Dreamt last night of a petite German who thought I was too forward. And lots of people dancing.
Jesus. The faces of so many children. Bodies destroyed by Agent Orange, but not their lives. Harrowing, I think, is the most accurate word. An armless man looks for money in the grounds, cornering me between two tanks. The $20 I gave in SR seems a pitiful amount. Inside, I donate more in one of the boxes.
The War Remnants Museum. Went with S&N, and Jake and Bec, whom we met last night. Went for a few drinks of one of the super cheap bia hoi joints - 6,000VND a beer. That's about five glasses for a euro. Chatted with two Viet students, wanted to practice their English - a teacher and a physicist. They teach me, "một, hai, ba, yo!", the traditional toast in Vietnam. "Doh Maui Mai!" is motherfucker.
Breakfast of noodles and sausage, met a girl Jo who had met Brigitte. Bumped into her at the museum later. We wandered through the city - the market, Notre Dame cathedral, the Post Office (nice building) - again, more practising English with locals. Lunch at a place with no English, got a hot pot. Tried to order dog, got dogfish instead.
The museum though - lots of tanks and plans in the grounds. Ground floor dedicated to international protests against the US war. Fairly presented.
"Aggressive War Crimes" painted the US in a horrific light, as did the Agent Orange exhibitions. Children born with deformities. So crippling, and with such little support from anyone beyond their own families and villages.
One highlight was 'Requiem', a display of war photography - Larry Burrows, Robert Capa, Henri Huet... such superb work. Reminds me why I wanted to take up photography, those childhood dreams of being a photojournalist, cutting out shots from the paper to hang on the wall.
But it's the images of the children that will stick in my mind - armless, legless, eyeless, withered, dwarfed... every kind of physical limitation. Preserved conjoined foetuses. The horrors of war. What mankind does to its own kind.
Harrowing.
***
Jesus. The faces of so many children. Bodies destroyed by Agent Orange, but not their lives. Harrowing, I think, is the most accurate word. An armless man looks for money in the grounds, cornering me between two tanks. The $20 I gave in SR seems a pitiful amount. Inside, I donate more in one of the boxes.
The War Remnants Museum. Went with S&N, and Jake and Bec, whom we met last night. Went for a few drinks of one of the super cheap bia hoi joints - 6,000VND a beer. That's about five glasses for a euro. Chatted with two Viet students, wanted to practice their English - a teacher and a physicist. They teach me, "một, hai, ba, yo!", the traditional toast in Vietnam. "Doh Maui Mai!" is motherfucker.
Breakfast of noodles and sausage, met a girl Jo who had met Brigitte. Bumped into her at the museum later. We wandered through the city - the market, Notre Dame cathedral, the Post Office (nice building) - again, more practising English with locals. Lunch at a place with no English, got a hot pot. Tried to order dog, got dogfish instead.
 |
| Notre Dame |
 |
| Not dog |
The museum though - lots of tanks and plans in the grounds. Ground floor dedicated to international protests against the US war. Fairly presented.
"Aggressive War Crimes" painted the US in a horrific light, as did the Agent Orange exhibitions. Children born with deformities. So crippling, and with such little support from anyone beyond their own families and villages.
One highlight was 'Requiem', a display of war photography - Larry Burrows, Robert Capa, Henri Huet... such superb work. Reminds me why I wanted to take up photography, those childhood dreams of being a photojournalist, cutting out shots from the paper to hang on the wall.
But it's the images of the children that will stick in my mind - armless, legless, eyeless, withered, dwarfed... every kind of physical limitation. Preserved conjoined foetuses. The horrors of war. What mankind does to its own kind.
Harrowing.
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