I didn’t know I had so much sweat in me!!

I set out to visit the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum. The guide book advertised opening hours of 8-11am and warned of long queues. I admit I lay in bed longer than I ought, but 9:30ish seemed like a reasonable time to set off…

I was following a map given me by the host of my AirBnB. It was a longish walk, starting basically from Hoan Kiem lake and out past the flag tower. Alice has said to look out for the railway line, which seemed like a slightly odd recommendation, to me. But sure enough it was noteworthy…

The train track is just another street. And much like the other roads, people live and work alongside and meander across it. No visible safety accommodations – I don’t know if I fear more for the residents or the passengers!

I paused for a coffee. Coffee is big, here. There’s a coffee shop on virtually every corner, and there’s a bewildering variety of ways to drink it. I went for a Hanoi iced coffee – it was truly lush! And, furthermore, served in a vase. Which seems to me an utterly proper amount of coffee!

My day of dead people started with Lenin, who hangs out in a lovely park full of people playing something like chequers. He seems most at home, with a view over the flag tower and – had I but appreciated it at the time – the Imperial Citadel.

It’s early summer here, and the temperature is about 30 degrees and humid, humid, humid. It’s best not to rush anything and so I modified my usual bustle to an amble. The mausoleum hove into view before me, with a suitably impressive view. Fortunately, I pressed myself to the barrier and took a photo of it here, as (spoiler alert) this was the closest I was going to get!

I was directed around the perimeter for roughly 28.3 miles (approx) until I reached the entrance. It was 10:15 and the guards were pulling in the queue control barriers and locking the doors. I assumed lunch had come early, but a policeman informed me implacably that it wouldn’t reopen until the morning. “Get here early”, he said.

I carried on walking round the perimeter fence and came to a coach park where busloads of school kids were loading and unloading. I followed them, hoping to be mistaken for a teacher. We came to a ticket office, and I bought a ticket. At this point I didn’t know whether I was blagging my way into the mausoleum, or some other part of the complex. But hey. I had a ticket. Nobody told me to come back tomorrow…!

It turns out my ticket was for the museum. But the museum complex included some pagodas and particularly the single stem pagoda (I may have misremembered this name…) so I spent a happy hour or so marvelling at the pagodas and learning about this particular brand of Buddhism’s theories of reincarnation.

Then on to the museum. On the outside it’s a work of concrete brutalism that could teach Coventry a thing or two… it’s designed as a lotus flower, and actually you can just about see that.

The inside is basically a long, rambling vote of thanks to Ho Chi Minh from a grateful nation. It talks about the liberation from the French; the various wars; Uncle Ho’s embrace of Leninism and his involvement in various ex-patriot international movements. It’s kind of incoherent and quite difficult to follow, but at the same time really quite spectacular and interesting!

One of the exhibits looks at the ravages of the American war and contrasts it with gifts from various international governments to the Ho Chi Minh administration. The most lavish gifts came from other communist nations, while the UK sent, bewilderingly, a bronze disc with a relief profile of Bertrand Russell. I mean, he was brilliant and all, but I can’t help feeling a bit WTF about this! I must look up whether there was a particular connection between Uncle Ho and our Bertrand!

I had meant to see if I could wander from the museum to the stilt house, but instead found myself following exit signs which spat me back into the coach park I’d started from.

My blagging skills exhausted, I set off for the Temple of Literature and Museum of Fine Art, a few kilometres away. The Temple of Literature is a Confucian University dating from 1070. So when we were busy shooting arrows into each others’ eyes, the Vietnamese were already awarding doctorates.

The University is (familiarly) arranged as a series of courtyards, each separated by a series of symbolic gates through which you pass as you attain different levels of learning.

The penultimate courtyard contains a series of stelae – stone plinths in which are inscribed the name, date of birth, and achievements of the most remarkable scholars. Each plinth rests on the back of a tortoise. These plinths were made for centuries, and have been carefully preserved and protected through various conflicts. It was really remarkable to think that learning could be held in such high regard. I can’t imagine British society ever de-commodifying education and honouring it as a value in its own right… even our universities are, these days, far more preoccupied with funding, politics and the need to combine the two, to survive.

The final courtyard is still used for public lectures and cultural events. It also contains shrines to Confucius and his four principle disciples.

The whole complex is topped by a huge drum – the thunder drum – and a correspondingly huge bell in each corner.

By now, I was hungry. My courage failed me and I didn’t pull up a plastic stool at one of the many streetfood stalls. These seem to pop up randomly and consist of small plastic stepping stools, a portable cooking arrangement, and whatever’s on the menu today. You sit, and they serve. It’s very cheap, very delicious and very informal. But as I say, my courage failed me, so I went to a standard cafe and had a very mediocre lunch and a second vase of iced coffee.

After lunch, over the road to the Museum of Fine Art. There were some beautiful works in here – devotional artefacts from ancient temples including an amazing statue of the Boddhisatva Avalokiteśvara, the goddess known as Guanyin – goddess of mercy and compassion. She is said to have a thousand eyes and a thousand arms…

Upper floors walk you through the more recent history of Vietnamese art, showing how both traditional and western techniques have been adapted. There were lovely woodcuts and some fabulous oils, as well as bronzes and lacquer images. Obviously a lot of representations of both WWII and the American war, some of which were very affecting.

One, in particular, moved me greatly – it’s called In Every Hamlet and shows women holding pictures of someone who, presumably, never came home… And I also loved this one, which shows the reunion of North and South Vietnam after the American war.

This one really brought me up short. I was struck by the kind of ordinary, domestic beauty of the image – and especially the lustre of the enamel and I looked at it for some time before reading the label…

It’s called “They tested another A Bomb”.

After the museum, I caught a hop-on, hop-off tour bus and took in the prison, the Women’s Museum, the post office and the Opera House. I’ll definitely be visiting some of those places another day.

Then I took myself off on a little walking tour of the Old Quarter. I visited a Merchant’s House which has been restored to show traditional Vietnamese life. There’s a shop at the front of the ground floor, which leads to an open courtyard punched through the centre of the building for light and air, and then a dining and kitchen area. Upstairs is a living room with an ancestral shrine; a small bedroom, a larger bedroom and a roof terrace. None of these rooms are huge – all would give your average Rightmove photographer a considerable challenge.. and yet at some point 5 families lived in this house…

I also went to Bach Ma temple. Which was shut. And I lost the East Gate, but found these guys, who were pretty impressive. I’m definitely taking this attitude back to work with me!

Conscious that I needed to get back and pack, ready for my next little adventure, I chose to eat at Highway 4, a family restaurant recommended in my Lonely Planet bible. I ate goat meatballs – *way* more delicious than you might imagine – and spring rolls and sat a while, transferring photos from my camera to the kindle.

When I set off again, it was dark. I walked back past the Opera House

and stumbled upon a park that had been unremarkable in daylight but was beautifully strung with fairy lights and alive with people: kids using the marble as a skate park, people chatting and hanging out, random exercise classes.

and, of course, a shrine.

I paused down by the lake to take a picture of it at night, and was suddenly surrounded by a group of late teens in red t shirts. They explained they were students and they needed to practice their English. So I paused to talk to them and have my photo taken.

And then back to my room for a deliciously cold shower. I’m told this is just the beginning of the summer, and it’s still quite cool. The temperature today was about 30 degrees and *so* humid! Apparently it’ll be warmer – but possibly also sunnier – in the central regions where I am next week. So this is good acclimatisation.

Today I’m off to Halong Bay, so there may be a couple of days of radio silence. And probably fewer photos!