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Published: January 29th 2013
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Mausoleum
Janet, Pam and John leaving the Mausoleum We are in a lovely hotel, with a great view this time, and we had such a treat at breakfast, pain au raisin! Much smaller than at home but very good. Breakfast is so good here. We left the hotel to visit the Mausoleum of Ho Chi Min, it's where his embalmed body is on view. We are not allowed bags or cameras and must not speak or deviate from the designated route and our hands must be at our sides, this is a communist country and the guards all in white and at every corner look quite intimidating. The people of Vietnam love Ho Chi Min and duly pay their respects to him as we walk around him. I feel a fraud and I'm not sure whether to look at him or away. He looks like a nice guy and it doesn't feel as if you are walking around a dead person whatever that should feel like, it's almost like he is made of wax.
We leave here and walk through the gardens. It's such a shame that it is a grey day. Viet our guide says it is always like this in winter. It's like there is a permanent
smog in the air. It's not cold and we don't really need our coats. From here we go to the museum and learn from Viet and the Museum about Ho Chi Min. The museum is presented in a very artistic way.He was an ordinary person from a poor family and yet he was able to travel to the UK and Paris. He was imprisoned in Hong Kong because he was a communist or that's how I understand it. He learned a lot from Lenin and others and returned to Vietnam to make it a better place. Our guide Viet certainly thinks he has been good for Vietnam and has helped to transform the country and made it a much better place to live in. Ho Chi Min certainly comes over as a highly educated and intelligent person who did not take advantage of the power he had. He lived a very humble life not having a bathroom in his home, just somewhere to eat, work and sleep.From here we visited the prison in Hanoi where insurgent Vietnamese were kept by the French and later American soldiers in the Vietnam war, affectionately known as the Hanoi Hilton. It was quite barbaric
the way the prisoners were manacled to their board beds for 22 hours a day. If they left the prison they found it very difficult to walk again. Many were tortured and there was a guillotine on display for those given the death penalty, and bearing in mind that this prison was in operation up until about 40 years ago it appeared inhumane to us.We left here and went to a local restaurant that trained young people to become chefs. All were eager to help us and the food was delicious it was called KotoFrom here we went to the Chinese temple to Confucius, the gardens are full of bonsai and old trees, one an Almond tree was 2000 years old. People worship in the temples twice a month, the first and middle Sundays. They are getting ready for the Chinese New Year celebrations and so there are lots of flowers many of them plastic. Most families will try to get a Kumquat tree that has flowers, new leaves and fruits on, for all the generations of the family.They bring offerings to the Buddhist temples and then the very poor are given these in the evenings.From here we walk around
the old quarter, shoe street, silk street and food street. That's not their names but what they sell. It's all very interesting and we are getting used to walking in and around the traffic. We leave our guides and venture off alone, well not quite alone there are seven of us. We walk to the coffee shop recommended by Amanda called MoJo's and it is the best coffee yet but Steve fancies a tea and orders Chi latte but it isn't tea it's more like cinnamon coffee. We decide to head back and part company briefly, our companions go on an electric bus tour and we walk around Hoan Kiem Lake and Wedding bridge which leads to a Buddhist temple. It's called wedding bridge because couples have their photos taken there before the wedding sometimes two weeks before. It's just 2000 vd to go over the bridge and once there we see lots of old guys playing Chinese checkers. The temple is gold and red but it doesn't seem as if the people are as respectful as they are in Thailand, you can wear shoes and talk and take pictures. In fact it doesn't seem like a temple at all
Ho Chi Minh Museum
Artistic war scene except for the incense which is burning.We then all met up and shared taxis back to the hotel. That evening we went to a very local restaurant with Mal and Fiona, and despite the place looking run down the food was very tasty. We finished by listening to some jazz piano in the hotel and drinking hot chocolate.
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Diep
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