Ho, ho, ho in Hanoi

25th January 2007
Arrived in Hanoi at 5.30 and went to a hotel where some day rooms were reserved for us to freshen up after breakfast, as our real hotel, the Hoa Binh, wouldn’t be ready for check in till lunchtime.

A very comfortable coach then took us on a city tour. First stop: Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum. Now, you may not know but there are only four former leaders (former, for obvious reasons, ie they’re dead) who have been embalmed and lay in State, in mausoleums – Lenin, Mao, Uncle Ho and the guy that used to run North Korea – don’t know his name though he is obviously as legend in his own death there. We didn’t queue in the cold to see Mao in Beijing and so were interested to see Uncle Ho. Very respectful queues formed right around the big Civic square and we were then allowed to parade in single file around the open tomb ie viewing the wax-like body.

No photography was allowed, otherwise I’d show you the pictures. Very weird. All lit up, this waxy figure, kept in this state since he died aged 80 in 1969. He used to be sent off to Moscow for three months each year, to be re-done,that is re-embalmed but more recently some Vietnamese were sent on an embalming course and it is now done here. So we were very lucky!?. Had we been here in October, November or December, we would not have met him, as that’s when he’s treated each year.

We then went around the former Palace of the former King, but Uncle Ho, as everyone here calls him, chose a simpler life, only living in the palace from 1954 for a few years, then moving to a ‘house on stilts’ in the grounds after that.

From there we went to the pagoda and saw a number of Buddhas and a very grandiose statue of Confucius.


Then for another jolly little number we were off to the Hanoi Hilton, as they call the Maison Centrale, the former prison. It was a house of horrors, we were told when the French ruled Hanoi and kept the Vietnamese political prisoners there, but became much sought-after accommodation for US Pilots, shot down and taken captive during the American aggression. Clearly, they were very welcome residents and well looked after. We were shown playing cards, billiard balls, warm sweaters and signs of their general good health and well-being while in the care of the Vietcong! There was the little side issue of them being held publicly in the centre of Hanoi as a deterrent to carpet bombing of the city, as America was determined to ‘bomb Vietnam back into the stone-age’ as Defence Secretary of the time, Robert McNamara once said. You may detect a little irony in this posting.


This was almost as funny as our afternoon visit. We had chosen, and were very keen to see a particularly Vietnamese, Hanoian, custom, the Water Puppet show.
In fact, it was brilliant. It came from centuries ago when the peasants in the paddy fields amused themselves by creating puppet shows in the water fields and lowland swamps. Very entertaining and I tried to post a video clip for those who don’t believe me, but it was taking too long to download. Maybe another day.


We had lunch at the Hanoi equivalent of Jamie Oliver’s 15 – a non profit making enterprise run by and for street children (16-24 year olds) called KOTO – Know one, Teach one. The food was great, very upmarket and we’re going back on Saturday night. Tonight was spent at a chic French restaurant in a kind-of French left-bank area of Hanoi – as Sid put it, wonderful but the most expensive bloody restaurant in the whole of South East Asia. Another note of irony there, it was still cheaper than the Crystal takeaway in Dunchurch.

Hanoi is a fantastic city – really beautiful architecture around a stunning lake. Don’t quite understand how it’s so beautiful when it was supposed to have been bombed to bits. Thank god for the US POWs, we say!

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