Vietnam 13 - Hanoi

In the Ho Chi Minh museum (Uncle Ho himself)

For whatever reason I had pictured Hanoi as grey, severe and laden with rule minders.  What I found was quite different – chaos (all of Vietnam is pretty chaotic especially on the streets), nice buildings that are still in place from the French, good museums and temples.  

A government building where Ho Chi Minh worked, but similar to some of the buildings in Hanoi

People seem to prefer either Hanoi of HCMC.  We decided that we much prefer Hanoi to HCMC, but interestingly when expressing this opinion in Hoi An we are in a distinct minority.  To a one, people here describe the folks in HCMC as friendly and the Hanoi folks as not.  Given that we mostly talk to people in the tourism industry it is kind of hard to tell for us.  But the cities themselves are different.  (we saw no rats in Hanoi although I know they are there - so score one for Hanoi)

Pretty Temple

Here is a shot of the famous (infamous?) train street.  The tracks run down the middle of this narrow street, so twice a day, when the train is about to come, sidewalk vendors pack up and move inside.  Then once the train has passed, back out they go.

Train Street (between the buildings) - the scooters are on a street that crosses Train Street

Our stop here was a mere day and a half so we crammed what we could into it.  The quirky highlight goes to the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh.  

Yup – you read that correctly.  Uncle Ho died in the late 60s and contrary to his express wishes, his body has been preserved and put on display in the capital city.  It apparently gets sent annually to Russia for them to do whatever they do to preserve a body forever, and then it is sent back to be on display.  For me this stop ranked with things like the catacombs under Paris as creepy strange things you must see anyway.

Back of the mausoleum which looks similar to the front except without the crowds

No pictures are allowed once you are on the mausoleum grounds but I snapped a picture from the back, which was allowed.  We had seen the crazy lines the day prior so took the internet's advice and arrived prior to opening.  The line even then was probably a half kilometer long, but after the place opened the line did move along, so from the time we joined the line to when we were out was only about 1.5 hours.  I will say the whole thing is kind of strange.  The line is kept neat, and the military presence in dress whites provides a level of formality and dignity.  Beyond the actual mausoleum there was a museum dedicated to his ideas and life and another area which showed where he had lived and worked as the president of North Vietnam.

Beyond that unique (and strange) visit we also visited the Temple of Literature which was essentially the country’s first university. 

It is on the back of the 100,000 note (Front of all notes is Uncle Ho)

Originally built in 1070 and dedicated to Confucius it continues to be an ode to teachers.  Of course it has been renovated many times over the years (last time in 2000), and is a graceful spacious and non-religious place.  In far off days this facility taught youth who would become future mandarins expected to help rule the country (think of a finishing school for governors and premiers).  In two of the sections there are the names and birthplaces of graduates from 1442 to 1779 engraved on stone (Steles of Doctors).

Confucius 

Politics is never far away of course.  The tourist shops near where we stayed had an ample supply of Kim/Trump T-shirts.  My guess is that these can be had for a discount currently.  (Frankly none of them seem to be a good likeness, but I thought this one was quite funny, and the likenesses are OK)

Peace and Love