The "Fanxipan" night express train to Hanoi
Trip Start
Apr 06, 2008
1
17
23
Trip End
Jun 20, 2008
Hanoi,
Vietnam
Sunday, May 25, 2008
It has a nice blend of French colonial flair, busy China Town street, cheap backpackers guesthouses, romantic lake ambiance, antique buddhist temples, cozy restaurants and even some modern buildings, but nothing really like in Pudong, Shanghai!
The first day, I went to the "Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum Complex" that is the final resting place of the this great Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman.Almost 40 years after his death (1969), it's amazing to see the local crowds, coming from all corners of the country, just to pay their respect to their great former leader,
Uncle Ho.I guess it must be one of the highlights of a Vietnam visit, to come here and walk around his glass sarcophagus, and honour the man who was so important in Vietnam's recent history, coordinating the fight against both the French and American invaders, and also contributed so much to the reunification of the country.
And still, Ho Chi Minh remained a simple and down to earth person, as you can see from his former residences, the house on stilts bamboo house with adjoining pergola.There is also good museum about his entire life, just besides;during my visit, it was full of school groups, all kids with red scarfs
Hanoi is also one of the only places in this "past revolutionary world" where there is still a huge statue of V.I. Lenin, on Phu Dien Bien Phu, right besides the Chinese embassy.
With the exception of some cities in Central Asia (Ashgabat, Bishkek, Osh), and North Korea, most other Lenin monuments have been demolished.
As I walked back from the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, through a rather quiet neighbourhood dotted with colonial mansions&villas from the French period, I suddenly discovered the Swiss flag, it was the Swiss ambassador's official residence, a nice property, well maintained, the French would call it "un petit chateau".Almost like in real geography the neighbour to the north is HE ,the German ambassador, so they can speak german over the fence..!
I continued my walking tour of Hanoi with a visit to the temple of literature, a huge temple complex dedicated to Confucius by the emperor Ly Than in 1070.Later on, it became a university compound for mandarins.
Temperature reached 40 degrees celsius today, the place to cool down in Hanoi is "17 Saloon", a wooden cowboy bar, with nice waitresses, draught beer, and a filipino band to play all these hits..!
Another buidling complex where it's cooler inside, is the Hoa Lo Prison, a former French institution where the colonialists used to detain and torture revolutionary fighters.After the liberation of the Northern part of Vietnam, Hoa Lo became a prison for criminels in 1954, and later on many American PoW were detained here for years, one of them Senator John Mc Cain, the Republican canditate for the US Presidential elections 2008, he spent almost 7 years in the infamous "Hanoi Hilton", as it was called by the Americans.
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Ho Chi Minh residence, house on the stilts, Hanoi
Comments
I forgot
be always a nice boy honney, and dont forget me.....