June 6, Wednesday
This morning we get to visit the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Ba Dinh Square. It surprises me that he is considered such a hero in Vietnam. I guess it all depends on which side of the coin you are looking at.
Hồ Chí Minh (19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), born Nguyễn Sinh Cung was a Vietnamese Stalinist revolutionary leader who was prime minister (1945–1955) and president (1945–1969) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). He was a key figure in the foundation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945, as well as the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Việt Cộng (NLF or VC) during the Vietnam War. Around 1940, Quốc began regularly using the name "Hồ Chí Minh", a Vietnamese name combining a common Vietnamese surname Hồ with a given name meaning "He Who enlightens"; Chí meaning 'will' (or spirit), and Minh meaning "light”.
He led the Việt Minh independence movement from 1941 onward, establishing the communist-ruled Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 and defeating the French Union in 1954 at Điện Biên Phủ. He officially stepped down from power in 1955 due to health problems, but remained a highly visible figurehead and inspiration for Vietnamese fighting for his cause – a united, communist Vietnam – until his death. After the war, Saigon, capital of the Republic of Vietnam, was renamed Hồ Chí Minh City in his honor.
In his early 20s he travelled to the USA, England and France. In the 1920s he travelled to the Soviet Union and to China He is fondly referred to here as “Uncle Ho.”
His body has been embalmed (like Lenin in Russia and Mao
Tse Tung in China) and is exposed in a mausoleum. The mausoleum is closed occasionally while work is done to “restore and preserve the body”. I opt to skip this visit and wait with Scott and Lisa until the rest of our group walks through the mausoleum to view Ho Chi Minh’s body. I find it creepy that a body is kept for people to view years after they have died. We are told that this was contrary to his wishes; that he was a simple man and wanted to be cremated.
Ba Dinh Square a large grass area that is divided into 168 squares. Scott tells us that the lawn is not mowed, it is cut by hand with scissors. Famous square in Hanoi where president Ho Chi Minhread the Proclamation of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on September 2, 1945.
We continue our visit of this area, known as the “Ho Chi Minh Complex”.
Pond = Ao Ca Bac Ho
The "House on stilts", or "Uncle Ho's bungalo"
Lots of school children and other tourists lining up to go up to see the "House on stilts"
Ho Chi Minh's office
and his bedroom
Located in a large garden at the back of the Presidential Palace, is the House on Stilts. "When Vietnam achieved independence in 1954, Ho Chi Minh refused to live in the grand structure of the Presidential Palace, although he still received state guests there. Ho Chi Minh was never one for large houses and comfortable living. He was just 21 when, in 1911, he set out to travel "the five continents and the four oceans" to seek ways of saving his country. For 30 years he lived a nomadic life, changing addresses constantly. When he came back to Viet Nam in 1941, he led the revolution against colonial rule and read the country’s historic Declaration of Independence at Ba Dinh Square in Ha Noi on September 2, 1945. Not long afterwards, the French attempted to reassert control of their former dominion, and Ho Chi Minh and his generals were forced into the north-western mountains. During the resistance war of 1946-54, Uncle Ho reverted to his nomadic ways, for the only means of avoiding detection and capture was to live life constantly on the run. He moved from one hide-out to another several times a month, and only lived in stilt-houses. When the war was won in 1954, the Party, Government and Ho Chi Minh came back to Ha Noi. But Uncle Ho eschewed the trappings of authority. A true egalitarian, he chose to live a simple life: he wore brown cotton garments and rubber sandals made from car tyres, and lived in a worker’s cottage out the back of the Presidential Palace. In 1958, Uncle Ho revisited the former resistance base in the north-west and saw some of the stilt-houses where he had spent the war years. When he got back to Ha Noi, he said h
The country is unified for the first time in many years and Ho Chi Minh is its hero. He came from humble beginnings and stayed true to his beliefs throughout his life.
A type of guava that has an orange or grapefruit type of skin
On our walk to the One Pillar Pagoda
It is just a short walk to our next stop to see the One Pillar Pagoda which was originally built in 1049.
Beautiful orchids in a tree at the entrance to the Pagoda.
I won’t go into major details about the Vietnam War since most of you are familiar with it, but it is interesting to hear the Vietnamese version of events, which are very different from the USA’s. This was a war between South Vietnam and South Vietnam. (No that’s not a mistake, it really was south against south.) After more than 10 years of fighting and thousands of deaths, the Communists still won. This is considered to be a victory in Vietnam today.
During the era of French Colonial rule of Vietnam, a prison was built in the southwest of Hanoi, known as Maison Centrale. Designed for 1000 prisoners, it often had more than twice as many. During the 1920s and 1930s it held many political prisoners, held there for either their revolutionary ideas or actions. As such, it became a sort of revolutionary university and holds a special place in the personal history of many of the country's elite. Most of the Maison Centrale has now been demolished, with only the buildings on the bottom left side of the site being retained as a museum. For most of its life, the Maison Centrale was used to accommodate Vietnamese prisoners. Much is made of the political prisoners kept here, though no doubt common criminals would have constituted the bulk of the population. Whatever their origins, the prisoners were treated badly, being locked to benches such as those above for most of the time. The museum also shows windowless cells where the recalcitrants were fastened to the concrete floor for months on end, in the dark and incommunicado. Unsurprisingly, such treatment sent many inmates insane. Worse still, the use of torture was widespread. Part of the display is devoted to techniques and instruments used by the French Police in attempting to extract information from their charges.
The Maison Centrale was pressed into service as a prison for captured US airmen during the Vietnam War, at one stage accommodating over 400 of them. They found the conditions rather spartan. How spartan is probably a question difficult to resolve without first-hand and impartial evidence, which the above photograph is not.
Entrance ticket and picture of the prison
Maquette of the grounds as they were in the past
The main cells
One of the preserved ancient doors
Behind bars
In one of the outside courtyards, there was a beautiful display of artwork, depicting the conditions which existed in the jails here
To another coutyard
and more artwork
but this is where we have the view of what used to be the "Hilton Hotel". I had thought that the reference to the Hanoi Hilton for the prison was a "tongue-in-cheek" kind of reference, but I did not realize that there actually was a Hilton nearby.
While the French administered the prison, they used two guillotines for the executions they carried out.
Some of the shackles they used to restrain prisoners
There were even female prisoners here. One sign indicated “There was only one small tap of water for 200 female prisoners, so they set up a regulation: who bathed every day would have one dipper of water to drink (a big dipper made of coconut shell), who bathed only every two days would have two dippers of water to drink per day.”
“Prisoners who broke regulations would be severely punished: imprisoned in a cell from 30 to 60 days, or confined to a dark cell for 15 days.”
US prisoners of War: part of the written regulations “American servicemen participating in the war of aggression by US administration in Vietnam and caught in the act while perpetrating barbarous crimes against the Vietnamese land and people, should have been duly punished according to their criminal acts; but the Government and people of Viet-Nam, endowed with noble and humanitarian traditions, have given those captures American servicemen the opportunity to benefit a lenient and generous policy by affording them a normal life in the detention camps as practical conditions of Viet-Nam permit it and conforming to the situation in which the war is still on.”
The beds during the vietnam era
John McCain being treated for his wounds while he was imprisoned here. Now I want to read his book.
On the way back to the hotel. Ha Noi street scenes
This was a normal scene on the streets, women carrying their wares in shouldered baskets
The sidewalks here aren't meant to walk on around here, they are for parking your motorbikes. We were lucky on this one, they had actually left a small gap for us to walk on. Most of the time we were walking in the street, dodging traffic.
A vendor selling hats and baskets from his bicycle
See the top terrace on this building? It is where we dined on our first night in Ha Noi. We are trying to cross the street on this crazy corner.
One of the French colonial buildings
We return to the hotel where two rooms have been retained for us to use to shower and change (AGAIN) before getting back on the bus for the ride to the train station and our 7 pm departure on our overnight train ride to Hue. We four women are in one car and the four guys are on a different one.
When we leave Hanoi we are surprised to see that the train tracks run in a street and the store fronts are just a narrow sidewalk away from the train tracks, with no barriers in between. YIKES ! This would never be allowed in most countries.
On this train, we have a cabin with two long bench seats which serve as beds, and there are two upper bunks as we are sleeping "across" the direction of travel, so the ride is very rocky all night long.
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