Well. Here I am, back in HCMC. In a different hotel – I chose this one deliberately because it looked a bit swanky, and it advertised a laundry service. I figured after two weeks of washing my undies in the sink every evening, combined with a few days in the jungle, I’d be ready for a laundry service. I was right! They charge by the kilo, and pretty much everything I own in this country comes to about £3.50 worth of laundry (that’s 2.5 kilos!!) I’m ridiculously excited at the prospect of properly clean clothes! I’ve even shaved my legs in their honour…

We got into town about midday, to discover that my room wasn’t ready, yet. So I dumped my bags and set off for a wander. I had it in mind to go to the Jade Pagoda but I had seriously underestimated my tolerance for walking in HCMC levels of humidity. So, halfway there, I revised my plan and swung a left to the War Remnants Museum, instead.

As I expected, it was a tough visit. The museum comprises photographs of the war. Taken by photographers from both sides – and many unaffiliated, it documents the atrocities of the French and American wars. There is a very moving exhibition called Requiem, which documents and commemorates the work of photo-journalists killed in the conflict. This includes two particularly moving images, both of which won a Pulitzer Prize. The first is of a mother and her children wading across a river to escape US bombing, taken by Kyōichi Sawada in 1965, the year before I was born.

The fear and determination on the mother’s face, the fear on the girl’s face and the utter bewilderment of the boy at the back are quite haunting. I was really moved by this image. It spoke to me of the urgency and desperation of the situation – after all, what parent plunges their four children into shoulder high water, fully clothed, if they have other options??

The second picture was the “napalm girl” photo. To be honest, I was expecting to see this and so it had less of a shock value than if it were a new image to me. But, taken together with the detailed coverage of the impacts of napalm on the landscape and across generations… what’s really shocking about this picture is that it is, in many ways, the *least* shocking of the napalm photos…

In particular, the photos documenting the effects of napalm – or agent orange, as it’s referred to here – into the third and fourth generation are really disturbing and horribly moving. I also found the pictures of places I’ve visited especially affecting. I ‘d obviously read about the huge destruction at Hue, for example, but it was still horrible to see it.

I have just finished reading The Sympathiser, by Viet Thanh Nguyen, and so this label struck a chord: 

Heading back to the hotel, refreshed by a frozen green tea smoothie, which is far nicer than it has any business being, I stopped at the site where Thích Quàng Ðúc self immolated. You remember his blue Austin car is parked at the Thien Mu Pagoda in Hue. 

There is a large memorial at the site of the immolation, now as Master Ðúc has been elevated to the position of Bodhisatva; one who has attained enlightenment.

And then back to the hotel for a cheeky beer by the pool while I researched tomorrow’s activities and tonight’s dinner options. 

So this still isn’t my favourite city. It’s too big and impersonal. It could be literally anywhere in the world. It’s filthy; I’ve seen more (and larger) rats here than anywhere else. And I was right about the seediness. I spent a good long time after my last HCMC post trying to convince myself that those men were just western business men, relaxing in bars after a hard day. But they aren’t. I have, through lack of adequate research, landed also in the middle of the red light district. It’s fine during the day, but at night it is proper sleazy and as I walked back from a truly delicious vegan cafe, it was evident that the “butterflies of the night” were out in force. So, I’ve come back to my room to have a shower and enjoy thinking about clean clothes…!