Ho Chin Minh and then Danang

 Hanoi, January 11, 2025

An early morning today, to avoid the crowds at the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum and presidential home.  We arrive and the lines are a mile long.  In about forty minutes we are marching through the mausoleum, viewing the Lenin-like man in  his glass case.  What a way too spend eternity.  Ben swears that Uncle Ho (as he is called) winked at him.

Apparently he had asked to be cremated, the founder of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Vietnam’s staff had other ideas for their hero. 

He is beautifully mummified, but still a mummy.  His grounds however are quite a site.  They would put many an American billionaire to shame.   

The presidential palace was the home of the French governor-general, all painted a bright ochre yellow, along with other buildings in the compound.   The mausoleum, of course, is Stalinist brutalism.  

Of most interest though is his stilt house.  This is a Frank Lloyd Wright-style structure with a mere single bedroom and office on the raised part and a conference room for meetings  on the ground floor.  It’s not Swiss Family Robinson, but it is certainly simple home for the country’s beloved leader.  And of course, there is the Russian Zil he used.

From there: To Danang, the former US military center mid-coast to Saigon.  The flight was unremarkable, the town has broad avenues with far less unmanageable traffic than Hanoi—which really is quite worn and grubby—and John writes this as he sits on a gray day watching the magnificent waves at the Hyatt Resort and Spa on the beach.  Today we are off to explore Hoi An, an older city founded by the Champa ethnic group, and learn how to cook a Vietnamese lunch.

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Danang, January 12, 2025--Last night’s dinner was superb at the hotel’s Italian restaurant.  An excellent salad, with sun-dried tomatoes, minestrone, and a superb sea bass steak that was so deliciously naturally sweet on a bed of polenta, followed by excellent ice cream.  We joined it with Ben’s choice of a white Bordeaux, semillon-sauvignon blanc, Chateau Foncrose.

After an hour of listening to the waves from our second floor balcony, off to bed.  And a full night of comfortable sleep,.  John is currently listening to birds that sound similar to Australian kookaburras, but perhaps a bit more melodic.