This morning started off with a walk back to the Hanoi Mosque to take pics in daylight. It was at the north end of the old quarter and fitted my waking route to the imperial quarter. The old quarter is actually a much nicer version of historic beijing nestled with street architecture, vendors, and crammed traffic streets. Sadly this has all been demolished in Beijing and replaced with multilane highways and highrise tower blocks. When I got to the mosque it was locked but I noticed locals were parking their motorcylces in the courtyard. The side entrance was open so I went in and took pics inside. The mosque was of a simpler design and empty this early in the morning. Not sure where the muslim community was as I never saw anyone my entire time in Hanoi. Along with having a nostalgic feel for beijing there was also light drizzle, similar to the day I had spent in beijing last september when there was heavy rain all day. Luckily the forcast was only for drizzle today. There was a street vendor selling baguettes sliced in half and deep fried. I bought one for 5000 (.25 cents) for breakfast. The hostel breakfast also consisted of a simple baguette and butter but was a nice fresh crispy loaf, the one good thing the french left in vietnam. I love bread, but koreans hate it and good bakeries are non existent there. Heading towards the lake north of the old quarter I was ambushed by two pineapple ladies. Excited to see someone this early they rushed over with their shoulder bamboo pole and two hanging baskets and tried to place it on my shoulder. My reflex was to block my shoulder with my other hand and say no and walk away, even though I probably needed some fruit for breakfast. It was very misty in the drizzle but the big pagoda was easy to spot. It was situated in its own large pond. A walkway leads you to the temple complex. Fortunately admission was free. I thought it was just a pagoda but there are two temple buildings as well. The front one by the pagoda was a rectangle building with elaborate doors along the long side. Inside was a temple shrine with many gold buddhas set in decorations. They were placed in steps receeding back into the distance. The smallest buddhas were on the front steps, the largest on the top step. It gave a feeling of infinity of the many buddhas stretching back into the distance on the ascending steps. The rear courtyard led to another similar temple. I was glad to have seen my first temple as I hadnt in HCMC and just drove by others quickly from the bus. There was another temple a short walk north but I couldnt see it in the mist and it was going the wrong way. Another one was just south heading back to the imperial quarter. This one charged 10,000 admission (.50 cents) so I passed by as I expected to keep seeing many temples so didnt want to keep paying entry for many things today. I now wanted to goto the presidential palace and HCM mausoleum. I had to time this as the imperial quarter all closes at 11am, hence the early morning start. It was a short walk but not easy to get in. The front of the mausoleum was a massive square like tiananmen square in beijing. The square was divided into square plots of grass with concrete paths dividing them. The signs read to keep off the grass. I started to walk along the path but a guard blew his whistle. I guess they wanted me to go back. I pointed I wanted to goto the mausoleum in front. They kept blowing their whistle so I had to go back. The sign only said keep off the grass, not no entry. This was getting frustrating as they were pointing me to go all the way round the massive football field size square and would not let me walk across to the mausoleum right in front. Reluctantly I had to obey and follow the long route around. This led you back to the south end, behind some buildings to where there was a long line to enter the mausoleum. It was already 10am and the place closed at 11am. I hoped the line would move and let us in. After about twenty minutes we did make it thru. First you go thru security screening and get your bags scanned. Nothing unusual. Then they told me to throw my water bottle out. I was just given a fresh bottle by the hostel and there were no convenience stores in Hanoi like there had been in HCMC. I didnt want to but had no choice. Then we had to goto a kiosk and hand in our cameras and cellphones. This is something I've never done before and didnt want to be seperated from my equipment. I was worried about them mixing it up and losing my camera with all my pics from the entire trip. Again I had no choice. The ticket number they gave me was '1' which was hardly any reassurance of them not getting it mixed up. Also I had two cameras. Now we were able to go into the mausoleom which was an easy process. At the entrance is a red carpet with uniformed officers positioned along. This leads you into a staircase which winds round to an upper floor. Immediately you are in the darkened room housing the body. Their are four uniformed soldiers at each corner all facing towards the front as the body lies in the centre. There is a viewing ramp thats goes around three sides, with a raised smaller ramp for children in front. You must keep walking and are not allowed to stop and stand, so the process was over in about a minute. The body was small just over 5ft and thinly built. You could only see the head and hands and the rest was clothed. It looked just like a mummified corpse and not natural. I was glad to have had this rare opportunity to see a state leader. I think Lenins tomb is the only other one and I never tried Chairman Maos when I was in Beijing. Again for those of us raised in the cold war it has a somewhat different meaning than younger generations who think its just some dead guy. As I left it was the moment of truth as I went to collect my cameras. Miraculously they exchanged my ticket "1" for both of my cameras. No mix up and no missing cameras. Amazing!! Now there was a ticket booth to enter Ho Chi Minhs residence for 30,000 ($1.50). You walk by the Presidential Palace which is closed to public but is a grand european style mansion. HCM's home is a simple two storey building. You can look through open windows into various rooms to see the modest living style. You can also see his cars in the garage beside. The route leads around small lake beside the house on one side. A few times I had tried to photograph the uniform soldiers they had spun and turned their backs towards me. Another time one rolled his umbrella to cover his face. Now the path led to a stilted house which I guess was a summer home. The open ground floor under the stilts was a summer lounge area. Here there were uniformed guards. However in this position they had to look straight ahead and couldnt spin around when I photographed them. It was also strange watching their eyes. They are trained to keep staring straight and spanning their eyes from left-centre-right-centre and keep repeating this continuous 180 degree motion without moving their head. Try doing this for about a minute and you will get tired. They have to do this until they are relieved. The next part of the grounds was the Ho Chi Minh museum. This had a 25,000 entry ($1.25). There wasnt much inside just a collection of communist style propoganda in poster form, photograph, carvings, and sculptures. The most interesting part was a staircase that led from the second floor to the third floor. The third floor was a marble hall with a giant bronze statue of HCM at the back. As you exit the museum there are some traditional musicians playing. The last part of the grounds that was free and didnt close by 11am as I was rushing, was a one storey pagoda set in a square pond. This had a small shrine at the top of the building. In the rear of the compound was another temple building similar to earlier ones. It was a rectangle facing longways with the infinity stacked buddhas in the shrine inside. As I left the Imperial Quarter we were now in the embassy district. Many soviet bloc eastern european countries had embassies in grand stately homes. I passed Ukraine, Romania, and Spain. I was now at the Military History Museum but this had closed at 11.30. I was able to walk around the grounds as people were slowly leaving. There were american fighter aircraft on display at the front of the grounds. The rear had a massive sculpture made from the spare parts of fighter jets made to look like a plane crashing nose first into the ground. There was also an old brick french watchtower. That was a lot of rushing to get everything done before the imperial quarter shut down at 11am. Most do not reopen in the afternoon so the morning is the only chance to go. However, I could now take it easy for the rest of the day as there were no more time deadlines.