Hanoi Day 8: The Bulge

Quote of the Day:
"Is it just me, or was there a bulge in his pants?"
---Ravinder Singh---

The train pulled into the station way too early in the morning. Wasn't much to do but to hike back to the Old Quarter to find ourselves some accomodation, hopefully one that will let us dump our luggage with them until check-in time.

When we got to the lake, we were greeted by a most unusual sight. There's a crowd doing a Para Para Sakura routine at the park, at 5 in the morning. There's even a boom-box and aerobics instructors. It was... most interesting to see...

But all that energy seemed a mockery of our state of sleep deprivation. I blame WeeLoong. If it weren't such a laugh playing Bridge with him, we might have gotten more sleep.


I found an ATM and managed to withdraw some money. Visa Electron is THE best way to manage your vacation funds. I didn't have to worry about carrying a lot of cash, nor about ending up with unused Dong at the end of the trip. Bank conversation rates, but an RM12 bank charge per withdrawal.

And I have money again!! The world had missed its chance to rid itself of my evil! My buds could have abandoned me broke and penniless on the mountains of Sa Pa (and there's no ATM there). But now I'm back! And Norman's evil shall prevail !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We found a Pho shop opening early, and we had some great breakfast.

The people here are amazing. They're dressed before 5, finished their aerobics by 6, and the breakfast places are all ready for business. They're amazingly industrious people.


After breakfast, the REAL Salute Hotel was open for business. I logged the position of the hotel when we were exploring Old Quarter, so it was easy finding it again.

After dumping our bags, everyone felt we needed a caffeine shot. We found a classy Parisian-themed cafe directly next to the lake. Well, I thought it was a bit too much class. So I proceeded to take my sandals off, laid my feet up on the low barrier around the lake, and ate YauCharKuei that I sneaked under the table, while dunking them in my mocha coffee.


We headed towards the Ho Chih Minh Mausoleum first, before it closed at noon. There's a long queue of tourists, veterans, school children, government representatives etc all waiting to see the embalmed body of Ho Chih Minh. No electronics were allowed in, and we had to pass through a metal detector. My YauCharKuei was confiscated at this point. I suppose they don't want people to munch at the show.

Well, the mummy was amazingly well preserved. Everyone gets to walk around the display case, and back out through a different exit. It was an orderly, and respectful affair.

This also provides the context for Ravi's Quote of the Day...


We hit the HCM Museum next. It's a very large memorial to the life of an amazing man who commanded the love and respect of an entire country. There are lots of photos, archived documents, artifacts, sculptures, dioramas etc. There are helpful guides who offered to help us with the stuff that we won't be able to read. But we didn't have the mental fortitude for the history lesson so we passed on the guide and just looked at the exhibits on our own.

Came out of the museum feeling a respect this man who has done so much for his country. Museums are often propaganda-ish, and tell a very one-sided story. But this memorial is sincere and heart-felt. Is it right to feel more respect for this communist leader, than I have for the fore-fathers of my own democratic country?

WeeLoong wanted to take a picture of someone High-5-ing a photograph of HCM. Fortunately, we were able to dissuade him. Else we might have gotten lynched by the patriots.


After this, we saw the One Pillar Pagoda, which is miserably dwarfed by the two large monuments around it.

Then headed north to the West Lake, just for the sake of seeing it. By which time we just wanted to get back to the hotel and sleep the rest of the day away.


Dinner at Little Hanoi, proudly advertising itself as being featured in Lonely Planet. The food was over-rated.