The plan was to meet some fellow Halong Bay travelers at 9am at the cafe next to the hotel to make an early morning visit to Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum where the venerable ruler's body is preserved and on display for the general public. I promptly overslept, as did my fellow travelers I learned later, and ran off across town to make it to the last viewing at 11am.
At 10:50am I purchased my ticket, deposited my camera with an uniformed guard (no pictures of Mr. Ho allowed) and was led to stand behind the white line a few hundred meters for the marble building which housed the body next to another uniformed guard. The guard wore a belted green Vietnamese military uniform and white kid gloves. Another hundred tourists or so lined up behind me, perhaps more oversleepers as well.
When the guard gave a signal to move beyond the white line, I marched the line of tourists to the next uniformed guard, making sure to stay within the thick painted white lines on the blacktop. The next guard I was aiming for, the one standing on the red carpet that led up the stairs and into the museum, directed me to do so with subtle hand movements. I reached the stairs without a problem where I was halted one more time, the only sound were the shuffling feet of tourists catching up and halting behind me.
We waited a few nervous minutes, the tension beginning to build with all this formality and the increased number of guards surrounding the entrance of the tomb. The guards looked small and young in their uniforms, the fabric bunched into their belts and their faces unblemished and clean. The next guard signaled for me to follow his footsteps as he escorted me up the stairs of the entrance. I watched his shiny black shoes, sure to keep tempo and not get a step ahead or behind. The mausoleum smelled of sticky sweet deodorizer and the small sounds from bodies moving through its corridors whispered through the marble walls. One more staircase led me to a dark room which centered around the encased, illuminated body of Ho Chi Minh and had dim floor lights lighting the single pathway around the body and out of the room.
He was clothed in simple black peasants garb and his hands were folded over his stomach in the traditional corpse fashion. His body seemed thin and flat, without curves or sloping human shapes. Thanks to a strong backlight, only his face and hands glowed and the rest of his body sank into the dark recesses of his coffin and the rest of the room. Nobody spoke. Nobody lingered. We all followed the floor lights and minutes later were emerging into the manicured grounds of the Ho Chi Minh complex and being cordially invited to take a tour of his palace, where he never lived because of its garishness, and his home, a simple stilt structure which suited his lifestyle. I skipped the tour of both to meet my friends in the front of the mausoleum. Nobody spoke much of the viewing. We just shook our heads, raised our eyebrows and searched the guidebook for a restaurant close by.
