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Tuesday 12th May
Today was a early start we left the hostel at 8am to get to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum complex as they stop letting people in after 10.30am this is the final resting place of Ho Chi Minh. Despite Ho Chi Minh requesting cremation this was ignored and the complex was opened in 1975 were the embalmed corpse is opened to the public to pay there respects. We just expected to see a coffin but how wrong were we, you actually get to see the body and he looks remarkably well quiet a attractive old man. You don't get long in the mausoleum it is protected by guards and you walk around the square shape room in a line then leave, you are also not aloud to talk, laugh or snigger while there. We were later informed that the the Ho Chi Minh's embalmed corpse gets a 3 month holiday to Russia for yearly maintenance, so the mausoleum is closed from September to early December. While here we also visited Ho Chi Minh's stilt house (Ho's residence, on and off between 1958 and 1969), Presidential palace and the one pillar pagoda. Suzie also went into the Ho Chi Minh museum which she enjoy, I decided to wait aside with Lex and Gareth who we had gone with as I really couldn't face another museum!!
After leaving the Mausoleum we decided to get a cyclo to the temple of literature, after a bit of negotiation we got in, the sun was shining it was lovely but about 2 minutes after we had got in the heavens opened we were getting soaked!! After a bit of DIY from the drivers we got rain covers but we couldn't really see where we were going then (we decided this was a good thing on the roads of Vietnam).
The Temple of Literature was Vietnams first national university, it has five courtyards within the grounds and and a reflecting pool in the front courtyard. We also found out here the four sacred animals of Vietnam are the Dragon, Tortoise, Phoneix and the Unicorn.
After leaving the Temple of Literature we walked to the Hoa Lo Prison Museum. The Museum is all that remains of the former Hoa Lo Prison ironically nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton" by US POWS during the American War. The french government orignally opened the prison in 1896 to hold Vietnease polictical prisoners, who were treated dreadfully and some of the stories we read about the torture they suffered doesn't bear thinking about. It was then used again by the Vietnease in the American war to hold the american pilot prisoners between 1964 and 1973. The literature we read within the museum was very bias about how the american's were treated so nicely while being held. We have later read that Senator John McCain who was held here cannot raise his arms above his head as a result of the torture he suffered here and he tried to commit suicide twice while imprisoned. We both found the museum very interesting and are glad we went.
From here we then went for a well earned Pizza at a nice Italian resturant as it was 14.30pm and we hadn't eaten. We then went back to the hostel to get ready for the bus to Ninh Binh.
We arrived in Ninh Binh at 21.30 to be met by the hotel staff, we had a few drinks and booked our motorbike tours then went to bed.
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