Ho Chi Minh Museum, Hanoi

Ho Chi Minh Museum - darkometer rating : 1 – (but weirdness factor 10!) A museum in Hanoi , Vietnam , about the country's deceased great communist leader. The museum opened as late as 1990 – exactly a century after Ho Chi Minh 's birth. It's located near the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and, like this, is a must-see, not so much because it is so good but because it is in many places so bizarre. > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Photos What there is to see: The building as such is already impressive in its very own way. It's a futuristic looking pile with a gigantic white socialist symbol over the entrance, showing the Vietnamese star and the communist party hammer and sickle in front of (faceless) flags. In the lobby hall you're greeted by a big bronze statue of Ho Chi Minh , his hand held up as if to say "Hi!", in front of a strange chunky mass of more bronze of unidentifiable meaning. Then it's upstairs to the exhibition rooms proper. The contents are a mix of the totally predictable and the totally, bafflingly bizarre. You'd expect to see old photos, documents and personal belongings of the great man, and you'd expect it all to be rather celebratory, and indeed those expectations are borne out. Photos cover his early days as well as his works abroad and at home. Objets on display include things like clothes, Ho's watch and his personal pistol. There are also screens showing some related footage, so it's also nice and multimedia modern. But then there's the bizarre stuff. Images of German sewing machines, the Eiffel Tower (ah, yes, of course, he lived in Paris for a while, so there's a vague link!), artwork ranging from the more likely socialist realism to the utterly abstract. The same is true of the illustrative installations.