HCM Mausoleum: The iconic building that I'm sure you've seen. It houses remains of Ho Chi Minh. After checking in my camera at a checkpoint, lined up with a bunch of elementary kids on a school trip (kept staring at us b/c we were speaking English, not different from Korea after all. lol), went up a few stairs and finally got to the room where HCM's body is.
Reminded me of when I was in the
Philippines and saw Marcos' body. Same set-up and everything minus the guards. There is a designated walkway for people to walk through that is a bit elevated. The body is encased in glass and has 4 guards outside it, 1 in each corner of the sarcophagus(?) The room is also dimmed and smells like flowers. Pretty eerie. Dương told me that the body goes to Russia for maintenance each year. HCM is greatly honored for being the liberator of the Vietnamese people from colonialism and for his communist ideals.

HCM's house: His rooms were surprising very simple. His cars on the other hand were pretty nice. Apparently they were all gifts from different leaders. HCM didn't have a family, the Vietnamese people call him Uncle Ho. According to Dương. The pond around his house was very pretty. Lot's of fish. And trees. I liked the trees a lot. There were also these weird roots that came out of the ground. I wish I knew why they were like that...

One Pillar Pagoda: This pagoda was built by an Emperor after he dreamt of meeting a Goddess who sat on a lotus and handed him a male child. He later married and had a son. He built the pagoda on a single stone pillar. It was rebuilt after the French destroyed it. Lots of people visit this place to pray for a child.