What you will see
Ba Dinh is where the modern Vietnamese state announced itself, and the complex around the Mausoleum is built to say so. The Temple of Literature, a couple of kilometres away, was doing much the same job nine hundred years earlier for a very different kind of authority. Seeing both in one morning is the point of this route.
Highlights
- Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum and Ba Dinh Square
- The stilt house and the Presidential Palace grounds
- The One Pillar Pagoda, built in 1049
- The Ho Chi Minh Museum, in the shape of a white lotus
- The Temple of Literature, Vietnam's first university
Itinerary
Departures at 9:00 AM or 2:00 PM. Your guide meets you at your hotel and takes you to the Ho Chi Minh Complex first.
1. The Mausoleum
A three-storey structure in marble and granite. The president's body lies on the second level, in the plain clothes he wore in life. The visit is short, silent and strictly managed.
2. Ba Dinh Square
The square in front of the Mausoleum, where Ho Chi Minh read the Declaration of Independence on 2 September 1945.
3. The stilt house
He refused the Presidential Palace and lived first in an electrician's cottage nearby, then in a two-floor wooden house on stilts beside the pond, where he stayed until his death in 1969. It is the smallest building on the site and the one visitors remember.
4. The One Pillar Pagoda
Built in 1049 under the Ly dynasty, in the shape of a lotus rising from the water. The story goes that King Ly Thanh Tong built it after a dream in which the Bodhisattva handed him a baby son. Open daily 08:00 to 17:00, free to enter, and full-length clothing is expected.
5. The Ho Chi Minh Museum
A white lotus of a building nearly twenty metres high, three floors, more than two thousand documents and objects arranged around his life and the wars of the century.
6. The Temple of Literature
Founded in 1070 as a temple to Confucius and, six years later, as Vietnam's first university. It is one of the best-preserved traditional buildings in the country: a lake of literature, the Well of Heavenly Clarity, the stone stelae carried on turtles listing the graduates of five centuries, and a sequence of courtyards that were once reserved for royalty. Every year students still come here before their exams.
What is included, and what is not
| Included | Not included |
|---|---|
| An English-speaking student guide for the whole walk | Entrance tickets to museums and sites |
| Route planning and hotel pick-up | Food, drinks and snacks along the way |
| Confirmation by email before the day | Taxis, ride-hailing or any transport |
| Your personal expenses, and your guide's share of tickets and meals |
Changes, cancellation and weather
If you cannot make the walk, tell us at least three hours before the departure time so we can let your guide know and offer the slot to someone else.
If weather or an unexpected closure affects a route after it has started, we may change the itinerary for everyone's safety. Where there is more than one sensible option, your guide will ask you before deciding.
Before you set off
- Tell us the ages of anyone in your group when you book, so the guide can set the right pace.
- Wear shoes you can walk several kilometres in, and cover shoulders and knees if pagodas or the Mausoleum are on the route.
- Photographs taken on the walk may be used in club promotion. If you would rather they were not, say so in the booking and we will not use them.
Book this walk
- Days
- 1
Sending this does not charge you. We hold the space and confirm within 24 hours.