Hanoi - Day 3


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Asia » Vietnam » Red River Delta » Hanoi
January 29th 2007
Published: January 29th 2007
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Today we had planned to get through a whole lot of the tourist sites such as the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, Army Museum, the Hanoi Hilton and some pagodas (temples). We launched ourselves out of bed 40 minutes after we were meant to get up which seemed like it might actually have been a good thing because according to Lonely Planet most of those places are closed on Mondays. We decided that we would walk to these places anyway to have a look at the outsides and take some photos, besides, walking around Hanoi is enjoyable anyway and is pretty easy to waste time just looking.

Our first stop for the day was the Army Museum; we came across this place just by chance because we had taken it off our list because it was supposed to be closed...apparently Lonely Planet was telling lies because the museum was definitely open. It had some cool French, American and Vietnamese military vehicles outside, as well as an impressive looking and very old miniature fort. Inside the museum the displays had a very biased view on both the French and the Americans wars but it was interesting to see it from that perspective. The actual tank from the famous photo of the communists capturing the palace in Saigon was also inside the museum.

The next stop on our journey was the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum. Basically old Uncle Ho has been embalmed and is on public display. The crowds line up and file past him and aren't allowed to stop, take photos, wear shorts, put their hands in their pockets, breathe etc etc. Although we couldn't go in, the place was still pretty impressive from the outside and had ceremonial guards outside in white uniforms. The grounds around it reminded Scott of Tiananmen Square, only with more grass and less concrete. After the Mausoleum we headed over to the One Pillar Pagoda...we’re glad we didn't walk all that way JUST to see this pagoda, because it’s pretty small and isn't really that interesting, it was like somebody had built a fancy cubby house up on a concrete pillar in their (green) swimming pool.

From the cubbyhouse we walked past the Ho Chi Minh museum which WAS actually closed and made our way to the Temple of Literature and Bianca's pick for lunch. The temple was the countries first university where students went for between 3 and 7 years to try and qualify for the national and royal exams, set by the King himself. The temple was pretty big and had nicely maintained gardens. The script that the students learnt from was carved into stone stelae which had a base made to look like a giant tortoise. Lunch was at KOTO which stands for Know One, Teach One. It was similar to Jamie Oliver’s ‘Fifteen’ restaurants as they train street kids to be chefs/waiters. It was the most expensive place we've eaten at so far, the food looked really good, but wasn't overly exciting - and cost us $16!

The next stop was Hoa Lo Prison which was nicknamed the 'Hanoi Hilton' by the American POW pilots and aircrew who were held there. Hoa Lo means fiery furnace in Vietnamese and was first used by the French to hold political prisoners and then later by the Vietnamese to hold American's who had crash landed. Luckily for us the prison again was actually open when Lonely Planet said it wasn't. The prison had been cut down in 1993 to about 1/8th of the original size to make way for the Hanoi Towers, which we think is the biggest building in town. The prison was interesting but had obviously been 'cleaned' up for tourists. The captions for displays and photos were very much about the Vietnamese revolutionary martyrs who had been held by the 'oppressive imperialist' French - again another unsurprisingly biased view, and had things exhibits like the guillotine that was used to kill many 'resistance fighters'. We thought that the prison had completely avoided the American POW factor until we came across two small brightly painted rooms with some photos on the walls and some displays e.g. flying suits and cups and bowls used by the prisoners. The room was extremely politically correct and told the story of how well the American prisoners were treated and showed photos of well nourished, smiling, sport playing, beer drinking prisoners. Again this was a place that was interesting in the way that it portrayed the views of the Vietnamese and how contradicting and brutal the American accounts are.

Leaving the prison we turned our walk towards home, withdrew $2,000,000 dollars....uh I mean dong from the bank, and were now waiting to go out somewhere for dinner, maybe somewhere cheap after Bianca blew our budget with her caring and sharing at KOTO!

Tomorrow morning we leave for Halong Bay so we'll be back in reality in 3 days time

S and B



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30th January 2007

HI
Just read your latest entry, looks like you need to stop BC spending Scott or you won't be able to get home or you will starve.!!! Are you sick of eating out yet???? Smokey snoozed on your bed all day today BC and mingy has been much better since we reduced her drug intake, she hasn't started pulling fur yet and has been happily doing stand over with Bell who turned up again the other day. Talk to you guys soon. Luv Mum

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