I visited the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Hanoi. and thus completed the Embalmed Communist Leader Tour.
Go ahead, admit it. You're jealous.
After visiting Lenin's tomb in Moscow and Mao's in Beijing I owed it to myself to complete the tour. I believe Kim Il-Sung is on display, but I think it's more likely that I'll walk on the moon than visit Pyongyang in this or any other lifetime, so I consider the tour complete.
The first time I visited I went in the afternoon, since the girl at my hotel told me it is closed from 11:00 am to 1:30 pm. She was half right. It closes at 11:00 am. It opens back up ... the next morning. It's not open in the afternoon at all. How silly of me to expect accurate information from my hotel about the biggest tourist attraction in the city...
It did give me the opportunity to take unobstructed photos of it.
And of the changing of the guard.
It looks a little different in the morning. This is the crowd leaving.
Rules for entry are the same as with the Lenin and Mao mausoleums: no shorts, no hats, no talking, no cameras, and so on. There are guards about every 30 feet to keep the line moving and shush anyone who talks. It takes about 20 seconds to walk around the glass case enclosing Ho Chi Minh. Like Mao and Lenin he looks waxy. Every winter he's shipped off to Russia to be re-treated.
Also like Lenin and Mao, Ho Chi Minh is on display against his wishes! Like Mao he wished to be cremated. Lenin wanted to be buried next to his mother.
Mao's tomb was modeled after Lenin's and so was this one, so it was perhaps appropriate that I had to walk past a statue of the Russian leader to get there.
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