Vietnamese Man does things differently

The pain of loss make Le Van do the craziest things

A heartbroken Vietnamese widower who wanted a hug from his dead wife dug up her corpse and slept beside it in his bed for five years, reports say.

Le Van was so traumatised by the death of his wife in 2003 that he started sleeping on top of her grave in Quang Nam province in central Vietnam, online newspaper Vietnamnet reports.

Mr Van did that for 20 months until he became so sick of cold weather and rain that he dug a tunnel to his dead wife which allowed him to sleep beside her.

The 55-year-old's children found out about the tunnel and prevented him from visiting the graveyard so, in November 2004, he dug up the corpse and took it home with him.

Mr Van then moulded a figure around the skeleton using clay and dressed the body up in women's clothing and make-up.

The father-of-seven has been sleeping beside it ever since.

"I'm a person that does things differently ... I'm not like normal people," Mr Van was quoted as saying.