DIARY - Saturday 1st March 2008 From Nha Trang to Ho Chi Minh City by Vietnam Airlines, quick and efficient and straight into the arms of the Immigration police, Cathay Pacific refuse to book me onto the flight to Hong Kong because my visa has run out. I follow the young arrogant Immigration officer to his superior. 'Why are you still here?' he asks. ' I was really sick and had to change my flight, this was the only one available' I can hear myself pleading ingratiatingly. He says something in Vietnamese to the younger man who then says I have to follow him again. We go back to the airline desk, they check me in. I pay him and his three buddies $10 each, which goes straight into their back pockets. If I had been blonde and forty years younger I might just have tried to bat my eyelids! It's goodbye to Vietnam, I met some wonderful people, found inner strength I didn't know existed and came away with an itch I can't scratch. It's called wanderlust. The last few days have been rather hectic, fast running out of time and not really giving myself time to enjoy it. Riding down the length of the country takes longer than I allowed, but I have totted up 1650kms in the north on my lovely little Minsk and 1500kms from Hanoi to Nha Trang the latter on a bike whose brakes in the wet were non existent and whose lights were on permanent 'daylight saving mode'. No mechanical problems apart from a spark plug on the Minsk and forgetting to oil the chain on the scooter. It is just a shame that Vietnam has suffered the coldest winter for 50 years, I would have liked to have had a tan at least!