Meeting Vietnam

Our first meeting with Vietnam was a fun/crazy/interesting/good one. We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City around 6.30 p.m yesterday, excited to see if they'd let us in to the country or not (originally you have to apply for a visa before you get there, but some new rules we came across online say Scandinavians are granted one at arrival). Luckily the man in the passport control, who looked really grumpy and mean from far away, turned out to be the nicest passport controller we've ever met. He didn't speak much english, but smiled and said "my friend, your friend" while pointing to Malin who was doing a silly dance because she has ADD sometimes :p He let us in to the country and we walked downstairs to locate our backpacks among all the suitcases lying around on the floor.
As we needed some money for the bus I changed 10 US dollars and got 150 000 dong, and a 5000 coin (the currency here is ridiculous, but sort of fun. Yesterday we withdrew 3 millions each (a week budget)). Unfortunately though there was no bus to be found outside the airport, and the taxi drivers around all had different stories, like "no bus, this new airport", or "no bus, finished today" etc, etc. Not wanting to be fooled, we (and two brazilian guys who came on the same plane), decided not to believe them, so after barganing the price for a taxi (for a loooong time), we started to walk out towards the city instead. Some of the taxi drivers followed us, honking and laughing and trying to make a deal, but they turned around when we got to the motorway, and old men on crappy motorcycles took over instead. After a while we got tired of walking, and ended up taking a 10 dollar taxi to mini-hostel street.
Mini hostels are pretty interesting, and all very cute. The bigger ones are run like any other hostel/guesthouse, and have "normal" sized bedrooms and baths, but you can also get a room in a real mini hostel, which is how we understood it; a family living in a 2x2m room and renting out the other floors to tourists. The cheap ones you can get down to 5-6$, but you have to climb x# of stairs.
After setteling in to a nice little room we went out and bought dinner for 2$ each. Very cheap, but very good.

We're spending one more day in Ho Chi Minh, and then we're taking a night bus up to Hoi An. It takes 22 hours, -two nights and one day in Nah Trang, which is supposed to be beautiful.