Uncle Ho

So today after my breakfast/coffee routine, inspired by the scenes on TV of Kim Jong Il in his glass casket I will try once more……….  

I have been to Hanoi a few times and tried twice to see Uncle Ho’s (an affectionate term used by the country for Ho Chi Minh, 1890 - 1969) Mausoleum and both times it was closed for one reason or another so today I jump on a bike and try again. 

It was open and I got in! It is a huge area with his palace and gardens, a museum, various bits and pieces and his Mausoleum. He is kind of like what Ghandi is to India. The whole area is very regimented and controlled. There are guards kind of like the Beefeaters in London everywhere in exquisite white uniforms. 

For the Mausoleum I had to hand in my camera, take a numbered tag and collect it at the exit. I had to take my jumper off to get the camera from around my neck/shoulders and left it off, just a T-shirt for the rest of the daylight hours! 

He is mounted in his glass casket in the middle of the room about twenty metres square and there is just an endless line of people moving through and having a quick look.

All very formal inside with four guards on each corner of the casket and six guards around the red carpet you walk along for the viewing. Hundreds of school children go through there everyday.

Then I spent an hour walking around the grounds and being a tourist, unfortunately I was finished by about midday and the museum doesn’t open until two so I’ll see that on another day. It would be great to see and learn a lot of the recent (last hundred years) history of the country, but at least I did actually get to see Uncle Ho today. 

The Palace.

His "House on Stilts", a little get away from the palace on the edge of the small lake with huge carp.

Some of his old cars, hard to photogragh behind the glass.

The closed Museum.

I headed back to the Old Quarter with a very humorous bike rider who dropped me at “the” coffee place according to him, and it was damn good coffee. 

I had a hamburger for lunch and I’m indecisively thinking about moving on in the next few days to somewhere warmer for the next couple of weeks when just as I finish lunch “Wish You Were Here” came on the sound system, ok, that’s a definite sign. 

I was fairly depressed the first few days here and didn’t want to leave Hanoi feeling that way but now I am enjoying it again it seems like a good time to move on. 

My back is fairly sore now so I’m going for a massage, I drop by my room and have a quick shower and put on thongs, it only seems fair for the masseuse. The weather has been ok the last couple of days and I am acclimatising, though they say it will be cold again tomorrow. 

I find a great masseuse who works the knots out of my shoulders, cracks my back and generally puts everything back in place, all for a mere ten dollars. 

Back to my room for some writing and the sun fades as the neon rises. I head out in search of pizza. There’s a place across the road from my Bia Hoi corner. As I finish the pizza I see two girls stop at the Bia Hoi and there’s a spare seat next to them so I pay my bill and casually head over. 

I sit down next to them and order a beer. Before I have a chance to say anything one of them asks me if I would take a photo of them. Of course I agree and take her camera, they go into a “lesbionic” pose and I take the shot – I sure do know how to pick ‘em! That’s it for me tonight.