Today has been very up and down with things I have seen and how I have felt. It started with breakfast at ABC bakery which was recommended to me by someone last night, so breakfast was a good start. I thought I would walk out of District 1 and go to the Vietnamese War Museum. Someone had said it was quite graphic but I thought how bad could it be?

I arrived there and it was just as I had thought, tanks and Chinooks displayed outside of the building with random tourists taking funny pictures of themselves next to the artillery by the entrance. It wasn't the first time I had seen old war planes etc but it was what was inside which bothered me slightly more. I went walking round and on the first floor one of the first galleries you get to walk into is called 'Aggressive War Crimes'. I was in for a shock. Oh my god, the pictures were so graphic of all the torture methods that were used on the Vietnamese people. Accounts of how whole villages were just massacred over night including pregnant women and young children. I realise the museum is a bit one sided as I am sure there was mutual torture and maltreatment but still. I almost cried in that first gallery and it only got worse when I went into the 'Historical Truths' gallery and learnt about how 'Agent Orange' is still affecting people in Vietnam today, even after so long. You can watch things like 'Platoon' and think of how horrible it was but the fact is the film is not very far from the truth.

After the most depressing couple of hours this morning (which I have been told this is mild to the stuff I'm likely to see in Cambodia next week) I decided to take a walk to the Saigon Zoo. It's only a small Zoo (well in ratio to ZSL in London that is lol) but it had all the essential animals, Lions, Tigers (note how those come first on this list *smile*), Monkeys, Giraffes, Elephants etc etc. I got to see the Tigers playing with each other and then playing with a rubber tyre which was cool as usually they'd be sleeping in the afternoon. Although I will admit some of the cats were slightly restless...maybe it was the Leopard who attacked the window as I walked in and kept roaring at people which gave me this impression? Although the usual rules didn't seem to apply, people were feeding the Monkeys and shouting through the glass at the Tigers. I should have just told them to shut up but thought better of it as I'd probably get beaten up or something by about 30 people who come out of nowhere...a bit like Slough...