Ho Chi Minh Museum

Although I was sick on the third or fourth day we were here, Auds was able to get me out of bed to go see the Ho Chi Minh Museum. We walked by the Mausoleum which is closed "briefly" for the month of November every year. There were very large groups of very disappointed looking European tourists milling around the square in front of it. We overheard that Uncle Ho was off in Moscow, but couldn't confirm it.

The Ho Chi Minh Museum has two floors. The first has pictures of Vietnamese leaders meeting with every world leader. Some were as recent as September 29th 2007! Other than that the downstairs housed every scrap of paper that Ho ever wrote on. There were no translations so we mostly skipped the whole floor. The upstairs was a weird mix of post modern art and social realism. My head almost exploded and Audrey had to constantly calm me down. This picture is of a big sculptural piece is the struggle between the French and Vietnamese as represented by the human brain.















I have no idea why this was in there.



There was a big sculptural piece of Picaso's Guernica, and a big Volcano with african symbols all around it. There was also a huge pyramid with a big chain link on top of it and religious symbols on all sides wherein all of the women were busty and scantily clad. I have no idea why. I really just can't express how weird and random and cool this place was. Cort, if you are reading this, you should go here right now. Candice will never see you again because you will be hiding out every night and living there so that you'd never have to leave.

We've bought an open bus ticket heading South and are stopping in Ninh Binh this afternoon. After almost a week in Hanoi we're on the move again and it feels great.