Back in Hanoi

Having not made any plane reservations before setting out for Halong Bay, I was left with a day in Hanoi while I made arrangements to fly to Bangkok. After arriving back in Hanoi after the trip to the bay, I had found a place to stay. The next morning I attempted to find the cheapest flight to Bangkok in the next couple of days. Had I bought the ticket before I went to Halong Bay, it would have been about a hundred dollars. However, it was now going to be closer to 200 dollars because it was much shorter notice. Them's the breaks I suppose, but I would rather be sure of getting on the plane rather than having had something go wrong in getting back to Hanoi in time. Remote though the possibility might have been, of course.

While trying to figure out the plane situation, I decided to do a couple of the little things I hadn't done on my first day in Hanoi. I had also heard about Hoa Lo Prison that had started out as a prison used by the French during the colonial days, to hold political prisoners. After the French were sent packing, it kind of gathered dust for a while. Then in the final days of the war with the south (who were being propped up by the Americans), it was turned back to its original use, as a prison. But this time the prisoners were Americans captured during the final days of the American participation in the Vietnam War. But where many of the stories that are heard in North America of the horrible treatment of POWs by the Vietnamese, the portrayal (and the probable actuality) of the treatment of POWs in this facility was vastly different. The prisoners in Hoa Lo Prison were treated like visitors, albeit visitors who were not free to leave. They had three squares a day, they had reasonable clothing, and they participated in “cultural activities.” They even were permitted to receive packages from home and had a celebration at Christmas. Signs on the wall proclaimed that the prisoners ought to be honoured to be prisoners of the Vietnamese. Despite all the evil deeds of the American aggressors, the horrible treatment of the Vietnamese freedom fighters by the Americans, the Vietnamese were treating their prisoners humanely and with dignity and respect. At least in that prison. John Glenn was even a prisoner here. But I highly doubt that the POWs in the rest of the country were treated so well. I would also imagine that this prison was a propaganda site, to shine a good light on the communist regime in the north in the last days of the war, that they were going to win. It wouldn't do to be shown treating their prisoners savagely. I don't know how they managed to ignore the plight of the POWs in the rest of the country, but blinders can work wonders for what we don't want to see.

After the prison, I headed over to see something I had been scolded about not going to see, especially since I had been so close before. Near the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum there is a pagoda called the one-pillar pagoda. It's old and supposed to be very beautiful. And I had missed out on that the first day I was in Hanoi, which was a regrettable thing, I was informed. So I headed back to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum area and went to have a look. Unfortunately, I wasn't all that impressed. Oh well.

But near the pagoda was the Ho Chi Minh Museum in Hanoi. It looked shiny and big and new. I thought that having been to the one in Ho Chi Minh City, I didn't need to go to another one, but this one looked so interesting, and much bigger, that I decided to go and look at it as well. It was much the same in content as the one in HCMC, but there was much better presentation inside. I was quite impressed with it.

One of the parts of the museum was what they called Ho Chi Minh's costume. I had begun to notice that in most of the photos I have seen of Ho Chi Minh, he wears white or cream coloured clothes. This is particularly true of photos from the latter part of his life, when he had become a far more of a public figure. I think it must have been a conscious decision on somebody's part that he do that. I suspect that is gave him some kind of virtuous look, or perhaps angelic.

After the Ho Chi Minh Museum, I headed back to my hotel and got a flight booked finally. Then I went out to the lake to just chill out for a while. I walked around it and as I was just about finished I was approached by yet another student wanting to chat. She really only wanted to take a photo so that she could submit her assignment. I don't know how she was going to prove her assignment had been done, but I took a photo with her and then collected my fee, this photo of us together. And that brought me to the end of my time in Vietnam. The next morning, I headed to the airport and returned to Bangkok to make arrangements to get into India.