Built by the French to hold captured Vietnamese POW's. Later used by the Vietnamese to hold American POW's. This is also the former 'home' of American Senator John McCain. It was very interesting to walk around the prison/museum and read the captions for a lot of the installments. Can you say BIASED. Wow, unbelievable how gullible they think we are. Say there is a display of prison uniforms worn by the Vietnamese POW's under French control, the caption would go something like this "Prison uniforms the captured Vietnamese were forced to wear" and then you'll see a display of uniforms worn by the American POW's (basically the same) and the caption will go something like "Prison uniforms provided by the Vietnamese government for the use of American war criminals." I won't bother to go on, but there are lots more examples of this. I took it all as cultural insight :)

I nearly hit the ceiling when I looked in the cell and saw this statue.

This is the view from the death row cells. Hmmm, not much to hope for. There is only documented history of the guillotine being used by the French. No comment.

and how about a sunny day beheading. Not sure why you would keep these things in a prison if you weren't planning on using them (OK, I couldn't resist a small comment)

This is a sewer that Vietnamese escaped through, I think it was from death row cells. That's what looking at guillotine all day will do. I feel safe saying that the Americans would never have been able to use this route. My head wouldn't even fit between the bars (really)!
For some better pictures and interesting reading about the prison go to
http://www.pbase.com/ckuhn55/hanoi_prisonposted by Shannon