Hot in Hanoi
Trip Start
May 08, 2008
1
13
25
Trip End
Ongoing
Hanoi,
Vietnam
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Anyway, in terms of the sights of the city, the most important (I'd imagine) to the Vietnameseis Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum where his embalmed body is n display. For a man who didn't want to be hero worshipped and preferred to be just another comrade in the revolution they've managed to completely ignore that and achieved the following:
1 Name a city after him
2 Put his face on all banknotes
3 Put his body on permanent display
4 Preserve his house, office and cars exactly as he left them
Anyway we visited the mausoleum on the morning we returned from Sapa. Arriving back from the train at 4.40am we made our way to our hotel to find that they had no rooms. Every other hotel was shuttered up and given that our big bags were in the other hotel we opted to wait until later when another room came free. On the minus side there was not a single cafe or anything open. On the plus side we had an opportunity to observe the morning rituals of the natives around the central lake where thousands exercise every morning. There were old women doing tai chi (ranging from simple moves to martial arts stuff with swords, all in slo-mo of course), people of all ages running and walking, younger male poseurs doing some serious weights, groups and pairs playing badminton and football-tennis, some skipping, all shapes and sizes. We got there around 5.30 and there were already hundreds there, continuing on past 8, at which point we went for a bit of breakfast when a cafe finally opened. The opening hours of the mausoleum necessitate an early start so you can imagine why we hadn't made it before.
The place was more than a little surreal with high security levels, including leaving cameras and even ipods at security, and giving up our bottle of water. I dinn't understand that one, unless of course they were afraid we'd somehow break the galss surrounding the body and splash water over it, melting it in seconds. Seriously, even at 9 am the heat was past 30 degrees and the water would have been nice. Once inside the building itself there is no talking, no caps allowed, and definitely no hands in pockets. As we were exiting the building I reached to check if everything was still in my pockets (a habit I've developed walking in cities) and instantly a guard warned me to keep the hands away!
Oh by the way his body makes you think its true how people say that instead of being flown to Russia for treatment every year, he's flown instead to London for treatment by Madame Tussauds. A strange and surreal experience to be sure, as is his residence. They've kept his two cars, one of which he actually used one arrived after his death. The second, a Peugeot was ordered prior to his death but only arrived afterwards. Of course the question must be asked, why would they order a new car for an 89 year old man?
So yeah, strange all round. We also took in the water puppet show, which was okay, although we were thankful that it was only 1 hour long! Our last night was the night of the Euro 2008 final, starting at 1.45am, which I intended watching in my hotel room, maybe after a couple of hours kip cos our flight required a 5.30 am start. Unfortunately that didn't happen and we had a few drinks with a couple of American girls we'd met in Sapa. Before we knew it kick off time had arrived (1.45 am local time) and still no sleep. I watched the match anyway and eventually went to sleep at around 4am, not good for the next day.
