Meals: Breakfast at hotel, Lunch at local restaurant
Accommodations: on train
Transfer: Private vehicle
Activities for today: This morning, spent some leisure time on Ba Dinh Square, site of the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. Later, visit Ho Chi Minh's House on Stilts and the nearby One Pillar Pagoda, Temple of Literature-the first university of Vietnam. After lunch, proceed to Hanoi Hilton (also called Hoa Lo Prison), followed by the Museum of Ethnology. Wonder around Hoan Kiem Lake then visit Ngoc Son Temple and enjoy one hour cyclo trip around the trading area in Hanoi Old Quarter. Free time for shopping around.
In the evening, transfer from your hotel to Hanoi Railway Station for the night train to Lao Cai. Overnight in AC soft sleeper cabin.
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Note: Please note that the HCM Mausoleum is closed on Fridays and Mondays and most museums are closed on Mondays.
+ Ba Dinh Square: It is the name of a famous square in Hanoi where president Ho Chi Minh read the Proclamation of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on September 2, 1945. It is named after the Ba Dình Uprising, an anti-French rebellion that occurred in Vietnam in 1886–1887 as part of the Can Vuong movement. When Ho Chi Minh died, the granite Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum was built here to display his embalmed body. It remains a major site of tourism and pilgrimage.
+ Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum: It holds the embalmed remains of Ho Chi Minh. Visiting the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum is a highlight for many locals' visits to the capital, and very few Vietnamese visiting Hanoi pass up a chance for a pilgrimage to the place where Vietminh leader Ho Chi Minh read the Declaration of Independence. It is closed every Monday and Friday, November and December closed for maintain.
+ Ho Chi Minh's House on Stilts: It is the house president Ho Chi Minh lived on and off from 1958 to 1969. It was constructed by the official French architect for Vietnam. Like most French Colonial architecture, the palace is pointedly European. The house is an interpretation of a traditional rural dwelling, and has been preserved just as Ho left it.
+ One Pillar Pagoda: It is a Buddhist temple in the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum complex near Ba Dinh Square, a replica of an older temple that was built in 1049 and destroyed in 1954.It is regarded alongside the Perfume Temple, as one of Vietnam's two most iconic temples.
+ Temple of Literature: It is a temple of Confucius in Hanoi. The temple hosts the "Imperial Academy", Vietnam's first national university. The various pavilions, halls, statues and stelae of doctors are places where offering ceremonies, study sessions and the strict exams of the Dai Viet took place.
+ Hoa Lo Prison: It was a prison used by the French colonists in Vietnam for political prisoners, and later by North Vietnam for prisoners of war during the Vietnam War when it was sarcastically known to American prisoners of war as the "Hanoi Hilton".
+ Museum of Ethnology: It focuses on the 54 officially recognized ethnic groups in Vietnam. It is widely considered to be the finest modern museum in Vietnam and a tourist attraction in Hanoi.
+ Hoan Kiem Lake ("Lake of the Returned Sword" or "Lake of the Restored Sword"), also known as Hồ Gươm (Sword Lake), is a fresh water lake, measuring some 12 ha in the historical center of Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam.
