Hoa Lo Prison

Our first night in Hanoi my dad asked if we had heard of the "Hanoi Hilton" where John McCain was imprisoned. We hadn't and when I looked it up on Wikipedia I couldn't believe what I read . . . most of the prison was torn down and a hotel was built on the property. What hotel? Ours. Really, it is right here, and finally today we walked a few steps to check out what was left of the prison and the museum inside. 

Hoa Lo Prison was built by the French for holding Vietnamese political prisoners who were often subject to torture and execution. 

 

It was amazing to learn how many women were held in this prison too, one whole room was covered with their portraits. It hurt my stomach to walk through and see how people were treated, there were mannequins to show how the prisoners lived.

And outside we saw the tunnels through which over a hundred prisoners escaped. 

Looking up we could see our room.

Then we made it to the area of the museum describing life for the Americans held here. It was such a strange contrast to the images of the Vietnamese prisoners. John McCain's uniform was there next to a photo of the Vietnamese "rescuing" him from the water.

There was a whole room with photos of Americans looking like they were having a good time. Pictures of Christmas dinner, getting treated by doctors, playing cards and basketball, and meeting with journalists.

It was if they were trying to show how well the American prisoners were treated - very interesting. It would be nice to go again and spend more time reading all of the signs - going with two young kids does not allow you much time to do such things, and perhaps we didn't allow ourselves enough time only getting there with 30minutes left before it closed. 

We spent the rest of the evening walking around the neighborhood, looking at dresses (just found out that I have to get a cocktail dress for an event when we get back to Sydney, oh my), and eating ice cream (why haven't I lost weight on this trip?)!

Budget:

Accommodation - $124

Food - $49

Tickets - $2