Oliver of Otterburn in Vietnam

Ray & Oliver visit friends My & Minh in Saigon

My & Minh's appartment is on the 15th floor

Ho Chi Minh's statue

Cyclo riding through the streets of Saigon

Smiling water seller

 My last report came to you from Cambodia where I have been traveling with my usual shepherd, Ray. Because it is right next door, Ray took the opportunity to go to Vietnam, principally to visit his two good friends My & Minh Nguyen who live in Saigon.
the Americans.

I am very popular with the girls!

 Of course I went along as well.

My owns the MMSoft Company

I was surprised to find the office decorated for Christmas

Here I am meeting the staff at MMSof

It wasn’t long before we were eating some of the delicious Vietnamese food when My & Minh took us to a riverside restaurant which was delightfully cool after the heat of the day. My & Minh live in an apartment on the fifteenth floor of a new building that looks right
over District One of Saigon. This is a huge bustling vibrant city of about eighteen million people. It is now also known as Ho Chi Minh
City and it is about as different from Northumberland as you can get.
There is not much green grass to be seen.
Talking about Ho Chi Minh, we went along to visit his statue. He is the primary figure in modern Vietnamese history, the leader in the

eventually successful fight for independence against the French and I went for a cyclo ride through the streets of Saigon. This is pretty

wool-raising stuff as you sit in a chair in front of the pedaling cyclo driver. That means that you are very immediately face to face
with the traffic whirling around you. It is not for a faint hearted sheep, I can tell you.

Vietnam is so picturesque and so different. Every kind of thing is
available for sale on the streets and there are many smiling ladies
with distinctive conical hats that sell water and tasty eatables.

Everywhere there are pretty girls and, luckily for me, they like to
run their fingers through the wool of a strange looking creature like
me.

One morning I went along to the office of the MMSoft company. This
small IT Consulting company is owned by My. I was very surprised to
find the office decorated for Christmas because Vietnam is
predominantly Buddhist. I was able to meet the staff. They are all
very bright young people, all very cheerful and happy to meet me. They
are the future of this dynamic Asian country where prosperity is
growing rapidly after the traumas of not so very long ago.