Out and about in Hanoi

Today was our first full day in Hanoi.

The day started with a cab drive to one of the main tourist areas.

Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam and the country's second largest city by population. The population in 2015 was estimated at 7.7 million people. The city lies on the right bank of the Red River.

From 1010 until 1802, it was the most important political centre of Vietnam. It was eclipsed by Huế, the imperial capital of Vietnam during the Nguyễn Dynasty (1802–1945). In 1873 Hanoi was conquered by the French. From 1883 to 1945, the city was the administrative centre of the colony of French Indochina. The French built a modern administrative city south of Old Hanoi, creating broad, perpendicular tree-lined avenues of opera, churches, public buildings, and luxury villas, but they also destroyed large parts of the city, shedding or reducing the size of lakes and canals, while also clearing out various imperial palaces and citadels.
From 1940 to 1945 Hanoi, as well as the largest part of French Indochina and Southeast Asia, was occupied by the Japanese. On September 2, 1945, Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). The Vietnamese National Assembly under Ho Chi Minh decided on January 6, 1946, to make Hanoi the capital of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. From 1954 to 1976, it was the capital of North Vietnam, and it became the capital of a reunified Vietnam in 1976, after the North's victory in the Vietnam War.
October 2010 officially marked 1,000 years since the establishment of the city.

We visited the Ho Chi Minh complex which includes One Pillar Pagoda a historic Budist Temple.

The Ho Chi Minh Museum which was constructed in the 1990s and is dedicated to the late Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh and Vietnam's revolutionary struggle against foreign powers. The museum documents Ho Chi Minh’s life, with 8 chronological topics.

We walked past the Mausoleum. This was closed, which was a shame so we may visit on another day .The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum is the final resting place of Vietnamese Revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh. It is a large building located in the center of Ba Dinh Square, where Ho, President of the Communist Party of Vietnam from 1951 until his death in 1969, read the Declaration of Independence on 2 September 1945, establishing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

We also walked past The Presidential Palace of Vietnam, it was built between 1900 and 1906 to house the French Governor-General of Indochina.

It was constructed by Auguste Henri Vildieu, the official French architect for French Indochina. Like most French Colonial architecture, the palace is vey much European. The yellow palace stands behind wrought iron gates flanked by sentry boxes.

All that before lunch.Read more