BANGKOK, THAILAND
Today Chris and I bid farewell to Vietnam and flew back to our home base in Bangkok, but as our flight wasn't until 9:30 pm, I had plenty of time this morning to do more sightseeing in Hanoi. Today it was all about Ho Chi Minh, as I visited three of his houses, his tomb, and an entire museum devoted to his influence.
I started early this morning with a trip to his mausoleum, a blocky grey marble building to the west of the Old Quarter. I got there just as it opened, and there was already a line of people (many of them veterans) waiting to pay their respects. The line moved very quickly, and we were soon ushered up the stairs and into a minimalist stone chamber with a glass coffin in the center. Guards hurried us along, so there wasn't much time to gawk, but I would say that old Ho looked pretty peaceful, if a little waxy. I wondered what he would have thought of all this posthumous attention, as he had apparently requested a simple cremation! It was all over pretty quick--we were in and out of the building in only about five minutes.
I then strolled over to the Presidential Palace grounds next door. As my brochure Ho Chi Minh's Vestige in the Presidential Palace Area states: "This relic complex has become vital memories." Um, yeah. Anyway, there are actually three historic buildings here. The first is a modest single-story house where Ho Chi Minh lived and worked from 1954 to 1958, with a separate two-car garage still containing a couple of his old jalopies. The second is an even smaller wooden house-on-stilts where he resided from 1958 to 1969, famous for symbolizing his desire to live modestly and simply in traditional Vietnamese fashion. As one guidebook points out, though, it's unclear how much time he actually spent here, as it wasn't even considered as a bombing target by the U. S. during the war. The third building in the complex is the Presidential Palace itself, a huge yellow mansion that we weren't allowed into--it's actually the former Governor's Palace from French colonial days. I'm not sure if Ho ever lived there, as I couldn't find anything about it in the literature, although I can't see him only living in the stilt house. I mean, sure, it looked cozy, but that's a bit like living in a tree fort in your backyard.
Conveniently, for those who can't get enough Ho (easy now!), the Ho Chi Minh Museum is right in back of the Palace complex. The exhibits trace his life story and contributions to the nation, and illustrate various periods with photos, quotes, artifacts, and a whole range of slightly over-the-top artistic flourishes (for example, to illustrate Ho's reaction to Fascism, there's a partial scuptural rendering of Picasso's Guernica with disembodied cubist bull heads sticking out of the walls!). Again, there seemed to be a lot of veterans around--it was a little weird to be in the midst of them as we read about "America's destructive war against the North." Interesting.
Today Chris and I bid farewell to Vietnam and flew back to our home base in Bangkok, but as our flight wasn't until 9:30 pm, I had plenty of time this morning to do more sightseeing in Hanoi. Today it was all about Ho Chi Minh, as I visited three of his houses, his tomb, and an entire museum devoted to his influence.
I started early this morning with a trip to his mausoleum, a blocky grey marble building to the west of the Old Quarter. I got there just as it opened, and there was already a line of people (many of them veterans) waiting to pay their respects. The line moved very quickly, and we were soon ushered up the stairs and into a minimalist stone chamber with a glass coffin in the center. Guards hurried us along, so there wasn't much time to gawk, but I would say that old Ho looked pretty peaceful, if a little waxy. I wondered what he would have thought of all this posthumous attention, as he had apparently requested a simple cremation! It was all over pretty quick--we were in and out of the building in only about five minutes.
I then strolled over to the Presidential Palace grounds next door. As my brochure Ho Chi Minh's Vestige in the Presidential Palace Area states: "This relic complex has become vital memories." Um, yeah. Anyway, there are actually three historic buildings here. The first is a modest single-story house where Ho Chi Minh lived and worked from 1954 to 1958, with a separate two-car garage still containing a couple of his old jalopies. The second is an even smaller wooden house-on-stilts where he resided from 1958 to 1969, famous for symbolizing his desire to live modestly and simply in traditional Vietnamese fashion. As one guidebook points out, though, it's unclear how much time he actually spent here, as it wasn't even considered as a bombing target by the U. S. during the war. The third building in the complex is the Presidential Palace itself, a huge yellow mansion that we weren't allowed into--it's actually the former Governor's Palace from French colonial days. I'm not sure if Ho ever lived there, as I couldn't find anything about it in the literature, although I can't see him only living in the stilt house. I mean, sure, it looked cozy, but that's a bit like living in a tree fort in your backyard.
Conveniently, for those who can't get enough Ho (easy now!), the Ho Chi Minh Museum is right in back of the Palace complex. The exhibits trace his life story and contributions to the nation, and illustrate various periods with photos, quotes, artifacts, and a whole range of slightly over-the-top artistic flourishes (for example, to illustrate Ho's reaction to Fascism, there's a partial scuptural rendering of Picasso's Guernica with disembodied cubist bull heads sticking out of the walls!). Again, there seemed to be a lot of veterans around--it was a little weird to be in the midst of them as we read about "America's destructive war against the North." Interesting.
posted by John Kuge at 11:34 PM
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