ngươi hê tháng tư ban ngay!

Still in Ha Noi. Tomorrow we are getting our Indian visas and so we are looking forward to moving onwards to Halong bay, though we won't have much time before we fly out of Ha Noi to Kuala Lumpur and on to Bali on the 7th.

Ha Noi is certainly not the worst place to be waiting for a visa...there is a lot to do and we have been experience a wide array of Vietnam's history and culture. We visited the Military Museum, which features many old warcrafts from the American and French wars. We also have taken in a few solid cyclo rides in the city, as well as plenty of strolls around the lake in which it is said magical turtles live.

But, perhaps the most shocking experience we have had was this morning, when we visited the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh. It is only open for two hours a day, and in true Lenin style, he is displayed in a temperature controlled glass case which you are ushered around with a horde of other tourists.
We arrived at a good time in the morning, considering that a line formed behind us which greatly exceeded the one in front of us. We waited for about half an hour in the line (a note to my mum, Donna, I was fearful of another Istanbul harem experience...luckily this did not occur) and as we approached the mausoleum itself, we knew this was some serious business. It is a huge multi-level tomb, with soldiers all around and standing to attention within. It seemed they had a sort of double duty, because aside from protecting Ho Chi's resting place, they were the etoquitte police. A group of girls in front of us were whispering and were shushed angrily, and while Jay and I thought we were the epitome of etiquitte...one soldier insisted Jay put his hands at his side, instead behind his back. Anyway, we were swarmed in a huge group of tourists and we slowly approached the room in which Ho Chi Minh was resting.

As a sidenote, it was actually his dying wish to be cremated. We thought it was odd that they would ignore this man's dying wish, considering he was their leader, but little did we know we would soon understand the truth of it all...

The room was very museum like, with the glass case at its center and soldiers standing all around it. We walked around it slowly, some people even stopped (as much as was possible) to get a better look. Cameras are strickly prohibited in the room and they check you at every stop to ensure you don't have one. Unfortunately, somehow, an American man had gotten his camera in and at the risk of having it confiscated (or worse) he pulled it out and before anyone could stop him, he snapped a picture...flash and all.
The guards were on him immediately, but it was after the flash went off that everyone in the room noticed something particularly strange...Ho Chi Minh's body was flickering! As if it was there one second and not the next, it went on for a spilt moment while the guards frantically tried to usher us out of the room. But the damage had been done and it seemed the guards had lost all forms of etiquette as they shoved us out, screaming into our ears.

Ho Chi Minh's dying wish was fulfilled...because his mausoleum merely contains the most deceptively created hologram, which for years has fooled tourists and locals alike into believing that they had actually kept his body perfectly intact. The American man who took the picture is being prominently featured in the newspapers as a conspirist who new well that Ho Chi Minh was cremated upon his death...

Needless to say, the country is shocked...but no one more so than us. Admittedly, I was confused as to what was transpiring, but Jay immediately knew it was a hologram and whispered to me hurredly "its a hologram!".

The news is already all over this and we would be surprised if you hadn't heard of it back home yet. We have contacted CBC and Canwest to see if they are interested in our perspective of the story, considering we were of the few who actually witnessed it happen...
We have only so far found one article on the internet (presumbably, the papers tomorrow are covering the story but TV is all over it)... The article is in Vietnemese but if you use the following link to translate the title, ngươi hê tháng tư ban ngay (don't mind the boxes, paste the entire title into the following link and the article results will pop up)

Here is the link:

http://translate.google.com/translate_t#vienng%C6%B0%C6%A1i%20h%C3%AA%20th%C3%A1ng%20t%C6%B0%20ban%20ngay


Let us know what you hear at home! We are following tabs closely.

Love,

Maeve and Jay