Goodbye to Vietnam

Well it is our last night in Vietnam and so we thought we would make a final post. We spent our last day trying to do some local excursions but came up against a little bit of bureaucracy that changed things a little. For one thing, we tried to go see Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum but our timing was off and we missed the viewing times. We were okay with that. Dead bodies are not high on the kids list to see...

The huge Soviet style complex was interesting to take in for us all. Officially Vietnam still puts on a good show that it takes it's communist roots very seriously, however, it seems to us to be more of a free market economy than Canada. That said, pictures of Ho Chi Minh cover every home, store, street, building . . . in the land. The same for old style propaganda posters showing brave Vietnamese soldiers and families doing their part for the cause of the nation. So it was very fitting that we spent our last day here taking in the rhetoric and the official party line. It was interesting for the kids who had lots of questions about why there were wars with the French, the Chinese, the Americans?... and what was Communism?... and why did people get tortured in prisons...? What was colonialism?...etc, etc. Actually those are difficult questions to answer to a young mind who has little in the form of a reference point. None the less, we did our best and the kids tried to get it as best as they could. Lets just say it is a starting point in ther broader worldly education.

Here is a picture of Kai and Skye on the mausoleum grounds - a vast complex with a serious military presence. There was a very colourful hourly changing of the guard with lots of goose stepping with flashy weapons. All very entertaining...
I have been waiting for one of these shots of bicylcles transporting birds for a while! People here have a real obsession with birds in cages and sadly many seem to be birds from the wild (we were hoping they were at least born in captivity). We saw many young Hmong men in the mountains of Sapa with birds they had trapped to be sold to the Vietnamese. They are often lovely song birds with beautiful sing song voices. A little hard to take for the Western eye!
After the Mausoleum we tried to go look at a military museum but got irritated by them trying to avoid us taking in our backpacks. We would have accepted it but when we looked inside all the other tourists had their bags. The logic made us feel a little confused and we had all our passports, money, credit cards etc ... So we opted out! Instead we went and looked at one of the many famous Communist statues littered throughout the city. Mr. Lenin himself...
Next we took a cyclo to the "Hanoi Hilton" known to the locals as Hao Lo prison. It was very educational and most definately very biased in how it presented some of the exhibits. That said, the French did a real number on the Vietnamese - which was how the prison was started. The French executed anyone who opposed their colonial rule in a very brutal manner. Some of the exhibits were dedicated to the American experience as POWs in Hanoi and based on their portrayal one would think it was almost a vacation for those soldiers. We had to discuss the concept of "propaganda" with Kai and Pippin in a lot of detail.
Here is one of the murals depicting French rule. Clearly that was a much bigger portion of recent Vietnamese history, and as a result it was depicted in a much more substantial way.
The individual pictures of the many American soldiers held at Hao Lo was far more telling than the glossy propoganda videos, and the cheery Christmas dinner pictures that were on display. These pictures, somehow, captured the mood more realistically.
All and all it was a very informative and educational fieldtrip for us and the kids. We will be a little sad to say goodbye to Vietnam tomorrow. It has been quite the experience!
Until next time...

Skye, Ronato, Kai and Pippin