Travels in Vietnam

N 76         ( Ho Chi Min Mausoleum , Hanoi )

After a long interval of not writing and posting blogs I think I have enough raw materials to produce some for my travelogues as I have just visited Vietnam , the north , the middle, and the south part of it. So I will start from Hanoi the northern  part of this country.

This time I travelled with 7 other people. So there were 8 of us on this trip. We took the night flight of Vietnam Airline and arrived there at about 9. As we first landed we saw only a dimly lit  city and so our first impression of it was that the city is not so big with limited electricity. But later we found out that we were wrong as it is big and bustling and electricity is more than enough in every city.

The next morning we took off to go sightseeing around the city in the hired limousine van which we took to transfer us from the airport to our hotel last night.

Let me tell you about the amazing Vietnam currency which made my head spin and puzzled to think of it first. The cost of hiring the car for one day  was 3500000 Dong (3 and a half million ) . It is a number that should make one faint. But if we calculate it in dollars  it will make us feel better because roughly  22ooo Dong is equal to one $.  So 3500000 dong is only 159 $, about 20 $ for each person and this made us relieved that it is worth our money to have to go around the city in this luxury car.

Our first place to visit is of course the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. When we got off the car I was astonished to see 2 long queues of people and started to worry because I am not sure that I will be able to queue or walk the vast ground of the mausoleum. Our queue took us far past the mausoleum, turned left and out of a gate where we had to buy tickets to enter Ho Chi Minh’s  yellow house. We and all the other people just looked at it from the outside , took pictures and then walked ahead. Then we came across a pleasant lake with yellow railings, walked beside it and some gardens until we came to a resting place where souvenirs and light  foods are sold. We cannot resist buying something and so Dongs  of at least 5 digits jumped out of our shoulder bags.

Lastly we joined the 2^nd queue which we saw when we entered to go into the mausoleum . But before this there is also the Ho Chi Minh Museum .Here again there is entrance fees . So we decided not to go in. Again we joined the queue and went  into the Mausoleum.

It is a large memorial of Vietnam’s leader Ho Chi Minh,  chairman of the Communist Party from 1951 until his death in 1969. He read the declaration of independence on 2^nd December 45 establishing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The mausoleum work begin in 1973 and inaugurated in  1975. The embalmed body of Ho Chi Minh is preserved in the cooled Central Hall of the mausoleum and protected by a military honour guard. The body lies in a glass case with dim lights . Lines of visitors , including visiting foreign dignitaries pay their their respects at the mausoleum everyday.