What the face?

**This post was written over several days and in various states of delirium and jet lag**

So here I am, my first day in Vietnam. Covered in now slightly burning insect repellant and Moisturising Suncare Spray (which protects me from cancer AND insects apparently) which I had not applied in time to be useful for the 15 minute taxi ride in which my face got burned. And my leg got bitten.

But what of my flight etc? I flew with Singapore Air, the most exciting thing about this is that they provide little screens in the seat in front and remotes like Wii sticks. They also have a huge selection of music available, loads of films and general TV stuff. This involved actual new stuff, one of the films it had was Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (which is quite new now if you're looking at this in the future).

It also had the greatest show I have ever seen. What The Face? This is an Asian (not sure where, sorry Asia) show and involves (presumably) famous make up artists at the peak of their profession. And how would they be judged? By blurring the gender of 6 teenagers of course! A panel (again, I think they were famous because when they came in they looked cool and people clapped) had to guess the gender of the models in 2 rounds of mayhem.

Round 1!

The children appeared and said their name and did a cool move. The judges then individually guessed what they thought the gender of the child was.

Round 2 (actually 2-7, each model had their own round)!

The judges, now in 2 teams, then got to interview the child (voice modification was used to hide their true gender) for about 30 seconds. This was pretty odd, as the voice was horrifically unnatural and the child was in a gigantic misty half birdcage thing. Then it got more weird. The child had to do a dance. These were initially tame “pop dances” but they got progressively more and more weird. The final model actually did a pole dance. After the dance the judges got to discuss while the audience voted by moving to either the male or female seating stand. The model then announced their real gender.

Mental.

I then spent about an hour running around Changi Airport in state best described as euphoric delirium. I realised too late that I was in the wrong terminal to visit the butterfly farm, but I did enjoy the white tiger and Koi carp garden though.

I slept in a local hotel for my night in Saigon, I was on the top floor. A long, long way up.

And in the matrix.

The next day I caught the bus from Saigon to Duc Trong. A ride that was both insanely dangerous and beautiful.Next to me an elderly woman silently wept and vomited for the duration of the trip. In front a couple literally fought with their children in an attempt to make them stop sitting in the central causeway of the bus and sliding down to the front when it came to one of it's many sudden and erratic stops. I think the horn was used almost every minute of the journey. The scenery was incredible.