my name is william lee adams, and i'm a vietnamese—american journalist and an author. i was born six years after the vietnam war ended. i'm here to explore a country that's helped shape me. for me, it all flows from the war that brought my parents together. two people, born 12 time zones apart, thrust together to build a life. my family lived in america and my big brother, john, was my best friend. speaks vietnamese but two years ago, he passed away. i have a lot of unfinished business. i want to bring him home, essentially.

this is where he was born. this is where he was happiest. and this is where so many people who loved him and took care of him still are. i'm travelling across the country, starting in the capital city, hanoi, and ending over 1,500km away in ho chi minh city... ..where my family still lives in banana garden market. whispering: 0h, he's always so well—hidden. it's the most incredible journey i've ever taken. and i have to confront my family's difficult relationship with vietnam. my father and your grandfather would have been fighting against each other. yes. i lost my grandfather, right. will putting my brother to rest... ..help me make peace with the past?

i'm starting the second part of myjourney in ninh binh province. i've not spent much time in nature in vietnam. it's home to some of the world's rarest plants and animals. so i've come to the endangered primate rescue centre. hien is one of the rangers. 500kg! yeah. that's a lot. monkeys squeal never in my life have i been

so close to wildlife. hien, where do you rescue the langurs from?

these little guys are called delacour�*s langurs, and they're native to this part of vietnam. some of them are learning how to be wild again after surviving human entrapment. whistle blows hien does a daily check—up to make sure they're doing all right. monkey peeps whistle blows whispering: this is the only human contact that these langurs have every day. the delacour�*s langur is only found in vietnam, and there are fewer than 300 of them in the wild. that makes them critically endangered. hien takes me to the wetlands where langurs still live in their natural habitat. quietly: 0h.

whispering: we can hear them now. yeah, yeah. i definitely hear one. you see? over here. ah! whispers: yeah. yeah. yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah. 0h. green tree. yeah, yeah, yeah. they move so fast. isee... i see more one. one. 0h, he's so well hidden. yeah. there are four of them now. they've moved from the cave into the trees. here comes another one. they look like little panda bears on the rocks. you get a sense of how agile they are, but also how delicate they are. some estimates say over a third of the country's forests were affected by the vietnam war, making places like this even more important.

my dad was one of the 2.7 million americans who served here. fo many, da nang province in the middle of the country offered their first view of vietnam. but today, the area has been transformed. 0h, hi! hi, nice to meet you. nice to meet you. william. oh, i am my. my! my, my, my. ah, my... my is a tour guide... whoa! ..in one of vietnam's largest theme parks, ba na hills. i showed my mom a video of ba na hills, and she asked me, "where in europe is that?" and then when i told her it was vietnam, she was laughing. i think it piqued her curiosity because the vietnam she left is not the vietnam that i'm returning to. ok, i will show you the golden bridge. before i got to ba na hills, i thought i'd be really dismissive of it. is it like this every day?

but then, i stepped on to the golden bridge — the hands of god, as people say — to walk above the clouds. there's something really special about that. the most touring a day we do...serving...30,000. would you prefer it if there was a limit to how many people could come? no! of course no! everyone in the world knows we are amazing. we have a lot of things. the communists may have won the war, but it's very clear that capitalism rules the day. is it tacky? perhaps. but it's also monumental. vietnam is at a stage of development where that's a sign of growth and confidence. so, who am i tojudge? my shows me the european village, which includes a fake french cathedral. sort of feels like a gothic cathedral.

but when you knock, it's more like cardboard, or one of those tubes you put a poster in. hello, hello. vietnamese people can go to here. don't need to go to europe, don't need to go to england to see this building like this. we can see it in vietnam. it's cheaper, right? my wants to show vietnamese culture, vietnamese flare. that brings tourists, and those tourists have helped change her life. she now has opportunities that her parents didn't have, that her grandparents certainly didn't have. every family in vietnam was impacted by the war. yes. my father and your grandfather would have been fighting against each other. yes. mm—hm. does that stir anything inside you? sometimes. i lost my grandfather, right? so, this is ok. i don't fight you. i can make yourfriend, right? our generation don't want to talk about this too much. we just move in the future.

0h, raining! we need to go to... hold hands. yes. when i was a kid, my father refused to talk about vietnam. he would always say, "the last time i was in vietnam, "i was on a helicopter and people were trying "to shoot me down." when i first came to vietnam, my mother was like, "why "are you going there? "why do you need to go there? "don't ask questions." everything was about forgetting the past. and i know that they tucked away so much pain into that darkness. i feel like we've had four seasons in one day. yes. it's sort of like when you're on an aeroplane and you go through the cloud. yeah, that's right! that's a new experience, right? yeah. around 900km south from ba na hills lies the final

destination of myjourney, ho chi minh city. ho chi minh city is essentially a city with two names. historically, it was always known as saigon but after the war, it was renamed ho chi minh city in honour of the great communist revolutionary. many locals still call it saigon. i use both. saigon was the first place i ever came in vietnam. it's a place where i was first immersed in vietnamese culture, vietnamese language, and it's where my family's from. i haven't been back here for 18 years. i'm off to meet que mai — she's perhaps vietnam's most famous author and poet. a lot of her writing is set during the war, and i'm hoping she'll be able to tell me about the time my family never talks about. 0h. ohh! nice to meet you! hello, que mai. welcome home! oh, thank you so much! welcome home. i want to welcome you to saigon and i hope you feel really

proud being home. we are here on the book street of saigon. this street was established only in 2016, so all the main publishers have their little store here and they have their latest titles here. why do you think it's important to remember vietnam's history? the past has so much to offer us in terms of wisdom, in terms of knowledge, in terms of lessons. in vietnam, even though the country is developing really fast, but if you know, there are still hundreds of thousands of people still missing from the war, there are still millions who are suffering from the impact of agent orange. a huge part of vietnamese history is that americans, during the war, sprayed forests with agent orange — a poison which killed the leaves, it poisoned the soil, and this was to expose their enemies. the official viewpoint

is we won the war and there's no trauma, so that's why i felt the need to document such hidden trauma, sense of trauma, trauma which has been brushed aside, unacknowledged. do you remember much of the war? i was born two years before the war ended and i remember growing up, playing hide—and—seek in the bomb shelter, and i remember how empty our village was of men. and at that time, you know, we didn't know much about the impact of agent orange yet — until years later. and i remember that in the mekong delta, there were so many deformed fish and fish that had two tails or that had two heads or that had twisted bodies. we grew up hungry, so we ate everything that we could find, including deformed fish. so, i remember that when i gave birth to my kids, the first thing i did was i was counting their fingers and their toes. the vortex of war sucks many

people into it and it doesn't end when one country wins and another loses. for my parents, john was a living reminder of the war. my mother had this beautiful son who, because of a lack of medicine, because of a lack of doctors, lost so much of himself. what's he saying? nam xuong, lie down? yeah! and then in the relations in our household, there was a lot of conflict, there was a lot of chaos — that's how the war lived on. because ifjohn hadn't suffered, i don't think the family would've suffered. and i think that if there hadn't been a war, john's suffering would never have started in the first place. i've left the centre of ho chi minh city and now, i'm in district 3. this is where my mom was raised. this is cho vuon chuoi — banana garden market.

we're going to meet my aunt numberfive, yi nam... left or right? i think it's right. ..and she was the primary caregiver to my brother after my mother left vietnam in 1973. he stayed with her until 1981. laughter hello. how are you? oh, still very beautiful, i see. this is my cousin and my aunt. they're pretty busy! this is where my family still lives, it's where my parents met. these are the streets where john spent the first 13 years of his life.

it's incredible to know that he was walking, running, playing here when he was healthy. she asked how my partner was. khong sao! no problem! in 2006, i was living with my aunt for a time and my boyfriend visited. but at the time, i said that ben was just a friend. things were left a bit awkward. so, when i came back to my aunt's shop and one of the first questions she asked was, "how's your "boyfriend?", i wasjust completely at ease. speaks vietnamese she's like a calculator, her brain — she's doing all of the math in her head. cackles

for so many years, i've thought aboutjohn in the context of my mother, my father and me. but the fact is, he had a whole separate life that i know nothing about. 0h... ooh! i spent a month here when i was 19 or 20. i remember this so well. the heat as well, and how opening the door brings in all the cool air. it makes such a huge difference. ah... as much as i'm here to fill in blanks, i hope it maybe opens a pressure valve for my aunt. i hope maybe it gives her a chance to talk freely aboutjohn, as well.

ah! you have this photo in the house?

my mother remembers that. i knew i wanted to do this for my mother but it only dawned on me when i was here, when i saw my aunt, how much i needed to do this for her.

i've had this inner turmoil about am i doing the right thing? is carrying someone�*s ashes from abroad and bringing them to vietnam — is that 0k? but my aunt, she told me that she prays at the pagoda every day forjohn, and that having his ashes here will make it easierfor her. ma? we're in the van right now. there's been this talk for months — "0h, mom, "i'm taking john's ashes back to vietnam". ok, i'll call you from london, yeah. but now it's time to do it, and that's something completely

different. bye— bye. bye. that was really funny timing — she somehow knew we were in the van. both speak vietnamese i'm not a practising buddhist but buddhism, sincejohn�*s death, has given me a way to see him, to see my family and to see the love they share. there were three layers — ground floor, the welcome. going up a level, where we were praying and chanting. and then another level still,

wherejohn�*s ashes will rest. i approached today with fear, thinking, "this is going "to be so sad. "this is going to be overwhelming." but it wasn't. it was a release, it was happy. and i heard my aunt chanting to herself. she said, "nam mo a di da phat, nam mo a di da phat." and the more she said it, the more at ease i was. knowing that the monk thinks i did something right by my brother, for my brother — that's enough. it's enough. and that gives me peace.

that gives me peace. every time i've been to vietnam, there's been this sense of something is now complete. some chapter is over. but i actually viewed this trip more like a new chapter's opening. vietnam has played such a central role in shaping my family, my sense of myself, and i hope it continues to do that. i don't want to leave it 20 years to come back here.

hello. this is the weekend when november turns into december, but it's not going to feel like it weather—wise. in fact, it is going to feel very mild, often cloudy. there will be some rain, equally a little bit of sunshine. now, we've got a frontal system that has been pushing its way eastwards. behind that, a south—westerly flow, a very mild but moist south—westerly flow, so, yes, there will be a lot of clouds, some mist and murk in places, but this very mild air is working its way northwards across all parts of the uk. so a mild start to saturday morning, but with a lot of cloud, some mist and murk, particularly for coasts

and hills in the west, few spots of rain through the day, parts of northern england, northern ireland and scotland, equally a few brighter spells northeast wales, northeast england, north—east scotland, areas with some shelter from the breeze. but look at the temperatures — 13—15 degrees, very mild indeed for the last day of november. it will be quite windy out there, those winds actually strengthening across western parts as we head into the evening ahead of the arrival of this frontal system that will push its way eastwards overnight. bit of showery rain running ahead of that. so, some outbreaks of rain through the early hours of sunday morning. again, it's going to be really very mild, temperatures holding up in double digits for most as we head into the second half of the weekend. so here goes our frontal system, pushing its way eastwards during sunday. that is going to bring some outbreaks of rain. sunday, probably the wetter of the two weekend days for england and wales, as these outbreaks of rain push eastwards.

scotland and northern ireland seeing sunny spells and showers, that brighter but showery regime spreading to most areas before sunday afternoon is done. still very mild, 12—14 degrees. but we will see a bit of a change as we move out of sunday and into monday. we do start to pick up these northerly winds, which for a time, will bring something colder southwards across the uk, but that is unlikely to last all that long. we see frontal systems returning from the atlantic. from midweek onwards, things will turn milder, but they will also turn quite a lot more unsettled, with some wet and potentially very windy weather to end the week. so next week looks like this, briefly turning a bit colder, milder again later, but more unsettled.

live from london, this is bbc news. rebels in syria continue their surprise offensive, taking control of more than half of aleppo. in georgia, police use tear gas and water canons on crowds as thousands protest a decision to suspend eu membership talks. an election too close to call — ireland's exit poll predicts an even split between the three main parties. london fashion week becomes

the first of the four main fashion shows to ban exotic animal skins. and it's anything but a ruff welcome for these pets as an auction for recycled royal curtains helps rescue dogs find a home. hello and welcome to bbc news. i'm lauren taylor. islamist rebels in syria are reported to have taken control of more than half of aleppo, the country's second city, as they continue their lightning offensive. the syrian observatory for human rights, which monitors the conflict, says forces loyal to president assad withdrew without offering significant resistance. opposition fighters have been advancing in the surrounding region. russia, president assad's main ally, has been bombing rebel—held areas in response. it's the first time in eight years that the rebels have reached aleppo, which was the scene of one of bloodiest sieges of syria's civil war.