After our self guided explorations of yesterday we were keen to get going today with a guide and more information.

The first item on the agenda was a visit to Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. Our guide warned us a number of times about the length of the queue and the waiting time for this attraction but as it turned out the line up was way more interesting than Ho's body.

The Mausoluem building shares grounds with a number of prestigous government buildings, such as the Partliament Building, Presidential Palace, and the Botanical Gardens. So just walking in the line for 90 minutes was interesting.

In addition there were a large number of primary school groups visiting their National Hero and these children were very curious about the western tourists in the line and waved, bumped knuckles, and asked questions of us. It seems English is compulsory in primary school so all western tourists are an opportunity to practice their English even to the ones that don't speak English. It was fun.

After the Mausoleum we visited two houses in the same complex that were occupied by Ho Chi Min at different times in the 1960s while the war was in full swing. One of those houses had an immense concrete bunker attached.

It was also interesting to hear from our guide the Vietnamese perspective on the war against the "invader".

After lunch we got a little bit of education about the different ethnic groups in Vietnam. The Viet group is the largest at 84% then there are as many as 50 other interrelated groups or "hill people".

Probably the highlight of the day was a 1 hour tour of the old part of the city in/on a cyclo, (bicycle with a double front seat). By the time of this excursion it was 4:00pm and traffic was getting towards its busiest for the day, and the old part of the city was crowded with narrow streets and store fronts that pile their wares out onto the road way. Our driver wove and wiggled our way through chaotic traffic with great skill and patience. It was a really interesting up-close look at Hanoi traffic which one can only describe as co-operative chaos.