20th April 2010
The main event for today was to catch the train to Sapa, a small town way up in the mountains in the North of Vietnam. However the train wasn’t until 8:30 this evening, so we had most of the day for getting in some more sight-seeing in Ha Noi.
Despite having had a number of days here last week, we still hadn’t made it to Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum whilst it was open - it is only open in the mornings, and not every day of the week. As this was something we wanted to do, we made a point of getting up early this morning and heading straight over there after a quick breakfast.
We caught a taxi not far from the hotel with a young, friendly driver, who kindly gave us a new map of Ha Noi, I think he must have thought our piece of A4 paper from the hotel was looking a bit dog-eared when we pointed to him where we wanted to go. When we arrived at the drop-off point at the Mausoleum, he double-parked to let us out. It seems this is not allowed - as we left the taxi whistles started blowing and a policeman stomped over and jumped in the front passenger seat of the taxi. The last thing we saw as we walked away was lots of finger wagging and stern talking from the policeman. Hopefully the taxi driver was okay!
Once we entered the Mausoleum complex, we had our bags searched and joined a small queue which gradually made its way around to the Mausoleum itself. We had to leave our camera at a security booth as there are no cameras allowed inside. We were then coralled into the Mausoleum which had a large number of soldiers keeping an eye on everyone. In the main chamber itself, Ho Chi Minh was lying in his glass chamber, surrounded by four guards of honour. Another four soldiers were keeping everyone moving around the chamber, as you weren’t allowed to stop.
Over in seconds, we found ourselves back outside. In front of the Mausoleum there is a large grassed area, which had rather long grass. A group of about 20 Vietnamese women were cutting the grass by hand - I don’t know how long it would have taken them to get the whole lot completed!
We didn’t need to check out of the hotel until midday, so made our way back there to pack up and relax before having to spend the afternoon out in the heat of Ha Noi.
Our first stop upon leaving the hotel was to head to the train company office to pick up our tickets for the train tonight to try to avoid a repeat of last weeks fiasco. Unfortunately it was lunch time so there was no-one available to help us. Unworried and unhurried, we found a Mercure hotel just up the road where we sat and had a nice cold drink in nice cool air-conditioning for an hour whilst we waited. We made our way back to the office only to find that the internet was down, and could we come back in 2 hours. This was not a good start! They also said we could pick the tickets up this evening like we tried to do last week, so we decided to settle for that and just hope it worked out this time.
From the train company office we walked back towards the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, but this time heading next door to Ho Chi Minh’s Vestige in the Presidential Palace Area. Here we were able to see some of Ho Chi Minh’s cars, including a vintage Peugeot! We were also able to see some of his office and living areas, and his house on-stilts where he allegedly lived between 1958 and 1969. This house in particular demonstrated how simply Ho Chi Minh lived.
Continuing our walk we went to Quan Thanh Temple. This is a Taoist temple in Hanoi dating from the 11th century and one of the leading tourist attractions in Hanoi.
THen it was on to Tay Ho Pagoda, one of the most popular pagodas in Ha Noi, and which becomes very busy on the 1st and 15th day of the lunar month.
Feeling rather hot and tired by now, we caught a taxi waiting outside and headed back towards the Old Quarter, where we knew of a nice coffee shop we could cool off in. However our plans changed on route, as it seemed the cab we were in was one of the rip-off ones. We’ve been here long enough now to know how quickly the meter should go up, and how far you can get for a certain amount, and this one was ticking over at double what it should have been. Telling the driver to pull over we jumped out and made the rest of the way back to the Old Quarter on foot, which was actually quite pleasant as it took us down some more streets we hadn’t walked before.
Feeling refreshed after a nice drink and piece of passion fruit cheesecake, it was time to go back to the hotel. They kindly gave us a room to allow us to shower and freshen up before our train journey. A quick bite to eat followed and then into a taxi to get to the train station.
Lo and behold our tickets were actually waiting for us this time, so we were soon onto the train and into our 4-berth cabin. We were the first ones there, so we get our stuff sorted and tucked away and then waited to meet our fellow travel companions. Time ticked by and no-one else appeared and then the train started to leave the station. Result! A 4-berth cabin all to ourselves - no need to use the top bunk.
Leaving Ha Noi was quite an interesting experience - the train track passes within feet of people’s houses, and as you’re looking out of the window you are looking straight in at people’s lives, as they’re sat around having food, watching TV, etc.
We soon settled down to the gentle (and sometimes not so gentle!) rocking of the train and drifted off to sleep.