Visiting Uncle Ho

After a week up inthe hills ofNorth Vietnam and on a boat in Halong Bay, we arrived in Hoi An yesterday evening, Saturday 7 March, the first place since Hanoi last Sunday when I've had time and Internet signal strong enough to post a blip, so here's the first of a week's worth of backblips.

The first full day of our tour saw us seeing the sights of Hanoi, starting with the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, where we filed in respectful silence past the suspiciously bloated body of the great man compared to photos of him in his later years, guarded by a possee of sharp eyed, sharp dressed soldiers who wear the about to let you linger or stray of the designated path.

Ho is understandably revered as a great liberator by his people to this day but it seems a shame that his last wish to be cremated and his ashes spread across all areas of the country, wasn't honoured.

After a tour of the rest of the complex, including his more humble house on stilts (see extra) where he lived in later life, it was on to the Museum of Ethnology, a fascinating recreation of the lives and customs of the various minority tribes of Vietnam, and then the Confucian Library of Literature.

In the evening we walked the streets of the Old Quarter, sampling the street food and local bars and dodging the multitude of motorbikes. It's a fascinating, lively city.