Southeast Asia Adventure: Day 13- Hanoi

Toady was our main day in Hanoi. Our first stop after breakfast was the old Presidential Palace and “Ho Chi Minh’s Vestige”. The palace and surrounding grounds were originally the Indochina’s Governor General’s Palace taken over by Ho Chi Minh in 1954.

Ho worked and lived in the compound until his death (from natural causes) in 1969. Dat quickly pointed out to us that Ho NEVER used the actual palace, but preferred to live in a very modest house on the grounds for a portion of his time here, and in a house on stilts for the rest of the time to symbolize his “simplicity, modesty, gentleness, and dedication to his country and his people”.

There was deep underground bunker adjacent to his house on stilts which I am sure he never used.

Also on display were Uncle Ho's cars(you gotta love non-native translations).

Adjacent to the Presidential Palace is Ho’s mausoleum. He gave strict orders to be cremated with no shrine. Obviously his successors did not get the memo. We, unfortunately, were unable to view Ho’s remains. Believe it or not, he had been sent to Russia for his yearly tune-up. A lot of Botox and Juviderm. The mausoleum is guarded (I wonder if the guards know Ho’s not at home) by a military honor guard that changes every hour.

This area has very special significance for the Vietnamese people. NVA veterans from the Vietnam War Era tour the area en masse. Dave got caught in the middle of one of these groups and at 6”1’, stood out like a sore thumb.

Next stop was Quoc Tu Giam (National University) which was founded in 1076 in the Ly Dynasty by Emperor Ly Thanh Tong and further developed in the 15^th Century in the La Dynasty.

Originally it was the Temple of Literature (Van Mieu) dedicated to Confucius. It became Vietnam’s first university established to educate the admisistrative and warrior class. Under the feudal system, mandarins were chosen based on their scores on tests given a various levels of schooling. This was analogous to SAT’s and GRE’s. The cream of the crop got to attend Quoc Tu Giam. The best students here went on to rule feudal Vietnam.

The temple within the grounds had shrines to ancestors at which people would leave food and tea, things that their dead ancestors might need in the hereafter (leave me a bike, Dave wants chocolate chip cookies).

Outside the shrine were several largish bonsai trees that were decorated with small porcelain figures. It reminded me of a bonsai tree my grandmother had (no, she was not Vietnamese) when I was very young.

Harriet's bear got into the act

Today, students come here for graduation pictures. We saw thousands of kids getting ready to graduate college having pictures taken.

After lunch, our group split up, some going shopping and another to the “Hanoi Hilton“ and to the Museum of Ethnography.

Hoa Lo Prison was built by the French in 1896. It was the largest prison in Indochina and was used to “confine and persecute the mind and body of thousands of patriotic revolutionary soldiers”.

Escape through sewer grate

Executions were common and back then, the instrument of choice was the guillotine.

After 1954 and independence of the North from the French, it became a prison for garden variety criminals. Eventually during the Vietnam War, it became the notorious “Hanoi Hilton”, where many POW’s were held under extremely harsh conditions. It was fascinating to see what the Vietnamese take on the prison was. The French were evil imperialists persecuting the brave, patriots. The North Vietnamese, when they were the gatekeepers, “remanded in custody the American pilots who were shot down over North Vietnam. There were photos of the well treated Americans playing volleyball, having thanksgiving turkey, putting up Christmas trees, and generally having a great time in Hanoi. Why would they ever want to leave? Sadly, they had to go home in 1973, but not before saying goodbye and thank you to their North Vietnamese friends and receiving their special parting gifts to remember the good times they had.

John McAin spend some quality time here and he left them his flight suit to remember him by.

It was all really pretty disturbing. Especially the gift shop on your way out.

We spent more time than planned in the Hilton and only had about an hour and a half to view the Museum of Vietnam Ethnology.

The Viet people make up the vast majority of the population of Vietnam (86%). But there are 53 additional groups including the Hmong peoples that live in the highlands and mountainous regions who figured prominently as US allies during the war.

We elected to spend our time seeing the open-air portion of the museum that displays the houses of diverse ethnic groups including:

the Viet compound with the main hall used for ancestor worship

A Hmong house

The Bahnar communal house, 60 feet high and a symbol of skill and strength of the villagers,

Yao house half on stilts,

The Ede longhouse (130 feet long housing a matrilineal family consisting of daughters and granddaughters),

The Hani mud brick house

The biggest hit, though, was the Giarai tomb. The large wooden figures accompany the dead into the afterlife. The figures are quite sexually explicit and are symbols of fertility. Why the dead have to be fertile is beyond me.

This guy has obviously been left out of the fun.

Suzanne found several different types of looms which she was happy to demonstrate for us.

There was a water puppet theater that was , unfortunately not showing anything at this time, but the puppets were prominently displayed. Some were a little freaky, reminding us of Chucky.