Presidential Palace was residence of the Governor-General of French Indochina before been served as a state guest house since 1954. Ho Chi Minh believed the building should belong to the people and chose to live in an electrician’s hut on the ground. The Presidential Palace is not opened for visitors, so we could only glanced from afar.
Hanoi
Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum
Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, or in Vietnamese, Lang Ho Chi Minh, is where the remains of Ho Chi Minh (despite against his wish to be cremated) are kept. He is venerated as national hero and father of the Vietnam. There seemed to be 2 entrances to the Mausoleum. The entrance that we were, the queue was mainly formed by Vietnamese, and occasionally tourists came by walking. Adeline paid VND 4,000 each which until now I still don’t know what it was for. Anyway, this was the first time in Vietnam that I saw Vietnamese girls in full traditional long dress costume.
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Ha Noi Citadel
Hanoi Citadel is a restricted area, once called Thang Long Citadel, home to the imperial city. I hardly noticed the citadel until I saw this 31 m high Hanoi Flag Pillar, a former guard tower, built in 1812 under the Nguyen Dynasty.
Statue of Lenin
Before reaching Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, the statue of Lenin is in a triangular shaped square on the side of Dien Bien Phu, the main road to Ba Dinh district.
On the way to Ba Dinh District
Ba Dinh district is the main tourist attraction in Hanoi where several principal sights located here. We decided to walk to here after a short rest in Hotel. It was a bad idea, as the weather was steamily hot. But it’s not too far away from Hanoi Old Quarter (Hoan Kiem District).
The railway track on the back alley of houses
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Early Check In
We checked in Wing Hotel at about 8 am, and unexpectedly they request additional USD $3 for early check-in, contrary to what they promised us. Anyway, we didn’t have much choice, as I was very tired, uncomfortable and painful due to sunburnt. Worst was the weather in Hanoi today was very very very hot.
Nice Breakfast
Hungry, we just looked for any food stall to have a breakfast. So we had this. Its name may be called Xoi, but I was not so sure about that. Adeline didn’t quite like it, but I felt that it’s okay. The meat tasted a bit like luncheon. The breakfast costs us about VND 7,000.
Good Morning Hanoi
We arrived in Hanoi at about 4.30 am wee hour in the morning. We felt it was not nice to wake up the Wing Hotel’s warden so early (they have curfew at night), so went to Hoan Kiem Lake to get a feel of Hanoi in the morning instead. The bonus for the early bird was sunrise over Hoan Kiem Lake.
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Train from Lao Cai to Hanoi
We initially been bought tickets for train LC2, which departs from Lao Cai at 7 pm. We thought it’s too early, so requested it to be changed to a later train. So we boarded SP2 train that departs at 8:50 pm. This SP2 train is more expensive express train service (Luc wanted USD $1 more, but I refused to pay, instead asked him to treat it as a refund for the below par standard of Halong Bay tour).
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Soft Sleeper Berth
Typical Vietnam Railways cabin consists of 4 soft sleeper berth, 2 upper and 2 lower. A bottle of mineral water and a cake or bun are provided. There are about 10 of such cabin in a train carriage. Besides soft sleeper, there are also hard sleeper, where there are 6 hard sleeper berth in a cabin – upper, middle and lower berth on each side. Basically it’s a soft sleeper without mattress, you’ll sleep on a wooden bed. I also had a glance on a carriage which I believed was hard seat. I initially planned to travel on hard seat class, as it’s so cheap. But I felt lucky I was not, as it’s a wooden chair with separator in the middle which is unable to recline, and 2 person sit on both side of it.