This has nothing to do with Paris. I promise.
The “Hanoi Hilton” aka Hoa Lo Prison (aka Maison Centrale), once home to Senator John McCain, is a tourist attraction. Kind of in the way that the Tower of London are: people like torture stories. The interesting side note to the prison is how nice they make it out to be. They show the harshness of being confined here, but when it comes to the telling of the way the soldiers of the “American War” were treated, they showed smiling soldiers, pictures of them cooking in the kitchen, pictures of them receiving presents from their families. All with the disclaimer that “they came here to kill us, but look how well we treated them.”
You would think that the last place the Hilton family would want to build a new hotel would be Hanoi. Sure there’s the name recognition, but would you want to go to a Camp Auschwitz? Right off the banks of the Red River, and next to the historic Opera, a new Hilton stands. I held my moral ground and didn’t go in. Even though there was a ladies night special.
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