Vietnam - Hanoi, Day 4

This morning we wake up early to visit the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum since it closes at 11:00am, and there’s apparently always a long line. On the way there, we stop by the Old Hanoi restaurant  to sign up for this afternoon’s  cooking course – something we have to do before we leave Vietnam!

We get to the Mausoleum in plenty of time, and a few minutes later, we spot Maggie, who we met on our Halong Bay cruise.  She decides to join us, and about 15 minutes later we enter the Mausoleum, a large, imposing building, which houses Uncle Ho’s embalmed body. There’s no photography allowed, and the guards make sure no-one talks too loud, laughs,  or has their hands in their pockets… The air conditioning is on cold, as we walk two by two into the bowels of the building and around the glass case which contains Ho Chi Minh’s body – it’s a an odd experience, perhaps more suited to Michael Jackson than Ho Chi Minh, who actually wished to be cremated…

After the Mausoleum, we visit Uncle’s Ho’s  first house, then the beautiful House on Stilts he lived and worked in from 1958 to 1969, walk by the Presidential  Palace as well as the One Pillar Pagoda which is also on the grounds.

The Ho Chi Minh Museum is now closed for lunch, so we decide to visit the Vietnam National Fine Arts Museum instead. It has a great collection and it’s interesting to see the evolution of Vietnamese art with the introduction of oil painting and the opportunity to more recently move away from realistic art to explore the abstract.

We realize that the Temple of Literature, a rare example of traditional Vietnamese architecture, is right across the street, but don’t have time to visit, since we need to start heading over to our cooking lesson, so we plan to come back tomorrow.

At Old Hanoi we're greeted with some jasmine tea before Chef Anh takes us down to the market, which turns out to be in the basement of the huge luxury mall behind our hotel, incongruous somehow… Ahn points out various vegetables, herbs, spices and cuts of meat.  We now know what Morning Glory, Bitter Melon, Winter Melon, Kohlrabi and Galangal look like!  Before we head back, she buys some coriander, basil and cinnamon. We start our cooking lesson with fresh spring rolls with shrimps and pork, and its dipping sauce, then grilled chicken and lime leaf skewers, and it’s dipping sauce, then it’s onto pork hotpot with cinnamon and coconut milk, and finally sweet potato and ginger pudding, apparently excellent for digestion! We have a great time cooking and an even better time eating…  This is probably the best meal we’ve had in Vietnam J