Blame It On Zac Efron

Sunday 3rd January 2010, 4pm, Hai Ten Swimming Pool - Mui Ne

I have a confession to make. Actually no, I retract that last statement. We have a confession to make, Ella and I, I will not shoulder the recriminations for this on my own. On the 1st January, our last day in the wonderful Ho Chi Minh City, we spent a large portion of the afternoon and evening (OK, OK, most of the day) watching television in our hotel room. There is a good reason for this, and that reason is Channel 'V'. In some instances a music channel, a chart show, but also a broadcaster of live gigs and a coverer of fashion week catwalks, Channel 'V' is hypnotic television at it's most entrancing. As we have found to our detriment, once you turn it on you are powerless and mesmerised by it's shiny MTV-wannabe gloss. Pretty Asian teenagers with faux Americanised accents enthusiastically announce the next music video in front of pop art print holographic green screens and what can we do but pay attention?! I quite like Shakira, but I'm no mega fan, and yet the other day I watched a whole Shakira concert because Channel 'V' told me to. One night we accidentally on purpose happened to find channel 54, got into bed eyes glued to 'V' TV, and then realised about 30 minutes later that we hadn't uttered a word to each other since we got in; 'V' doesn't want you to talk to your friends, it just wants you to waaaaaaatch......

After spending a hefty majority of the first day of the year paralysed and gaping at the screen we decided that enough was enough. We dragged our hungover, sleepy selves out of bed, away from Channel 'V', and reclaimed our lives by going for dinner at an Italian restaurant in town. Maybe it is worth admitting at this point that the only reason we went for an Italian is because a commercial on 'V' showed someone eating a bowl of spaghetti and instantaneously we both exclaimed 'Ooh, Pasta!'. We are an advertiser's dream. One pizza, one plate of Carbonara and a couple of glasses of red wine later we congratulated ourselves on having made it back on to Saigon's streets one last time before our bus the next morning. Self-redeemed and rather pleased with our progress we strolled through the alleys that form the backstage of Ho Chi Minh's theatrical playground, home to our beds... and our TV.

Where I am glad to report that we did not turn on channel 54, thereby carefully avoiding 'V'; our lover and our nemesis. Travelling has clearly bestowed Ella and I with refined taste in all things televised because instead of Shakira concerts, Asian boy bands and the Spring/Summer 2010 Prada show, we stumbled across the Disney Channel, and in guilty, conspiratorial silence spent an hour or so of our lives watching High School Musical 2. I must try from this point on to no longer watch TV in Asia, my judgement has been seriously clouded by lack of British comedy (oh why don't they have Peep Show out here?!), 'V's' tacky and garish Hello Kitty graphics and saccharine sweet offbeat offerings, and of course, in part, by the loveliness of Zac Efron's face.