Hanoi,
Vietnam
Monday, May 12, 2003
8th May - A very important day in the great Vietnam scheme of things. Our cyclo driver peddaled us across town and we drank in the sights and smells all around the old quarter. Each road is dedicated mainly to one specific item of trade, the same as it was for hundreds of years. There is a shoe street, a herb street, a towel street, etc etc etc. and of course we passed loads of street vendors with their portable shops and restaurants. Our cyclo wanted to come into the mausoleum with us (they would go every day if they could) so we ended up in the Vietnamese queue rather than then foreigner one where the video is in English. Next we made a procession through various checkpoints and over to the mausoleum itself passing smartly dressed guards in sparkly white uniforms ready to pounce if you made a wrong move. As we entered the dark of the mausoleum, Tran (our driver) pushed me to the side which I thought a bit off but he was just making sure I was on the right side for a good view as you have to march in in pairs. There is no stopping for a good look, you have to keep moving and there are guards all over the place to make sure you don't dawdle. It was really weird to see a dead body (which I've never seen in real life before) but he looked like a waxwork in a glass coffin so it's not really the same thing. The smartly dressed Vietnamese all around us were awestruck and some were crying and we really started to get a feel for how much Uncle Ho meant to many people. He's been dead since 1969 (so never saw the realisation of his dreams) but he is still at the forefront of their minds. Outside we followed the procession to his stilt house which is kept as it was when he lived there in all it's simplicity. There were huge fish in the lake and we made the mistake of stopping to glance in but were ordered to move on by the guards with the loudhailers. The procession then led us to the museum which was very odd and a bit arty and surreal. Most of the items there are documents and pages of manuscript or notes and so made no sense to us at all. We're pretty sure our cyclo took us in the wront parts as well so we may have missed some stuff.
In the evening (after our siesta due to the heat of 38 degrees) we caught up with our friends but Charlotte was really sick so they didn't stay long. We think it was the pineapple that she and I had had the previous night which I threw away after a few bites as it tasted warm. Thank goodness I did! Our activity for this evening was the famous water puppets show and we sat in a cinema like auditorium looking down into a sort of pond with curtains and a little band at one side. The puppets look like they are walking on water and the puppeteers have to train for 3 months before they can go public. The music was fantastic - that out of tune Chinese sounding stuff with funny instruments, and the puppets were fairly amusing even though we didn't really understand what was going on as it was obviously in Vietnamese. Pip and Bastian being typical boys didn't see the artiness of it all and were glad it was only an hour long. One of those things that you should experience while here but probably wouldn't want to do again.
