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Published: September 13th 2012
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Uncle Ho
Inside the Ho Chi Minh museum Well I was supposed to be incommunicado for the next few days as I was supposed to be on a 3 day 2 night cruise.
So up early this morning and waiting in reception to be picked up and really excited and guess what we get a phone call and told the cruise is off due to Typhoon hitting Halong Bay. So after throwing the baby out of the bathwater, I decide that I should not have dissed yesterday's tour guide aka Mike as what could we do today!. We were too late to go to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum as it is open only from 7.30 and last entry is 10.15 and not only that we were informed by some Dutch tourists last night that Ho Chi Minh's embalmed corpse has gone back to Russia for maintenance which happens in October normally every year for 2 months. So am I pleased NOT.
Anyway we decide to go to the Ho Chi Minh Museum so jump in a taxi and off we go. The Museum is quite good but guess what everything was to do with Ho Chi Minh. I should have guessed this due to the name
Mausoleum
Ho Chi Minh's body is embalmed in here - goes to Russia 2 months of the year for maintenance of the museum - dumb or what. The one main thing I did find out is the Vietnamese see Ho Chi Minh as Uncle Ho which I think says a lot in a really positive way.
We also see the one piller pergoda which if I am honest is a bit dissapointing even more so when we find out that one of the last acts of the French when they left Hanoi was to totally distroy the pergoda so it is a replica.
So we decide that although we are too late to go in but at least we can see the Mausoleum from the outside and to be honest it a really impressive building.
So off we trot to the Presidential Palace at least I had read up on this beforehand and knew that you could not go around it but to be honest it is a really impressive building and puts the 60s style Independence Palace/Presidential Palace which is now known as the Reunification Palace in Ho Chi Minh City to shame from the outside.
So we then decide to go to the largest lake in Hanoi which is called Ho Tay (West Lake)
which is 13kilometers in circumference and by golly we know why the cruise was cancelled this lake was really choppy and the wind had certainly got up. We found a little floating restaurent and got some shrimp spring rolls which were to be honest the nicest spring rolls we have had in Vietnam so not all lost with the day.
Also got an email confirmation from the place we are hoping to stay at in Perth which is a little eclectic bed and breakfast.
I have not wasted the day as been looking for PADI dive courses for when we get to Cairns so fired a couple of enquires off. Just found out that Mike cannot do the PADI dive course due to his asthma bummer or what.
So not sure if you will be hearing from me tomorrow or not as we have been rescheduled to take the cruise tomorrow morning but looking at the weather forecast I am not sure this is going to happen so I maybe a very depressed lady (yes, I did say lady, hey no one can disagree from such a distance, ha ha). If you do not hear from me, look forward to my escapades on Halong Bay!
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