Something dogged me all the way through Vietnam. It was a lot more serious than the slightly dodgy tummy I picked up in Hanoi, and far more concerning than the persistence of the cyclo drivers-cum-touts.

It came in the form of some small porcelain figurines - which I think you'll agree were rather insane.

These things - which I did not have the pleasure of seeing at all on my last trip to Vietnam - were everywhere. They bugged me on the streets of Hanoi as I cruised along, and they popped up at strategic moments in souvenir shops as I browsed. They were proudly displayed in certain shops we went into, and they were being hawked most enthusiastically by an old, toothless woman on the streets of Saigon.

Given that the rest of her tourist tat was fridge magnets in the shape of fruits and vegetables (all rendered in lurid technicolour), the surprise attack from the Grotesque Boy Babies caught me unawares. The seller couldn't fail to notice my range of choking noises and the strange clawing motion my hand was making, and she unfortunately mistook these things for a kind of excited pre-buying state. 'Yes, yes!' she crooned at me as I struggled to regain my composure. 'But they're obscene,' I managed to croak out. Still waggling their manful little willies at me, her horrible merchandise made me beat a hasty retreat.

I don't know what's most disturbing. Is is when they appear en masse, like some naked little army, or is it when the po-faced, sitting-up ones give a kind of contemplative response to their compatriots' antics?

Whatever the case is, it scares me that these pictures were all taken in a supermarket in Saigon where we had innocently gone in search of a cool drink. It's just not right!