Only pussies wear helmets

As I type this there is a spa resort somewhere in Russia, and in this resort sit three elderly men, elderly statesmen you could say. They are sitting around a small table, drinking tea and maybe the odd shot of vodka. For these men this is a once a year meeting, a chance to catch up, talk about the good old days, swap stories of revolution while getting moisturised, touched up and have a new dose of formaldehyde, methanol, and ethanol pumped through their veins. And it is at this resort that Ho Chi Minh is currently residing. Yes every year for two months, old uncle Ho packs up his belongings and heads off to Russia for a bit of R&R rest and repair. And so his mausoleum stands empty and shut. But what a mausoleum it is. Now the Chairman Mao mausoleum in Beijing is bigger, but in the context of Tienanmen square it needs to be ... but in the context of Hanoi, Ho's mausoleum is just spectacular, it rises up out of the city like a Goliath. And before you shout, Egotist, old Ho's final wishes were that he be cremated and that his ashes to be scattered on the mountain tops of Vietnam, but the folks here; they had different plans.
After not visiting Ho, I caught a little cyclo and headed off to see the temple of literature, which is a 1000 year old Confucius temple, it's beautiful. And just what I needed to idle away my hangover. It was very very pretty, even if the lady at the gate short changed me. But anyway.
I then hopped onto another cyclo and headed to Hoa Loa prison, where US service men where held during the war. It was first built as a colonial prison to hold Vietnamese prisoners who rebelled against the French. The place itself is stark. They use represent ions of the prisoners to show the circumstances in which they were held. And it looked pretty nasty. There were a couple of break-outs, brave prisoners who climbed through drains and pipes to make their way to freedom and fight another day. These guys whoever were not as lucky.
Of course when the US soldiers where held there the situation was quite different, even in a time of economic hardship, caused by aggressive invasion, the people of Vietnam put aside they precious provisions in order to keep the American servicemen happy. There are lots of photos of smiling Americans, playing guitars, cards, and getting gifts from home. Oh propaganda - you have to love it. I'm leaving Hanoi tomorrow evening and heading to a mountain village called Sapa, it's supposed to be lovely. Hopefully it will be. Apparently the scenery is just like Kilarney.