Saigon. War Remnants Museum

Started the day with a vegan full english breakfast at the Dirty Vegan (and he was!) Restaurant just round the corner from the hostel. One of the cats was on the table rolling around and knocked a full bottle of Heinz ketchup onto the floor breaking it. Naughty cat! The breakfast was fine - only fine. Veggie sausages and bacon are just not as good as the real thing. But good news is that later I discovered that the seafood restaurant just up the road does a proper full english. so will try that out just before I set off for Nha Trang on the coast tomorrow.

Met up with Karl in the afternoon and went round the War Remnants museum. The external part of the display consists of a load of American weaponry captured by the Vietnamese including one enormous bomb. Inside are nine themed rooms filled with photographs depicting different aspects of the war. For example, one room had photos of the politics and politicians leading up to the war, another of the fighting itself and its aftermath, yet another of the effects of agent orange and one of the campaign abroad against American involvement. Pretty much everyone I met went there and all agreed it was thoroughly depressing. In each room the pictures got progressively more horrific, particularly the one showing the effects of agent orange - a chemical designed to kill off the forests to make it easier for the Americans to fight and presumably harder to conduct a guerrilla campaign but which had horrific effects on the population in terms of multi-generational deformities. I’ve censored the photos I’ve put up as some are too disturbing. Since this was a Vietnamese exhibition, the Americans didn’t come out of it well. But then since WWII they haven’t had a good story in their wars - even the ones that they supposedly won, such as Iraq and Afghanistan didn’t turn out well in the end.

Afterwards, in need of pick-me-up went out with Naomi, Harry and Lucy in the evening to the cafe apartments. Had an amazing chocolate shake! And then an early night as have all day on the bus tomorrow.Baca lagi