Today we went for a walk in front of the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum. A huge gray stone building that the Soviet Union offered to to Vietnam. We did not enter to see “uncle Ho” as they remember him here in Vietnam, but we walk on the huge cement-paved-parade-road-square that is in front of the mausoleum. The place is quite austere. Not a piece of paper on the ground. The green area on the side of the cement-paved road untouched, meaning that nobody steps on the green grass. However, despite this austere atmosphere many people gather in this place in the late afternoon (and I suspect in the early morning as well) to exercise: walk, run, walk backwards, stretch legs and harms, and so on. Particularly elderly people walking up and done the half kilometer road passing several times in front of the monument where Hi Chi Minh rests. No disrespect, not at all. Just the exercise needed to keep the body healthy that Ho Chi Minh advocated when he was president of the country.