Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Day 12 - Ha Noi


Trying to get more culture into our eating tour of Vietnam we had to go visit Uncle Ho's mausoleum and museum. The tomb is only open from 8am till 10:30am and his isn't actually in residence at the moment as he pops back to Russia for cosmetic surgery for three months each year to have his face touched up.

Breakfast choice was just to walk across the road to one of the hole in the wall eating places and grab a Pho Bo and a cup of black tea. Everytime we have Pho it is different. This time it had a good meaty broth with beef balls. Sometimes we have eaten Pho and it has only had a clear soup and a few floating greens. This one was quite tasty.

We then grabbed a cab to the museum. Cabs are SO much cheaper than cyclos and airconditioned too. Do a cyclo for the experience, but not for you main means of transport is my travel tip in Vietnam.



The museum and mausoleum area was patrolled by army guards who were taking their jobs very seriously as they stood sweating in the heat. It was funny after we exited the museum to find a bunch of them lounging around eating icecreams with their uniforms open.


The museum itself was opened in 1990 and is a very modern affair with the exhibits drawing a lot on imagery as much as the Ho Chi Minh's artifacts they contained. I think I saw, but I am not sure, the flight suit of the B52 bomber's pilot that crashed during the war. There was no gory pictures and for that I was thankful, though there was lots of uplifting communist propaganda.

The place was closing as we came out and toured the gardens, we were forcefully ushered off the premises by the army people as they marched up and down. So it was into another cab and off to the hotel to prepare for the shopping we HAD to do.





Dawn also wanted to get her hair straightened before the flight tomorrow and so she visited a hair dresser. The service she received also included a complimentary facial massage and ear cleaning and I will put an entry together when I see that in one of her emails. Needless to say, the facial massage emulated the foot massage somewhat.

Our plan after that was to buy tickets to the famous water puppet and then go to Green Tangerine for our farewell dinner. There was a long queue at the water puppet box office and a sign announcing they were full for the night's performances NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! I had come to Vietnam especially to see them!!! Bahh!

This left us to wander to the restaurant and indulge in our most expensive meal of the trip. 650,000 VND for 2 courses and drinks. It was exquisite and a fitting end to our last full day in Vietnam.