(Nha Bac Ho). After
1954 Ho Chi Minh had the run of the Presidential
Palace, but the ostentation was too much for the
ascetic president, who openly shunned luxury and
preferred the humble former home of the palace's
electrician, where he lived for four years. Then,
the story goes, in 1958 Ho Chi Minh moved to this
simple but tasteful wooden house on stilts, which
served as his living quarters and work space until
his death in 1969. An elegant but spare study --
some books, his small typewriter, a few
newspapers, and an electric fan presented to him
by a group of Japanese Communists are visible --
adjoins his equally spare bedroom. Downstairs he
received his guests: foreign dignitaries,
Politburo members, army cadres, and
schoolchildren. Surrounding the house are
well-tended gardens with flame trees, willows,
mango trees, and aromatic frangipani. Cyprus trees
thrive on the edge of the pond, which Ho had
stocked with carp. A crisp clap of the hands
apparently still brings the fish to the surface.
Regardless of Ho Chi
Minh's faith in the accuracy of the city's
antiaircraft gunners, some doubt must be thrown on
the claim that Ho Chi Minh spent so much time in
this open-air sanctum, with only the trees, his
wooden house, and a trusty old war helmet as
protection. American bombers targeted Hanoi during
the war, and they surely would have emptied their
loads on Ba Dinh District had they known their
archenemy was feeding fish and conferring with his
generals in the unprotected confines of his stilt
house. Indeed, Ho's Politburo ordered the
construction of a nearby bomb shelter, later
dubbed House No. 67. Legend holds that Uncle Ho
refused to use the shelter as a home, preferring
to confer with the Politburo in this fortified
bunker but to sleep in his stilt house.
Before visiting Ho's
residence, wait for the rest of the group that
accompanied you through the mausoleum to go on
ahead; it's much more enjoyable to walk through
the jasmine-scented compound unhurried and without
the inevitable chatter of other tourists. You'll
exit this area via a pebbled pathway to the south
of the mausoleum. As if they were themselves
sights on the tour, older Vietnamese intellectuals
wearing bifocals and striped cotton pajamas sit on
park benches and read the Communist Party
mouthpiece, Nhan Dan (The People),
or sip green tea and smoke cigarettes.
COST: 3,000d.
OPEN: Daily 7:30-11 and
1:30-4.
