The trauma of our epic bus ride from Laos to Hue continued as we entered Vietnam. First, our charming bus driver decided to drop us off 15 miles outside Hue, next to a group of motorcycle taxis. Eight tourists, all with a lot of bags and heavy rucksacks, were never going to fit on these scooters and were all reluctant to try! Unfortunately, when we managed to procure a minibus to take us the rest of the way (the same road along which our original bus had already disappeared), it wouldn't - couldn't! - move. The "moto mafia" had conspired to intimidate our driver enough that he couldn't leave until they were suitably renumerated for all their hard work. This is a common phenomenon throughout Vietnam - they seem to make their money without actually doing any taxiing. Eventually, after some stubborn bargaining and repelling the occasional sorties on to the bus to try and put our rucksacks on a motorbike, we managed to get moving into town.

Not long after we checked in to our guest house, things got worse when we looked at Georgia's violin - the one that she had acquired in Beijing. Bumpy roads and hot buses are far from the ideal environment to transport a violin and, when Georgia removed it from its case, to our horror, we found that the neck had come away from the body of the fiddle. The intense heat had melted the glue that was holding the neck and body in place after its last restoration. I'm sure Laurie Lee never had these problems...

After these setbacks, we were soon back, exploring the area. Hue was the capital of Vietnam for much of the Nguyen dynasty (1802 - 1945, although the power was fairly nominal after the French came in 1885) and has its own forbidden city from that period, consciously modelled on Beijing's. In the Vietnam war it was the major town on the southern edge of the demilitarised zone and changed hands a couple of times as the sides' fortunes changed. The Thien Mu Pagoda was the home of Thich Quang Duc, the monk who famously set himself on fire outside Saigon government buildings in 1963. This was not a protest against the Vietnam War (which started two years later), but against the oppressive regime of President Diem (which was at that time propped up by American support). The powder-blue car in which Thich Quang Duc drove to Saigon, and that appears behind him in the famous photograph, forms part of a memorial to this remarkable man.

Travelling down the east coast of Vietnam, we stopped in the World Heritage old fishing port of Hoi An. Alongside its understandable reputation for colonial architecture and seafood, it is also home to a thriving tailoring industry. From China onwards, Asia has been a delight for Georgia when it comes to clothes: finally her sub-five-foot frame has found a place where clothes off the peg fit. Here it was even better: clothes are made to order in a matter of hours.

The five course meal on Hoi An's waterfront was one of the culinary highlights of what has at times seemed to be our gastronomic, rather than musical, journey. Starting with cau lau - 'white rose' - tiny translucent dumplings stuffed with shrimp, then moving on to crisp fried wontons (shrimp and pork), it then came to the highlight: squid braised with mint, lemon, onion and peanut; an immaculate, delicate dish. After that, the Tuna steak barbecued in banana leaves and bite-sized creme caramel - another wholly adopted French influence: you often see school children queueing up at the mobile creme caramel stall outside the gates - seemed almost ordinary. But not quite.

After prising ourselves away from this and other gluttonies, we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC/Saigon), where our numbers swelled to four: Georgia's parents, the overlanders mentioned last week, came to join our trip for two weeks. HCMC is a buzzing, vibrant city, reminiscent of Beijing but saturated with overladen motorbikes - it's a source of constant wonder seeing how much can be carried on a single bike. Frequently we saw families of four, sleeping babies and baskets of sheep whizzing by; once, there was even a deep freeze. Perhaps we were too quick to judge our moto mafia friends in Hue.

30 years since the end of the Vietnam War, the nearby Cu Chi tunnels have become a tourist attraction. An elaborate warren of tunnels that were first created during the war of Independence against the French, they were expanded to create a network of interconnecting tunnels where the Viet Cong cooked, slept and fought. So wide-ranging were these tunnels that US troops often found that temporary camps, secured around the perimeter, would be inexplicably attacked during the night; they had of course built their camp on top of a tunnel entrance. The tunnels are regarded as one of the main reasons that American might proved so ineffectual. The level of ingenuity involved is evident not just in the construction of the tunnels themselves, but also in the way that they fed and armed an entire army with extraordinarily limited supplies. Coke cans and mess tins, discarded in great numbers by the American troops, were turned into grenades and land mines, using the explosive charge from unexploded mortars and bombs, again dropped by the Americans. Booby traps - mostly involving vicious wooden stakes - were adapted from old bear hunting techniques, paper was made from rice flour twenty feet below the surface.

Groups are guided through the shaded terrain, past shell-worn craters, observing booby traps, cottage munitions factories, damaged American tanks and entrances to the tunnels. You can crawl through the claustrophobic underground tunnels and for $1 a bullet, you can fire rounds from AK-47s, M-16s and M-60s. The tunnels were unbelievably hot and many found the severe lack of space unbearable. It puts into perspective the experiences of the Viet Cong, who would spend weeks at a time in the tunnels, and the American "tunnel rats" who were sent down the tunnels after Viet Cong in the pitch black, not knowing if a gunman or a booby trap was waiting round the corner. We had the opportunity, after ten or so minutes in the tunnel, of continuing down an even narrower one - the first one had been widened to accommodate the slightly larger Western frame... I thought this sounded like an excellent idea and as I started down the first section, the guide gently let me know that I should avoid putting my hand on the right wall of the tunnel. Asking why, when I got to the other side, he smiled, pointing to a vicious-looking scorpion just inches from where my hand had been. That was when the full horror of the tunnels caught me - I couldn't wait to get out. The tunnel rats said that it was often the wildlife that made them lose their composure: a rat or a scorpion running over their face was often enough to send them over the edge in their already stressful job; some would scramble frantically out of the tunnel, never to descend again.

We concluded our day trip to the tunnels with a sobering visit to the War Remnants Museum, recently renamed, in a mood of reconciliation: until a few years ago, it was called the "American War Crimes" museum. Some extraordinary photographs portrayed the war from both perspectives, with an emphasis on the politically neutral journalists and photographers who died during the war. The exhibits of aborted foetuses, malformed by agent orange, were simply shocking.

Before we left HCMC, we thought it was a good opportunity to try to fix Georgia's fold-away violin. Hours of internet searching and speaking to Saigon inhabitants turned up nothing until, as we were about to give up, we came across a page in Japanese which - thank you, Google Translate - gave us a list of violin shops in HCMC. We went straight to Tien's shop - the first, and most highly recommended, on the list.

Tien is a very unusual man; not only is he the only violin maker in Ho Chi Minh City, but he is also one of the top violinists in the country, concert master of the HCMC Symphony Orchestra and member of the National Symphony Orchestra. He recently did a concert series on television to celebrate Mozart's 250th Anniversary: a number of well known Mozart pieces with backing from a rather curious 80s lounge band. We have some video clips of this and some other - more tasteful - pieces at the end of the article.

Once we picked up the violin and a new case, we left for 3 days on the Mekong Delta. Life and trading on the Mekong Delta provides a striking contrast to modern HCMC. Much of the trade occurs on the water - boats laden with all sorts of fish, fruits and spices spread across the river; buyers simply row up to the boat, buy (or barter) and then load it on to their precarious-looking boat. During a stroll through the land market we noticed some very efficient carving - frogs were being skinned and fish descaled and filleted while they were still jumping out of their baskets. Floating down the Mekong you are infected by the slow pace of life, watching small exchanges and children playing in the river.

After a two day detour on the tropical island of Phu Quoc - white sand beaches, excellent coral reefs for snorkeling, despite the plethora of sea urchins with two-foot-long spines - we continued to glide along the river, across the Cambodian border and up to the capital, Phnom Penh; a very relaxed way to travel, this "hurrying slowly".

Video Files

Here are some excerpts of Tien's performances on Vietnamese television. The first is well worth watching, the first movement of a Mozart Violin Concerto with an 80s lounge band for accompaniment. Look out for the drum solo!

• Mozart Violin Concerto No.5
• Que Toi Giai Phong - a very beautiful piece, blending traditional Vietnamese music with the Western classical tradition; think a Vietnamese Vaughan Williams.
• Vu Khuc Tay Nguyen mung chien thang - more folk influenced music, including a dan da - stone marimba - performance.