Yesterday we visited the Reunification Palace in Saigon, also known as the Independence Palace. First built as a Franco-colonial Governor’s Palace in the 19th century, it’s had a storied history – including being the location of the end of the Vietnam War.

The reception room for the First Lady.

 It’s been kept in the state it was in when that war ended in 1975. A place where time stands still as new Saigon grows up around it – opulent upholstery, carpeting, artworks and bunkers intact in all their 1960s glory. A monument to the transience of power.

The President’s War Room, a small desk, a couple of old telephones, a few yellowing maps on the walls, all located several stories below the Palace in a concrete bunker.

What caught my eye in particular was this wall of animal trophies – elephant feet, antlers, antelope skulls replete with the animals’ tails emerging from their mouths like strange, tufted noses.

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Stale symbols of another, ongoing kind of dominance.