Vietnam - Saigon (HCMC)

Vietnam, what to say.
If Bangkok's traffic is crazy then Vietnam's is insane.

Traffic lights, traffic lanes, indicators, right of way, direction of traffic are all just vague concepts that sometimes are adhered to. (wonder how I'm going to cope with India?)
The exchange rates flip you as well, $1AUS =~ $11,500 Dohng therefore if we withdraw $100 we are millionaires?
After having made so much, we then spent a lot of it by not bartering properly (at all).
Some things we do well, others we completely stuff up, apparently we can get a beer (bia) for $7000vd but can spend $10,000vd on an orchid?
Arrived at our hotel (somehow) and as the guy carried our bags up, we gave him a tip of the only note size we had $50,000vd, about a day's wage!
Not sure about where we were or what it was like outside, we had dinner in the revolving restaurant attached to our hotel (only one in HCMC), only venturing out to get some water from down the street.

Spent the next morning recovering from a nights sleep that was only made possible by earplugs, traffic only stops (lessens) between 1200 and 0430.
After a (nother) sleep-in, we decided that as we knew nothing about Vietnam, that the Lonely Planet 2 day tour was as good as anything else.
Started off by heading along the planned route, avoiding anything that looked immensely arty and focussing instead on natural/architectural/cultural attractions.
So to this end, we staggered on through the heat and risked life and limb crossing non stop roads (not too hard it's just the scooters going against traffic that is really tricky).
Had lunch in Siagon Aquarium Cafe which was interesting, our table was a baby crocodiles tank, next to that was a turtles and behind us was a moray eels. The japanese owner fed them a few little fishes for us, the crocodile seems to understand and wants to try his hand.

After visiting the local botanical gardens and diaplidated zoo (poor animals), we decided to call it a day before we collapsed and got less ripped off on the meter taxi ride back to the hotel.
Snoozes to complete the afternoon and sunset on the balcony of the revolving restaurant trying the Chandon we'd gotten in Sydney. Ms Hang who was serving us gave us a brief language lesson but the tones still escape us. Cum Boh Tien (no problems?)
Tired now, off to the coast tomorrow.
(mmm, bank balance on withdrawal slips, nearly a billionaire?)