Great Leaders

I saw a dead leader! 

I fully admit it is extremely strange to be so excited to see a man who has been laid to rest (against his own wishes) for the last few decades, but I must just be weird like that.

Missing out on seeing Mao in China will forever be a huge disappointment for me.

This time luck was on our side, as was the Vietnamese population (Nam has ~1,256,290,000 less people than China*).  The line was long, but not horrible and we were able to wait to see the nation's beloved leader (8/5).

It was really interesting to be lined up with hundreds, if not a few thousand, Vietnamese as they waited to complete their pilgrimage to pay respect to a man they worship.

I don't fully understand Uncle Ho or all the elements about his rule that have made him so revered, the bit of reading I have done still leaves me confused.  Perhaps it requires more reading, perhaps it requires being Vietnamese, but whatever it is they love him and his picture still hangs in every shop and home.

 I guess it's the same with Mao and the Kim family in North Korea.  Although China and Vietnam have since prospered from their leaders, and I don't know if you can say that about my northern neighbor.

After the Mausoleum we walked around the grounds of Da Dinh Square and saw the Presidential Palace, Ho Chi Minh's house and the One Pillar Pagoda.

Another trek through the streets of Hanoi and we were once again at the Temple of Literature ready to take a look.

The temple was a place of worship and study and is dedicated to Confucius - another man who is widely respected and praised in Vietnam and other parts of Asia.   

From there we went to the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology.  It was eh.  It was very similar to the Women's Museum (which was better and closer), so not really worth much more mention than this.

We ended our time in Hanoi with a trip to NQ Spa.  We had found a brochure for it in the lobby of our hostel - it was close, it was cheap and very few reviews were available online**.  I'm not very big on reviews.  I think they cloud my experience and lead people away from making their own discoveries, so I went with it - told them what I wanted and happily stripped down to the paper panties they gave me (I was getting a body scrub, massage and mani/pedi - I was pampering myself!).  To me it was great!!  Ridiculously hilarious, but still really great.  Not only did I have to strip down to paper panties, Brittany and Misha had to as well!  And we were all in the same room together!!  hahahaha why not!  We're all friends here.

What should have been a relaxing and zenful 3+ hours was an endless stream of talking and laughing between Britt and me, while poor Misha laid there suffering through our "extrovert massage".

We definitely left Hanoi on a high note!!  ^^

*population estimation from Google public data search result
**the one review that we found was awesome!!  Britt and I only read it after, which makes it all the more funny