We met up with Duc and Nga from Hanoikids at our hotel and we went to the Ho Chi Minh Complex for the first stop of the day. Oh by the way, Hanoikids is an organisation just like Saigon Hotpot, bringing tourists around for free, all in the name of making new friends and brushing up their linguistic skills!
At Ho Chi Minh Complex. Singlet was not allowed and Song had to loan a shirt from the reception in order to get in. Real-Madrid-Song!
Security is extremely tight inside the mausoleum where Ho Chi Minh's body is housed. It is perfectly preserved and kept in a transparent glass coffin, guarded by tons of army guards. Wei Yang's simple action of putting his arms into the pockets were also stopped by these guards. The complex also comprises of the HCM Museum and his apartment where he used to live in, including the apartment where he passed away.
Song and Ang with Ho Chi Minh
The amount of respect Ho Chi Minh receives could be seen from how well the place is preserved as well as from the old photographs here. The crowd to the complex is huge even on a weekday morning, a similar scene throughout the week according to Duc.
Nga explaining things to WeiYang
Went to the temple of Literature next, the first University of Vietnam. The ex-school has a series of 3 gates leading to each of the compounds, where the scholar in the past had to clear exams into order to gain permission to end the last compound, home to Confucius's statue. There were also 82 tortoise's sculpture with Chinese characters carved, believed to bring good luck to the scholar if he were to touch all 82 of them before taking an exam. A scholar would finally proceed to then capital Hue for the National Exam, similar to China's "Kao Zhuang Yuan".
The jar at the top of the building symbolises the jar of knowledge while the fishes represent the student body tapping on the knowledge
Grilled Pork noodle
Lunch was the legendary Hanoi's grilled meat noodle. The soup has lots of apple in it and had a sweet and sour taste. The grilled pork is the highlight as it is really juicy and tender, a must try at Hanoi. See video above!
Hoa Lo Prison
Scene of the Prison some years back
Kai at the West Lake
Visited the Hoa Lo prison, West lake and some attractions nearby before proceeding to the water puppet theatre to get tickets for the show. Anyway, we went into Hoa Lo prison for free! The ticket seller thought that we are actually locals, and did not stop us to buy the tickets since locals get in for free. Guess we are part-Vietnamese after being there for almost 2 weeks.
Kai with his roadside porridge
Had porridge with fried 'you tiao' and its porridge is more like paste than rice, uniquely delicious at just SGD0.50 per bowl with plenty of 'you tiao'!
Saw Jo and Braun on our way for dinner and they had just returned from the Halong Bay tour. The promised meeting at Le Pub after dinner was not met as it started pouring really heavily and we decided to end the day earlier.
The cab that we took had a really crazy taxi meter! We finally understood why there are advices on sticking to a few trustworthy taxi companies. Halfway through the journey, we decided to alight in a bid not to get scammed further despite not reaching our destination. Earlier on in the day, a roadside stall also wanted to sell us satays at 5k VND per stick when locals usually buy them at just 2k VND each. Trying to scam us? Try Harder!!
Day 17 - Hanoi
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