Today begins the long journey homeward. Hanoi to Taipei to San Francisco to Atlanta to Ft Myers! Whew! Well, had a few interesting days in Ha noi. Ha noi a city with a population of about 7 million people. The year 2010 being the 1000th year anniversary of this city. There were many celebrations in honor of the 1000th year and also a very long wall that ran along one of the highways here was covered in variety of mosaic tile designs that were respresentative of Ha noi. I'll just give a summary of some of the designs I saw; rows of lotus, emperors, old style chinese architecture, lots of birds, contemporary buildings. It really is quite beautiful. One of the most important sites here is the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. Yes, he is on display for 9 months out of the year, and for the other three he is sent off to China for a little sprucing up! Unfortunately, when I went to the mausoleum without paying close attention to my guide book, closed on Monday's. However, on the grounds is also the presidential palace, and Ho's very simple but beautiful 2 room stilt house he chose to live in. After, it was off to the Maison Central. This is the Hoa La (sp) prison, which was built by the French in the 1800's to detain and torture Vietnamese dissidents in that time period. At that time it was the largest prison complex in Indochina. Later, during the Vietnam/American war it was used to detain American POW's. This is where John McCain was imprisoned when his plane was shot down in 1967 (I'll check the exact year). His flight suit is on display along with many photos of other POW's that were dentained there many for about 7 years. Alot of the photos showed how wonderful life in the prison was for the American POW's, I wondered how much of that was propaganda. After had lunch at Pho 24, this is a fast food pho place. Pho, pronounced FA, is a traditional noodle soup with some chicken or beef, green onions, you and some lime juice and chili's and it tastes darn good. Actually, this is a breakfast meal for the Vietnamese people. When tummys were full, went to Temple of Literature, the oldest Confucious temple here. Many students studied here under Confucious. Of course, it has had some restoration done, but the grounds are beautiful, and there are many stele imprinted with the students that graduated and their area of study. Each stele sits upon a tortoise. Then it was off to the supermarket to buy some Vietnamese coffee beans and a few other treats. Right now just waiting for my airport taxi, and off to fly the friendly skys!
