Ho Chi Minh

After a day of sightseeing in Hanoi on Saturday, Kevin and I headed out early on Sunday morning to swing by to see Ho Chi Minh and then head over to the Old Quarter to pick up our bikes for our two day trip to Mai Chau. Since we were short on time (only five days in Hanoi) and we wanted to make the most of them, we planned for one day in Hanoi, a two day Halong Bay trip, and with our two remaining days, we decided to find an interesting day trip from Hanoi, settling on Mai Chau, a village 135km southwest of Hanoi, to add a little more variety to Kevin's brief tour of North Vietnam.

After just one spin on the back of a Vietnamese moto-taxi, Kevin had decided that he'd rather walk wherever we were going, regardless of how far it was (apparently, that one ride was enough for him to swear moto-taxis off forever) so we headed off in the direction of Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum on foot. Ho Chi Minh died in 1969 and since that time, his embalmed corpse has been on display for the people of Vietnam (and visitors from around the world) in a large mausoleum in Hanoi. The mausoleum is an imposing stone structure flanked with columns reminiscent of the Lincoln Memorial with the words "HO CHI MINH" engraved in stone in huge block letters. From 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. each day, hoards of visitors stand in lines curling around street corners and filling up narrow streets, for a chance to pay their respects to Vietnam's "Uncle Ho." Luckily, we arrived early enough to not have to wait long and soon found ourselves passing through security and making our way into the air conditioned tomb.

Past the stoic guards in their sparkingly clean white dress uniforms, the line snakes up a stair case and around the corner, past more guards actively scanning the crowd for any evidence of prohibited materials. In complete silence, the line enters the main room, where it continues up, left and left again, walking along three of the four sides of the six foot deep "moat" the surrounds Ho Chi Minh's glass encased bed. Four more guards stand at attention in the moat at each of the four posts of the bed, their heads about even with Ho Chi Minh himself. Ho Chi Minh's body is displayed in the middle of all of this looking as if he could rise any minute to greet his visitors.

The crowd is herded up one side and down the other, each individual face peering towards the center while individual pairs of feet continue movement forward. Moments after we enter, we find ourselves walking down the steps and towards the exit of the building. Back in the sunshine, we spend another hour or so touring the grounds and the HCM museum, before heading back to the Old Quarter to pick up our bikes.