Ho Chi Minh

Oh my goodness, busy work days and an exciting new Season of Homeland (well, new for us!) means I never finished telling you all about our trip to Vietnam!

Sometimes you can sight-see with kids and everything goes perfectly. Then there are the other times when it is humid, muggy and there is a lot of walking involved and everyone is hot and tired. But I will always say that it is always worth traveling with kids. Now on to the nitty gritty details of our day sightseeing in Hanoi.

We woke up and cuddled for a bit until we were ready to head down to the amazing breakfast at the Sofitel. The breakfast here is my favorite breakfast of any hotel we have ever stayed at!

After a yummy breakfast we headed out for some sightseeing. Last time we were in Hanoi we didn’t have much time so we didn’t get to see Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. We arranged a half day tour and headed off. First stop – Ho Chi Minh himself and the Mausoleum. There was a line and we had to cover our shoulders. There was a line that moved fast but still took about a half hour. Strollers weren’t allowed so we all had to walk or be carried.

Along the way we saw some soldiers that the boys couldn’t take their eyes off of!

This right here was the beginning of the end folks. We had walked around the whole complex and through the mausoleum and hit our wall. Too much, too hot, no water (not allowed in mausoleum) and just too much.

Adam wanted to be carried by mommy, Malcolm wanted to be carried by mommy. Mommy wanted to be carried by her mommy. I would have carried them both but it was too far and I was too tired. Both grandma and our super sweet tour guide offered to carry either one. But both only wanted mommy. These moments are super hard when you’re traveling and out of your comfort zone. Sometimes there is nothing more to do than sit down on the curb and wait it out (while all the Vietnamese tourists pass by). We chugged a whole bunch of water and eventually decided as a whole to move on to the house that Ho Chi Minh lived in during the later years of his life.

We let the boys vote on whether to move on. The boys voted to move on and the biggest draw to voting yes was this pond full of fish. Our tour guide told us that Ho Chi Minh used to survive and eat fish in the pond but after he died they never ate another fish from there our of respect. This was a BIG hit with the boys. Far more exciting than seeing Ho Chi Minh himself in the mausoleum.