Day 146. Hanoi, Vietnam. Respect to Uncle Ho.

Morbid curiosity led us this morning to the mausoleum complex where Ho Chi Minh was laid to rest 38 years ago. He's still a big draw and even though we arrived well before the 8.30 kick off there were already a couple of hundred people ahead of us in the queue.

It was surreal.

Firstly we had to go through a ridiculously stringent security check where I had to hand in my camera and Wend leave behind her torch. They were obviously worried she was going to shine the thing up the great man's nostrils.

Another 10 minutes and we were in another queue, this time lined by guards toting AK47s, one of whom shouted at me to take my hands out of my pockets.

No, I'm not kidding, he really did. He then threatened me with detention if I didn't tuck my shirt tail in.

Eventually we were allowed to file into the huge, grey marble mausoleum itself. A grim, austere building complete with a 30 ft hammer & sickle etched onto the wall
surrounding the dimly lit inner sanctum.

Disneyland this ain't, was my initial reaction. But when we saw Uncle Ho lying on an ornate plinth inside a large glass box, it really did look like something out of Sleeping Beauty, especially as the only objects he had for company were a couple of thousand rose petals.

It has to be said that he's not looking too terrific these days, and I'm not sure how long they can keep this show running. He's dispatched to Russia for a couple of months each year to undergo essential maintenance, but the cracks are starting to show quite spectacularly.

Maybe they should do what the bloke asked for in his will and give him a dignified, no nonsense cremation.

Our strange morning continued with a visit to the adjacent Ho Chi Minh museum, an extraordinarily ugly building that's home to some of the world's dullest exhibits.

The stuff relating to Ho's life and times was OK, but there was an entire wing dedicated to the 'highlights' of every Party conference held in Hanoi since 1959. This involved countless photo's of portly politicians thumping lecterns, sweating, and generally boring the arses off anyone unfortunate enough to be in the audience.

As we were leaving I noticed a large framed picture of what seemed like a row of filing cabinets. Intrigued, I rushed to read the caption which thankfully they'd translated into English.

'Storage systems for names and address's of Party members'

Like I said...surreal.