The guide went to the wrong hotel, so it took a little while to sort it out.
The first stop was Ho Chi Minh complex .
In an international competition, the partnership of gmp and Inros Lackner prevailed and was awarded the contract to provide complete planning and design services for the new parliament building of the Vietnamese government. Inros Lackner designed the earthquake-proof main structure and planned the technical building services.
Gross floor area: 60,000 m2
Dimensions: 102.5 m x 102.5 m
Parliament House - Hanoi
The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum (Vietnamese: Lăng Chủ tịch Hồ Chí Minh) is a large memorial in Hanoi, Vietnam. It is located in the center of Ba Dinh Square, which is the place where Vietminh leader Ho Chi Minh, Chairman of the Communist Party of Vietnam from 1951 until his death in 1969, read the Declaration of Independence on 2 September 1945, establishing theDemocratic Republic of Vietnam.
History
Construction work began on September 2 1973, and the structure was formally inaugurated on August 29, 1975. The mausoleum was inspired by Lenin's Mausoleum in Moscow but incorporates distinct Vietnamese architectural elements, such as the sloping roof. The exterior is made of grey granite, while the interior is grey, black and red polished stone. The mausoleum's portico has the words "Chủ tịch Hồ Chí Minh" (Chairman Ho Chi Minh) inscribed across it. The banner beside says "Nước Cộng Hòa Xã Hội Chủ Nghĩa Việt Nam Muôn Năm" (en: "State of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam forever").
The structure is 21.6 meters (70.9 feet) high and 41.2 meters (135.2 feet) wide. Flanking the mausoleum are two platforms with seven steps for parade viewing. The plaza in front of the mausoleum is divided into 240 green squares separated by pathways. The gardens surrounding the mausoleum have nearly 250 different species of plants and flowers, all from different regions of Vietnam.
The embalmed body of Ho Chi Minh is preserved in the cooled, central hall of the mausoleum, which is protected by a military honor guard. The body lies in a glass case with dim lights. The mausoleum is closed occasionally while work is done to restore and preserve the body but is normally open daily from 09:00 to 11:00 to the public. Lines of visitors, including visiting foreign dignitaries, pay their respects at the mausoleum every day.
Rules regarding dress and behavior are strictly enforced by staff and guards. Legs must be covered (no shorts or miniskirts). Visitors must be silent, and walk in two lines. Hands must not be in pockets, nor arms crossed. Smoking, drinking, eating, photography and video taping are also not permitted anywhere inside the mausoleum.
The Presidential Palace was constructed by Auguste Henri Vildieu, the official French architect for French Indochina. Like most French Colonial architecture, the palace is pointedly European. The only visual cues that it is located in Vietnam at all are mango trees growing on the grounds.
The yellow palace stands behind wrought iron gates flanked by sentry boxes. It incorporates elements of Italian Renaissance design, including:
- aedicules
- a formal piano nobile reached by a grand staircase
- broken pediments
- classical columns
- quoins
When Vietnam achieved independence in 1954, Ho Chi Minh was claimed to have refused to live in the grand structure for symbolic reasons, although he still received state guests there, he eventually built a traditional Vietnamese stilt house and carp pond on the grounds. His house and the grounds were made into the Presidential Palace Historical Site in 1975.
The palace hosts government meetings. It is not open to the public, although one may walk around the grounds for a fee.
The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum is located nearby the palace. The Presidential Palace of Vietnam is a hundred-year-old French colonial building in the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum Complex surrounding Ba Dinh Square. Completed in 1906, the Presidential Palace is a thoroughly French Beaux-Arts edifice painted mustard yellow.
The Palace is inextricably linked to Vietnam's French colonial past, so much so that when Ho Chi Minh took over Hanoi and the rest of North Vietnam, he declined to live in the overtly luxurious parts of the palace. Ho instead claimed to have chose to live in servants' quarters behind the building. In 1958, a stilt house was built in the palace gardens and said to have served as his residence and office.
The Palace interior is not open to tourists, unless you're a diplomat or visiting foreign dignitary - Ambassador-designates present their credentials to the President of Vietnam at the Presidential Palace.
Regular visitors are allowed access to the Palace's botanical gardens, where you can get a good look at the Palace's fruit trees and Ho's stilt house. The Palace is visible from the beginning of the visitors' path, but straying off the path is highly discouraged.
Origins of the Presidential Palace
The French colonizers of Vietnam believed in a mission civilisatrice (“civilizing mission”) that held European culture as an improvement over any native culture. So colonial structures tended to ignore local architecture; instead, French architectural styles were employed for colonial buildings in French-held Vietnam.
The palace's construction was ordered by the French Governor-General at the time, Paul Doumer. In his book Hanoi: Biography of a City (buy direct), academic William Logan attributes the creation of the Palace to Doumer's "overwhelming passion to construct a colonial capital that would reflect the glory of France". (p. 86)
Some of the land on which the Palace would eventually rise was simply confiscated from private owners; the rest was built on the grounds of the thousand-year-old Mieu Hoi Dong Pagoda, which was demolished despite the pleas of indignant devotees.
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| President Residence |
This humble, traditional stilt house where Ho lived intermittently from 1958 to 1969 is set in a well-tended garden adjacent a carp-filled pond and has been preserved just as Ho left it.
A Temple
We than visited the the museum of Ethnology.This collection relating to Vietnam's ethnic minorities features well-presented tribal art, artifacts and everyday objects gathered from across the nation, and examples of traditional village houses. The museum displayed life size structures from the 54 differing ethnic groups.
I than went to lunch at local restaurant.
After Lunch we visited the Museum of literature, First University in Indochina.
The temple was built in 1070 and was reconstructed during the Trần dynasty (1225–1400) and in the subsequent dynasties. For nearly two centuries, despite wars and disasters, the temple has preserved ancient architectural styles of many dynasties as well as precious relics. Major restorations have taken place in 1920, 1954 and 2000.
Hoan Kiem Lake & Ngoc Son Temple Highlights
Ngoc Son Temple was built in the 18th century on Jade Island in the centre of the ‘Lake of the Returned Sword’ or Hoan Kiem Lake. Legend describes how an emperor was once given a magical sword which helped him defeat the Chinese Ming Dynasty and in doing so saw the return of the Golden Turtle God to the lake.
Today ‘Turtle Tower’ stands close to the lake in memory of this legend. There are also endangered large soft-shell turtles swimming in the lake, and to see one of these gentle giants is considered very auspicious. The name of the temple translates to ‘Temple of the Jade Mountain’ and is predominately dedicated to war hero General Tran Hung Dao who defeated an armed force of 300,000 soldiers sent by Mongolian Emperor Kublai Khan in the 13th century to invade Vietnam.
Also inside the pagoda are a large bronze bust and other deities. There are altars dedicated to Tran Hung Dao, some ancient artefacts including ceramics and a preserved specimen of a giant turtle found in the lake weighing 250kg.
After this I went on a Rickshaw ride.
A few street scenes from rickshaw .
After a short rest I headed out to the food tour
This tour involved about,2 hrs walking around some of the markets and tasting about, ,3 differing fruits and bread sticks.
We than had s fruit salad with coconut cream. There were 5 differing fruits and was served with shaved ice
We then had Astor fry, it was cooked at the table
It had beef, pork, offal, Chinese cabbage and shallots.
After that we had a special coffee to finish the night on the 5th floor of a restaurant overlooking the lake we had previous walked by.
I tried my hardest to get lost on the way back to the hotel.
Did you get a photo of you in the rickshaw?
ReplyDeleteLooks like plenty of eating on the first day.
ReplyDelete