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We arrived in Hanoi late in the evening and after locating a cheap guesthouse, having some dinner and paying a quick visit to the lake in the middle of Hanoi (in reality the visit seemed mostly to be spent avoiding being ran over by the millions of motorbikes on Hanoi’s roads,) after which we went for, what is quickly becoming our customary early night. This meant that we would be ready for an early rise the next day for our trip to see the embalmed Ho Chi Minh. Rachel wasn’t so keen on the idea of going to see a preserved dead communist leader but it was free (ever the cheapskates) and certainly not something you get to do everyday, so the next morning we awoke early and set off on the back of a bike to Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum.
Once we arrived we joined the back of an extremely long queue. We waited as people slyly tried to push in front of us and watched as many families and school children on trips, all dressed in their best, came to pay their respects. I managed to cause quite a bit of excitement amongst the local people in the
queue when I pulled on some trousers over my shorts, (apparently shorts are disrespectful to Ho Chi Minh, although to be fair he would probably be more upset about the fact that he was embalmed when he had asked to be cremated,) nevertheless, pictures were taken and we spent the rest of our time in the queue with people watching me avidly to see what great piece of entertainment I would produce next. As we got closer to the mausoleum, It seemed that I had failed in my role as comedian and the mood began to change with everyone being quite sombre and quiet, partly out of respect for Ho Chi Minh and partly because of the large contingent of guards alternating between standing scarily still and giving people sinister looks before switching to a slightly comical walk/hop march.
Once we got to the front of the queue we were ushered inside by more fierce guides who spent most of their time telling off small children for talking or westerners for wearing hats. We then filed into the inner chamber and followed the procession of people around Ho Chi Minh, it certainly was a touch odd. There are rumours
abound that the real body of Ho Chi Minh has been removed, or has disintegrated, and that Madam Tussords now has the contract. The body did look rather wax like, although in fairness I have no idea what an embalmed body would be expected to look like after about 30 years, but it certainly looked like Ho Chi Minh, pointy beard and all. The procession of people continued and we both admitted afterwards that we had been worried that while looking and walking we would trip over into the square where the body was kept and create a rather large scene, I don’t think that would have gone down to well with the overly serious guards! Overall I found the whole experience fascinating, from the pomp and ceremony outside to the surrealism inside, however, I’m not sure Rachel was quite so enamoured with the whole thing and has told me we are not going to go and see Mao embalmed in Beijing, which I think is rather a shame.
After this we took a short motorbike ride back across Hanoi, which was terrifying. Nearly everyone is on motorbikes and no one pays the slightest bit of attention to which
side of the road they should be on, so everyone just swerves and weaves in and out of each other down narrow and pot hole ridden lanes. Having rather long legs I had to be sure to keep them well tucked in as I don’t think my driver was used to having legs jutting out the sides and I didn’t fancy smacking my knee into an oncoming bike. Almost worse than being on the road is trying to cross it, if we had waited for a gap in the millions of bikes we would still be waiting. The only way it seems possible to cross is to just start walking slowly across the road, not stopping for anything and hope the bikes swerve and weave around you too, or find a local person crossing the road and stick to them like glue.
Aware we were eating into our time in China we went to the station and booked a train out of Hanoi and into Nanning, China, for that evening. Once the train was booked we paid a quick visit to a Buddhist temple on an island in the middle of the lake, it was a lovely spot and
a welcome escape from the mayhem and pollution of Hanoi’s roads, although even there you couldn’t escape the incessant beeping of horns.
Our last activity in Vietnam was Rachel dragging me to the cinema to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D which had just come out, as apparently your chances of seeing a 3D film in China is about 0% as they are just so popular, so we ‘had’ to see it there and then. Unfortunately the film was a bit of a letdown, and left us in a massive rush to pick up our bags from the hotel and work out the best way to get to the station. Still nervous of taxis after our experience in Saigon, we decided to get on the back of some bikes, bags and all. With a 20kg bag on my back and a driver who seemed to favour sudden braking and accelerating over driving like a sane person, I was rather worried about going flying off the back of the bike and landing on by bag like a tortoise. Still we arrived safely and I realised I had spent the entire journey tensing every muscle in my body and grinding my teeth so much my jaw ached. Nevertheless, we boarded the train to China in plenty of time, slightly upset that we hadn’t had more time in Vietnam, which had turned out to be a country that we had both enjoyed very much.
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Gill Carr
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Embalmed bodies
These blogs now seem to be coming thick and fast. Great to hear all the news. Not sure I would have liked the motorbike rides. Alice in Wonderland is showing at the Arts Centre in Cranleigh next week so you could have seen it here. Looking forward to the next instalment Love Mum xx