Flashback to Round II of Hanoi

The next morning we drifted over to the Ho Chi Museum. When I say morning, I mean "afternoon" and when I say "drifted", I mean hired a cyclo. I may be crazy, but not sufficiently crazy to trek through Hanoi traffic in the ungodly noon heat. The late start is mostly due to the copious amounts of sleeping I did to recover from Halong Bay.

The museum is kind of a tri-part complex made of Uncle Ho's living quarters and government buildings, a museum about his life, and his mausoleum. Uncle Ho's living quarters were not so interesting. We were actually not allowed to get within 100 yards of the parliament building, nor look at it from the front. If you encroached upon a "forbidden" area, a little siren would go off. Most areas were forbidden. We got to see his desk, and two of his cars. It was spectacularly dull.

The museum was a bit more interesting, but not informative in the slightest. It had a lot of pictures: "Uncle Ho inspecting Liberation Troop Volunteers," "Uncle Ho delivers rice to famine-stricken farmers," "Uncle Ho sits in field of flowers whilst hugging children and demonstrating love for puppies." You get the picture.

That night we met up with friends from our Halong Bay tour and watched the game: England v. Portugal. England lost on a penalty shoot-out, and it was altogether very sad. Since it was very sad, we will not elaborate on it.

The next day we were due to head out to Vientiane. The bus ride was about 22 hours long, making it the second longest bus journey on my round the world trip. (Athens to Istanbul won out at 24 hours.) However, we had the whole morning and afternoon free.

In the morning, we stopped by the mausoleum to see Uncle Ho in his little glass sarcophagus. There was a very long line. We had to check our cameras, and once we joined the queue, we were searched repeatedly. Contraband items such as bottled water were removed from our bags. I got in trouble for approaching the building while wearing sunglasses. After a 20 minute ordeal, we were trotted quickly around the glass sarcophagus, which was so far away, I could barely see him. I think he must be decomposing, so hence the large distance and quick viewing times. Apparently, Uncle Ho goes on a yearly holiday to Russia, where they spruce him up a bit.

After our tete-a-tete with Uncle Ho, we went to a waterpark on the outskirts of town. I rode sidesaddle on a moto, on a freeway. It was an interesting experience. The waterpark was a blast. Jon and I rode all the rides at least twice. I felt really conspicuousous (read: Western Harlot) in a two-piece swimsuit, given all the other women were wearing shorts and t-shirts. Oh well, I had a ton of fun, and that's all that matters. Unfortunately, we had to leave a bit early as we needed to hurry off for our joyous day-long journey to Vientiane.