A few more days in Hanoi

After Halong Bay, Dean, Marcos, Richard, Snoopy and I all decided to hang out in Hanoi for the weekend before continuing on with each of our respective travel plans. The idea was to check out the city on the weekend and enjoy a night out on the town in Vietnam's largest (and supposedly most happening) city. What we didn't anticipate, is that the party patrol rolls around to all of bars and clubs to shut things down at 11:30 pm. As you can imagine, this put a real damper on out party plans. The Vietnamese government (the same guys who block blogs from being viewed) want to discourage "immoral behavior", so they make sure that everyone is off the streets bu midnight. We still managed to have a good time, but it was an interesting lesson learned.

With the couple of extra days I had in the city, I was able to do a bit more sightseeing. We all went to the Hoa Lo prison museum, which was simultaneously creepy and interesting. Hoa Lo was but by the French, used to house Vietnamese political prisoners and then used by the the North Vietnamese as a POW prison during the Vietnam-American war.

We also went to the Ho Chi Mihn mausoleum. This is where Ho Chi Mihn's body is housed and open to the public for viewing (it was embalmed and still goes to Russia once a year for "maintenance"). The mausoleum itself was huge and impressive, but even more impressive was the line of people waiting to pay their respects for "Uncle Ho" (as the Vietnamese call him). It's amazing how the Vietnamese people revere Ho Chi Mihn.

-Julia


Hanoi's busy streets on a Saturday night


Marcos, Julia and Dean enjoying Hanoi's nightlife (before 11:30 pm, that is)


Hoa Lo Prison


Background information on the Vietnam-American war, provided by the Vietnamese government


Ho Chi Mihn mausoleum on a Sunday morning