death the people in Vietnam still fondly refer to him as "Uncle Ho". Whether you think he's one of the most important people of the last century, or a war-mongering traitor you have to admit that Ho Chi Minh has left a deep imprint on the lives and memories of the Vietnamese people.

It would be his 119th birthday today and for the last few weeks there have been posters and banners everywhere, even if there's not exactly a party atmosphere. You can't escape his beguiling smile and natty beard. You can read a bit more on Ho Chi Minh here, but it is Wikipedia, so most of it is probably made up.

Actually I'm not in Saigon any more, but I'm also not in Bray, so I know it's not all a dream. We started off in Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City (or Ho Chi Minger as I like to call it) where we met up with Vicki and George, a couple  we'd met in Malaysia. We spent a few rainy days just shuffling around Saigon, there wasn't much on as it was Reunification Day on the 30th of May, which is when Saigon surrendered to the Viet Cong and North Vietnam in 1975 . There wasn't much celebrating in the defeated and renamed city. Exiled Vietnamese call the day Ngày Quốc hận, which roughly translated means "National Defeat Day" so you can tell why the place wasn't partying. It is a bit mad to see Hammer & Sickle banners and the big, red, Communist flag flying everywhere, but then there are also tonnes of shops and bars which gives the place a slightly surreal Communist-consumer feel.

Seeing as there were no museums or such-like open we decide to go for a massage, which to say was interesting would be doing it a disservice; I had a tiny little Vietnamese lady with barely any English straddle me like horse, walk up and down my back, pummle and pound my back, legs and arms and massage my bare white arse with her toes. I thought it was quite fun, but the other three all felt slightly violated.

After that we headed to Dalat, a mountain town where they grow flowers and coffee mostly. I bought some chon, which is coffee beans that've been shit out by a weasel, which gives it a nice flavour. All four of us went on a tour around the Dalat countryside in a mini-van as the girls didn't want to go with the local motorbike guides called Easy Riders. The problem was, I think, that the people in Vietnam are a lot more in your face than in Cambodia especially about buying things, and we got trailed to our hotel by a group of these Easy Riders looking to get us on their bikes, so they had pissed Elaine off right from the get go. Dalat was a bit mad at first but it was really nice to be up in the mountains away from the heat.

There'll be more on Vietnam soon, leave a few comments on the auld blog and check out the photos on Flickr