Goodbye North Vietnam

Following our return from Sapa we decided to dedicate our last full day in Hanoi to the spiritual and political founder of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh. Uncle Ho, as he is affectionately called here, is truly loved by his people. So much so that instead of cremating his body when he died, as he had requested, they decided to embalm him and put him on display so that future generations could come and pay their respects to him. He is enshrined in a Mosoleum of gigantic proportions - an imposing, massive concrete bunker which pays homage to Russian Cold War architecture. 

Adjacent to the Mosoleum is the Ho Chi Minh Museum, without question the weirdest museum I've ever been to, as well as his house, a humble abode, and the garage where the vehicles used to drive him and visiting foreign dignitaries around were kept. Amusingly, the English translation on the directional signs for the garage say "Ho Chi Minh's Used Cars."

We took our first cyclo ride back to the hotel. A cyclo is a tricycle with a covered bench seat for two on the front of it. It seems like a good way to travel until you get out on the street with 100s of motor scooters and cars and buses and trucks all belching gas in your face while you are being pedaled at 5km an hour by a one armed man who is sweating trying to push my 200plus pounds plus Benita through the teeming streets of Hanoi. 

That night we ate pizza and pasta washed down with a bottle of Barbaresco instead of Vietnamese food at an Italian restaurant owned by a Vietnamese guy who spends most of days body building. The place is frequented by Vietnamese high rollers and foreigners working in Hanoi who come for his food and his Italian wine cellar which is pretty decent. 

Next stop is Halong Bay.