Chin chaw (hello) – A very exciting day covering the sights of Hanoi.
After a buffet breakfast at the hotel, we went to the area of Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum.
The local guide LUC (who will be with us all the way through) started by giving us a history lesson of the country. 1,000 years of Chinese rule, then from 1857 to 1954 French although in 1945 the Japanese created a major famine from May to August as all the fields were converted from edible crops to opium production. A fascinating history lesson, but unfortunately one can’t always remember all the details.
Now to the local hero and “Uncle” to the nation – Ho Chi Min (19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969) was the third child of 4 born to a poor humble family and wanted to have an independent nation. He was in exile 30 years begging for help. In 1911 he went to Marseilles, France to plead his campaign for the French to leave, but got nowhere. In 1912 went to England to plead for help in liberating the country, then to USA to talk to presidents Roosevelt and Truman, but again was rebuffed. So eventually he went to Lenin in Russia and Mao Zedong (1893-1976) in China and received the help to oust the French. In 1945 after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs, an army under the Chinese General Chiang Kai-Shek (1887-1975) was sent to take over Indochina as it was known.
Ho Chi Minh was Prime Minister after the independence from France on September 2, 1945 to 1955 and President also from 1945 to his death in 1969. In 1945 the country was divided into two. The North supported by the Communists – Russia. China, Cuba and the South supported by the “West” – UK, USA, Canada, Australia etc.
Ho Chi Minh always wanted a unified Vietnam and worked to his death to achieve it. Even to demand that he be cremated and his ashes be in all parts of the nation. At the time of his death in 1969 the population of the country was 37 million and is now 92 million. Nevertheless his internal organs were cremated but the rest of his body was embalmed and is taken to Russia each year for re-embalming. Otherwise he is in an impressive Mausoleum with an upper reviewing platform and is his body lies in state belly ground in a glass coffin. It is closed on Friday so we did not visit. Front and rear views attached. >br />
Roger & Anne Travels 