Day 8: More Hanoi Or "Hail to the Ho"

After a late start (everything in Vietnam closes for lunch), we visited Ho Lao prison aka the "Hanoi Hilton." Once known as the largest prison in Indochina, this facility housed Vietnamese political prisoners that resisted the French occupation up until the 1950s. The site witnessed unscrupulous acts of torture and abuse against Vietnamese revolutionaries. To be honest, I was too freaked out to walk down the narrow aisle of death row cells.

Thereafter, it was used to detain captured US pilots during the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s. The most famous prisoner was, of course, US Senator (and not president...holla!) John McCain. On display are his flight suit, parachute and personal effects he had at the time of capture. He couldn't have been happy about that. As far as the pictures revealed, the pilots apparently didn't have it too bad. Lots of pics of them playing basketball, attending Mass, eating Christmas dinner at a set table. I don't get it.

Afterwards, we stopped at Quan An Ngon for a delicious pho lunch and some meat dumplings. Yum!



Next stop: Ho Chi Minh complex. Or as we renamed him, "H to the Izzo." We caught the 3pm changing of the guard, by accident, and were discouraged from photographing the act. Nearby was the One-Pillared Pagoda (underwhelming) and the Ho Chi Minh museum (there are 3!), which is basically a bunch of propoganda about how the Ho inspired worldwide movements toward independence...by virtue of his bringing communism to Vietnam. We intend to go to another "Ho" museum in the city named for him to see if this theme persists.

After a hot and humid afternoon, we retired again to Le Pub for some cold beers and Kindle time (why am I still reading Twilight?). This time we discovered the lemon and mint smoothie was a refreshing hit.

Our hotel sent a bellboy to accompany us to the Hanoi Rail station, where we would take an overnight train to Sa Pa in the northwest for some trekking and visits to local ethnic villages. Each sleeper car had about eight compartments with two sets of bunk beds each; we shared ours with two Spaniards named Israel and Natalia, who were lovely enough to offer us Oreos in order to bridge the language barrier. Arianne made some small talk with her limited Spanish, but sooner rather than later we all settled in for sleep and the bumpy ride to Lao Cai.

Click here for complete Hanoi pics