Military Museum and Ho Chi Minh Museum

SUNDAY 17 JULY 2011

After breakfast, I walked to the other side of town, about 2 kilometres, to go to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum to discover that it was only open until 11.30 a.m. I had a bowl of noodle soup in a café and a fresh lemon drink which were both delicious and cost about £1.20. I then went to the Military Museum which had helicopters, planes, tanks and missiles from both the Vietnamese and American sides during the Vietnamese/American war.

As I was in the area, I visited the Pagoda and Ho Chi Minh Museum, but was too tired to take much in. I got a motorcycle taxi back to my hotel and was so pleased he actually took me where I needed to go and didn’t try to charge too much, I gave him a tip.


I was picked up at the hotel about 8 p.m. and taken to the train station with some other guests from my hotel, where we were herded on to the correct train – there were three trains going to Sa Pa at different times. A Vietnamese family of 4 shared my carriage – only 4 berths in each carriage. The grandmother was sleeping above me and in the middle of the night managed to tread on my leg and woke me up. She got up a couple of times in the night, and then I was woken at 5.30 a.m. with her talking extremely loudly on her mobile phone!