Day 232

Vietnam really loves their Communism. Only Larkhall has a better display of national flags. Every house, shop and hotel in this city has one. I've gone right off it which surprises me as I ran as the Communist candidate in the 1988 school election (came third). The people here are horrible and are completely disinterested in tourism. All the road signs, menus, shop signs - everything - is in Vietnamese with no English translation. Now I kinda know, why should there be? It's their country. But surely their pseudo-capitalist economy runs on international spending? It's really hard to get around. They need and take our money very willingly and yet show no manners or courtesy. Nobody opens a door, nobody smiles, nobody tries to engage. And nobody speaks English, I mean nobody. Even children and young people can't speak a word, they just don't learn it at school. In all our travels even the most unedcuated people have tried really hard to speak some English, even those who don't make money from it. But I do expect taxi drivers, hotel receptionists and waiters to have a tiny smattering or understanding of the English language, to engage with the millions of tourists that flood through Vietnam every year. It's just bad manners not to bother. And yes, I should learn some Vietnamese (and I have) but I don't have to engage with them as my livelihood and on a daily basis. And to add insult to injury, instead of the word 'no' they have an unfortunate hand gesture which is basically a dismissive wave of the hand which to us, means 'go away'. So every time we ask a question and are greeted by this hand wave, we feel we are being told to f**k off. Rufus has decided he is going to start using the universal sign of 'w**ker' in response and declare, if challenged, this is how we communicate in OUR culture. Also the government took the decision last year to ban Facebook to prevent their citizens getting any information or ideas about the West. No Facebook! It's ruining my whole experience. And I hate the food. Just as I was getting used to black lentils and lukewarm rice, I am now subjected to endless bowls of 'pho', beef noodle soup, which is quite frankly revolting. It is boiling water with leaves and gristle floating in it. In a restaurant we sat in briefly today there was on the menu: Grilled snakehead, blood-cockle and rice, sea-slug with pork and noodles. And bizarrely, all served with ketchup.

Took the girls to the War Museum to continue their voyage of discovery of world-genocides. It was truly horrific. I knew the details of the war, the motives and the mistakes - but I had no idea about the level of cruelty and torture involved. The photographs and imagery on display were awful, including the actual third generation aftermath of Agent Orange. Although we wandered about thinking how ashamed America should be of their behaviour and how dreadful it must be for American tourists to see, maybe there will be a museum of atrocities one day in Baghdad where British tourists can wander about similarly mortified and appalled by the actions of their government and the casualties left behind.

Decided we should opt for a child friendly day so took the girls to Saigon Zoo which had a sort of theme park attached. It was vile. We were so disturbed by the giant Asian black bear pacing in a cage about 4ft by 6ft that we nearly missed 'the show'. Spotting people gathering on benches around a stage, we couldn't help but glumly join them. After a few minutes while we were jostled, pushed, shoved and ignored, Clover got bored and decided to nip backstage and see what was happening. She came back with an incredulous expression - 'Mummy there are about five monkeys wearing yellow football strips chained to a bench looking bored'. Of course we didn't believe her. Then the show began. The first monkey, wearing a dress and full make up came speeding out on a child's bike with stabilisers. Quickly he was joined by his friend in a football strip who, still in his chains, stood in goal and caught balls fired at him by the angry looking 'trainer' who wielded a large black stick. The third one came out in a tutu and did some balancing of water buckets whilst wearing a traditional Vietnamese straw cone hat - clearly a nod to local culture. The audience roared with laughter and delight. We walked out - but not before Rufus had managed to film most of it to send to PETA. He went back to get some incredible footage of the black bear for the same reason and we left, upset and dejected. On reflection I wish we hadn't left so quickly - apparently the monkeys had a wicked hip hop dance routine and we could have had a photo taken with an old goat wearing a wedding dress. That would have been a treat... although I think Rufus has one already somewhere in a box in the loft.