City Tour

 We had a good sleep last night and a nice breakfast.

Our pick up for the city tour went smoothly and soon we were on our way to the Ho Chi Minh mauseleum.

Ho Chi Minh is revered by this country and a visit to his memorial seems to be special (at least to all the hundreds of kids there with us ). We had to go through security and passed numerous guards before quietly entering the room with his preserved body. We were definitely told “no photos”. In the room with the body were about 12 ceremonial guards in crisp white uniforms standing at attention.

Once we were outside the main building we were allowed to take photos. The yellow buildings in the photo above was where he lived. We also saw his cars (three of them, and only used for official duties ). He had a very simple lifestyle.

Needless to say the grounds were immaculate.

Next was the museum of Ethnology which explained the various tribal units in this country.

This museum just wasn’t our cup of tea so we left the group and snuck off for ice cream,

Lunch was really good and we had time to chat with people on the tour with us. One couple is from Parksville and the man used to work for Gulf Oil and knows the projects I used to work at “back in the day”.

We then visited a couple of different pagodas and honestly I can’t remember the details of them. They were beautiful and located in wonderful locations. 

We didn’t see any sunshine today and by midafternoon it was raining on and off  

The last stop was the “Hanoi Hilton” prison. The prison was built by the French over one hundred years ago and much of the museum focus was on the Vietnamese people who were unfortunate to be incarcerated there. There were some photos and stories of the American pilots (from both at the time of capture, and years afterward when coming back). There were also stories of citizens who dealt with the aftereffects of various bombing runs. 

We did not see any of the American prisoner cells. Part of the prison was demolished to make space for some high rise buildings so it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the section removed was the American prisoners section.

This is what the prisoners endured on a daily basis.

The prison is actually smaller than I thought it would be.

Once back to the hotel we went out to a nearby bank and I was able to withdraw $100 in Vietnamese Dong with no problem from our chequing account. In Thailand my debit card wouldn’t work in the machines we tried so I was happy and am much more relaxed now.

Tonight we booked our flights to Siem Reap as well as our hotel there.