Lets start at the beginning

This morning, I appear to be suffering from a now mild case of jetlag and thought what a better time to actually type down what has happened. I believe I have about 20 minutes before the propoganda starts going out over the loudspeakers. I'm not sure propoganda is the right word. I've never lived anywhere that had daily announcements over loudspeakers. Kind of fascinating. Kind of animal farmish too...

Anyway, FRIDAY
I get up at 4 am to finish packing and get to the airport for my 6:30 am flight to San Francisco with Elizabeth. Very uneventful. We meet Kristine at the airport and trudge over to our 12 hour Asina flight to Seoul. Its going to be long. It was long.

The only thing that kept me going was food time. You had the choice of American or Korean. Of course I picked Korean. I had bi bim bap while flying over Anchorage. No one wanted to play travel scrabble with me. I kept thinking it would be different if Jane or Jen was on the trip.

SATURDAY
We get into Seoul haggard and barely moving and zombiewalk through transfer over to our flight to Hanoi. We get on the plane, and I proceed to completely conk out for the next 5 hours. Finally, Hanoi.

We slowly, ever so slowly weave our way through customs, get our luggage, and meet our driver. I knew that after that long of a flight, I was gonna need a ride. Ta da! He gradually introduced us to driving in Hanoi. It's a free for all. That is all I can say. Luckily I was too asleep to realize how many people, besides us, he almost killed.

After 20 minutes, we got to the hotel, Hanoi Elegance 2, a tiny storfront in the old quarter. I couldn't take everything in because of the dark and my exhaustion. We made our way in, signed the paperwork, got to our room and crashed.

SUNDAY
We decided to take today easy and just fly by the seat of our pants. We made our way downstairs early, and over breakfast at the hotel saw that Ho Chi Mins mausoleum was closed after 11 am. So, we just hightailed it over there.

BUT FIRST, the hotel insisted on gettng our taxi. Taxis are the biggest scam in town, even to natives. You have to watch out for them.

We get to the mausoleum complex and we see the line going out the door, and around the corner and down the street about half a mile and then around another corner. The driver drops us off and waves us good luck. And we get in line.

We are the only white people. I thought surely there would be more, but Kristine pointed out that others were probably not as excited as me to see the body of a communist leader who died in 1969.

We get through the first security and promise them we are not carrying knives, and the line keeps going. We get through the second security and hand over our cameras. No pictures allowed.

Side note, no shorts, exposed shoulders, or hands in pockets allowed either.

They line us up two by two, and we shuffle in. It was mind blowing. Honestly. We walked through the communist complex with the permanent grandstands to the gray stone tomb. Its silent. Not a word. Not a giggle. The two lines just keep moving. We go up the stairs and into the room. You walk around him. He lies there in a patch of lovely yellow light with the hammer and sickle and vietnamese star behind him.

And then you walk out into the hot sun.

Just very surreal.

After viewing him and seeing his little house on stilts, you go to the museum to discover his life. FYI, we aren't even mentioned, but the French were not portrayed very well. I believe the word tyranny was bandied about a bit.

Oh damn, gotta shower. They are picking us up for Halong Bay soon.