If you’re craving a dose of propaganda (say, after a visit to Cuba for example) try this place! The museum behind the Mausoleum. I think it’s called the Ho Chi Minh museum but could be wrong there.
If he wanted it or not, Ho Chi Minh is now a god, where even his old shoes are displayed with saintly reverence.
If you ever wonder what good all your toiling in the fields does and what it’s all for take a wonder through these halls. As with some of the museums we’ve been to in Cuba I found I really had to concentrate on being a mere observer. If I thought too much about the sometimes subtle, sometimes not so subtle propaganda it could cause all sorts of worry. Best not to get too involved unless you’re going to do something about, which is fairly unlikely I’d say this time!
Propaganda is all over the world and on our doorstep of course. It’s good people can spot it mostly these days.
Yup, that’s his fish tank. And those, I guess, are his fish. Both of them.
And this is his mausoleum. Closed when we went (Friday I think??) so we couldn’t go in.
In his will he wanted to be cremated and pretty much forgotten about I think but instead they (the people) built a whacking great building where he will be paraded before the public for all eternity.
The presidential place grounds containing the old (grand) palace, fish tank (in his rather more modest garden house) and car collection are behind this. Whatever you do don’t deviate from the path! We skipped the palace and car collection to get away from the crowds and got shouted at by people with guns when we tried to go back the wrong way on the path. Some things just aren’t worth it!
Can’t believe this happened to us\we kick arse! It was only on the plane a few hours ago we were leafing through the LP and reading the bit of advice about South East Asia. “Pockets are not for money or valuables” here, the same could be said for any place at the wrong time of course and then another bit of advice we liked “If you worry about being ripped off all the time it will just get you down” and stuff about getting it in perspective, a few dollars here and there isn’t going to kill you. You are a walking ATM, and, however tight your budget you can spare it compared to the people you’re going to meet etc. “Don’t let it get you down”. We’ve certainly experienced that walking ATM feeling rather a lot so far and of course we thought we could spot a scam a mile away having thwarted a good few already!
Our introduction to Vietnam was a text book scam, we could even see it happening. Very clever though, this could only work on travelers laden with bags and unfamiliar with the place (that’ll be us then!). The one and only bit of advice that could have saved us from this was “Get the bleedin’ hotel airport transfer!” It might be a tad more expensive than a taxi but its so worth it!
So there we were being driven along in a lovely taxi after showing him the name of the hotel we’d booked and a map to it, marveling at the mad traffic and how no one was seemingly getting squashed. The taxi driver asks us if we’ve been to Vietnam before, we say “No”. Doh ,what we should probably say is something like “yes we lived in [insert city name here] for a year – we’re meeting our friends at the hotel we always go to. We’re working in a school\orphanage” etc etc.
He calls his mate, arranges for him to be waiting outside a building with the hotel name. He drives us there, meets his mate who comes up to the taxi saying his hotel [insert hotel name here] has had a flood but its ok, he’s arranged another one. He gets in the taxi and directs the driver to the other hotel. We’re suspicious but really cant do anything laden with bags and with the taxi driver in on the scam.
We get out at the different hotel and it looks OK, looks quite nice actually. Still suspicious. They should know what our names are as we’ve booked. We ask them the question and he makes a fake call to the “flooded” hotel. They can’t answer as their reception is out of order (quite plausible I guess). The taxi has gone, he don’t have much choice. We ask to see a room and it looks fine, we check in and leave passports. Thinking about it, we’re still not happy so decide to walk to the proper hotel to check it was the one we were taken to. We walk out, I collect our passports saying we need to change some money. Few streets later we find the real hotel perfectly dry and lovely. Wander back to the dodgy hotel, pack up, empty the mini bar and leave. On the way out I felt it only proper to let the owner know (quite calmly and reasonably I might add) what a “bad” person was, how he’d let himself, his country and the future of his hotel down. I got great satisfaction from that, especially when he started quaking. Never made anyone do that before 
I have to say I was a little surprised to see the “Dog Meat Market” marked on the map but I’ve never been that much of a dog lover. The thing that I’ll never forget unfortunately is seeing a metal bowl of water over one of the coal burners that are everywhere here, the surface thrashing around. Looking more closely and seeing a turtle, it’s body bigger than a big hand doing what might have been a funny dance if it clearly wasn’t a horrendous reaction to being boiled alive. A lot of the food is live here and the market in the old town part of Hanoi seems to be the place to see it. I can handle it all except the turtle I think! That was just too far! Where fridges are pretty uncommon I guess it’s a good thing. I survived a raw squid salad a few days ago!
There comes a time when every pant* must be retired. A trip like this can be particularly harsh on the pant. Therefore, of course I was attracted to the Calvin Klein shop in Hanoi. Possibly the only shop for miles around selling a genuine anything. As the door was opened for us I guessed we may not be going to get the bargain I was hoping for. We’ve finally found a cheap country after South America bled us dry and the weak pound took it’s toll everywhere else. It’s almost hard to spend money here, dinner will cost £1-£1.50, smoothy about 50p and coffee 28p. The posh veggie meal with beer we just had at a fancy restaurant cost £5.50 between us. Dinner at a street noodle seller costs a tiny amount. I was somewhat taken a back when I saw the 1,000,000VND price tag on a pair of CK boxers. That’s a whole £42! Probably enough to eat from street stalls, breakfast, lunch, and dinner for two months.
*The meaning of “pant” should be taken as the UK meaning ie. “under crackers”
We couldn’t believe some people we met weren’t going to bother to go and see this Vietnamese institution! The best is supposed to be here in Hanoi near the lake (marked on all the maps and in LP). I didn’t know quite what to expect. It was great to see, not quite the amazing spectacle I’d assumed mostly because the puppets are actually quite small but great none the less. Trying to buy a ticket in the morning for an eve show probably won’t work. Defo need to book in advance. We splashed out (get it!) on the expensive seats and ended up on the front row which gets you pretty intimate with the musicians who also double up as some of the voices. It’s all in a theater with a pool at the font instead of a stage and the performance is traditional with set characters and set scenes, like our pantomime. It’s over in what seems like a flash but I guess it’s more like an hour in reality. My favorite was the Golden Turtle. He does something with a sword along the lines of the “watery bint or tart”, as I believe Monty Python calls her in The Holy Grail.
How genuine they are I’m not sure but it looks like you can buy “used” water puppets from a few shops which would be pretty darn cool to have. I’d certainly get one for my “curio cabinet” if I didn’t have to carry it another gazillion miles. Of course you can buy model ones hot of the production line but a few places seemed to have ones that had definitely seen a good few years of water and rot. Whether that was out the back in a bath of rain water or entertaining the masses who knows. If I went back I’d definitely check them out a bit more carefully.
Been doing pretty well not shedding too many possessions along the way except, for some reason anything to do with our ipod speakers. So far I’ve managed to leave a power supply, and two socket converters behind in scattered places. So, taking a leaf from the local electrical “how to wire just about anything to anything else and survive” handbook I headed off to the market and, just between the fish heads and unidentified miscellaneous meat isles in Hoi An market managed to find some electrical parts. I cobbled together this rather amazing contraption, plus accessories (not pictured). Silent nights no more!
