That's the hard part done...

A380 plane - we're not messing about here.

So we've finally arrived. Approximately 24 hours after we all rose yesterday morning to head to Heathrow, 20 odd of the convenience and grocery trade's finest are finally here in Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon as the locals still prefer to call it. The previous 24 hours are a mostly a blur of endless meals, almost endless drinks (though we did literally drink the plane dry of beer *beams*), endless in-flight
movies and trying to sleep with varying degrees of success.
But we're here now although it's now only about 4pm in the day so we have another 6 or 7 hours before we can crash.
The stopover in Singapore was memorable only for the torrential rain and the fact that one of our team, Dee Patel, had the bottle of vodka he bought at Heathrow forcibly removed from his person as he tried to board the flight to Vietnam.
Saigon is a blaze of noise, smells and colours - but mostly noise. A wall of unending, chaotic car horns and whistles that never, ever abates. And the heat hits you too. Late 20s today but it rose over the next hour as we went to have lunch and then get fitted for our bikes. Mostly proper mountain bikes, a bit bashed up, but decent quality - Giant and Specialised mostly.

Vietnam: moped country

Crossing a road was another experience. I remember it from my honeymoon last year but it's an entertaining experience to watch a gang our size try to get through what has to be some of the craziest traffic on the planet. Slow and steady is the advice from our guide, and whatever you of, don't stop and don't run.
When we got to the hotel the temptation to sleep was overwhelming but I doubt we'd have managed to get back up. So it's a shower, a walk and a couple of beers to get acclimatised to the wonderful world of Vietnam. Then it's dinner and a Vespa tour of the city and a few bars.
What could possibly go wrong?