Barack Obama shows his face on Saigon's streets - (not quite)

In the past, travellers to Vietnam were only likely to spot public images of US Presidents in places like the War Remnants Museum (formerly US War Crimes Museum) or other history museums located throughout the country. Unsurprisingly, these are unflattering portraits of Nixon or Johnson during a war in which more than 2 million Vietnamese were killed. 2015 marks 40 years since the end of the Vietnam War and in a sign of evolving geopolitical realities, a shot of a cordial chat between Barack Obama and his Vietnamese counterpart, Truong Tan Sang, has pride of place in a downtown exhibition of the country's contemporary development. The building in the background on the Dong Khoi St tourist strip, (formerly Rue Catinat and then Tu Do St) was once a French colonial police compound known for its brutality. It was the Ministry of Interior during the two decade existence of the US-backed South Vietnamese government and the brutality likely continued.  It is now the local Department of Culture, Sport and Tourism and is slated for demolition. In case you're wondering what the motorcyclist is doing on the footpath, in a dangerous but time honoured Saigon tradition, he's riding in the wrong direction against one-way street traffic, scrambling tourists as he goes. Even around the city’s major landmarks, the normally sensitive traffic police are remarkably indifferent to this infraction.