Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum is the final resting place of Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi, Vietnam. It’s a large building located in the center of Ba Dinh Square, where Ho Chi Minh, Chairman of the Communist Party of Vietnam from 1951 until his death in 1969, read the Declaration of Independence on 2 September 1945, establishing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. It is also known as Ba Đình Mausoleum and is open to the public.
Ho Chi Minh’s legacy
If you follow the flow of the complex, the first stop is to see the preserved remains of the man himself. After dedicating his life to the liberation of the country from foreign rule, and seeing it freed from French domination, Ho Chi Minh died before the next war – the one with the United States – was decided. Afterwards, with Soviet assistance, his body was preserved for posterity.
Ho Chi Minh’s body is kept in state in an impressively austere, Russian-style mausoleum. The entry is like that of an amusement park ride, snaking along, forwards and back, to its final destination. Lines can be quite long, especially when gaggles of school children on field trips are being led through. Even then, at the end of the line, there’s a good distance to go and viewers are only allowed to proceed one group at a time. You’ll have to check any photographic equipment before entering as pictures of the body are not permitted. Once inside, you’ll only get a minute or so. After 40 years of preservation, Vietnam’s founding father is looking pretty good – a bit like he’s just taking a nap.
None of this is what Ho Chi Minh wanted: He requested that he be cremated and his ashes spread in three areas in northern, central and southern Vietnam. A grave plot was, to his mind, a waste of land that might be otherwise productively used. But it was exactly this kind of earnest devotion to his country that made it impossible for his successors to honour his wishes. The cult of personality surrounding Ho Chi Minh was their best bet for keeping the country united after the war, and to preserve that, his body had to be preserved as well. The Romanesque structure is modelled after the one in Moscow where Lenin is on display. He, too, had requested only a modest burial.
It’s worth mentioning that this sight is Vietnam’s holiest of hollies. A reverential and respectful attitude is obligatory, and this is the one place where foreign visitors might be vigorously chastised, or even removed, by uniformed guards. There’s an elaborate list of rules as you enter which you should try to adhere to, including prohibitions against the wearing of an ‘serious-less costume,’ or being in a ‘status of sickness’. So if you get a case of the giggles, bite the inside of your cheek.
Go visiting Ho Chi Minh mausoleum
Location: 25 Hung Vuong street, Ba Dinh (on the very northwestern edge of Hoan Kiem district, but not too far from the center)
Opening Hours: 07:00 to 11:00 (Everyday except Monday and Friday, and from Sept 5- early Nov)
Entrance fee: 40,000vnd ~ US$1,8
Join our Hanoi city tour to visit Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, combine a visit to Ho Chi Minh Museum and One Pillar pagoda nearby.
