Good Morning Vietnam!

26 hours in a bus from Vientiane was one of those mind over body endurance tests. When I arrived in Hanoi and shook myself straight this beautiful, mad city blessed my eyes. The five guys and girls I met on the bus got a place in the ‘Old Quarter’ of Hanoi where the lanes are named after the activities that happen here – welding, fabrics, clothes, food etc. Life here is lived on the streets and is where it all happens – families eating, hanging out washing, stuff peddled and bikes are parked up – all engulfing the footpaths. Motorbikes rule this town.

Crossing the street is an adventure in itself. Forget what your mother taught you about looking both ways before you cross. Just close your eyes and walk – slowly. Bikes curve around you as long as you don’t do anything stupid, which is easier said than done the first time. Everyone is happy on the horn, the beeps and honks are constant and can mean anything from ‘watch out mate’ to ‘how’s the weather’. Peak hour traffic in the evening is a wonderfully mental time to walk among the bikes.
Hoan Kiem Lake (Lake of the Restored Sword) in the Old Quarter is a beautiful feature and here the lanes transform into boulevards. Women sell fruit, men play board games and the stillness of the lake entices people to sit a while and have a chat. Legend has it that here in the mid-15th century Emperor Le Loi returned a magical sword to heaven, which he had used to drive the Chinese out of Vietnam. The Tortoise Pagoda sits in the lake at the north end over a short bridge. I sat here a while and just emptied out a bit of brain junk.

Hanoi is graced with old and new architecture, the new being of French influence like the impressive opera house. Some of the old is French too, like the prison they built at the end of the 19th century to hold, and often execute anyone resisting French rule. Later the prison was used by the North Vietnamese who held American POW’s here. The prison is now a museum and it was fascinating not only to see the conditions prisoners were subjected to and the instruments of their torture, but also the language used in the displays. The Vietnamese held here were ‘revolutionaries’, ‘comrades’, ‘Fighters for Independence’ and their loyalty and bravery and endurance and suffering against the enemy is a model. Though in retrospect the fluffy propaganda I read here was probably no more embellished than the way we glorify and slant our own histories.

Hanoi’s other interesting bits? Water puppetry, inventively low tech story telling with wooden puppets whose mechanisms are hidden under water to the tune of traditional Vietnamese instruments. A national history museum, well presented exhibition that open my eyes to Vietnams fight for independence from the French, the Japanese, and the US. The communist billboards, they are just so cool looking, hup the proletariat!

I took a 3 day tour north to Halong Bay from Hanoi to see the thousands of islands and Karsts that dotted through this National park. It really was beautiful and we had a craic time on our boat, drinking, swimming, kayaking a little, trekking a little, and lying on the top deck. A bit of a holiday cruise really. It was my first exposure to what the Vietnamese tourism industry either think tourists want or want tourists to have. Without going right into it, we kind of felt guided or timetabled or directed or something. Nothing required too much exertion… I guess it was just the little things, like pointlessly wide concrete paths for us along beautiful coastline, or the box hotel on beautiful Cat Ba island where we stayed a night, or going back to Hanoi midday on day 3. I think New Zealand do an excellent job of keeping our Regional and National parks as natural as possible. But, no complaints, we were definitely well looked after, all for only US$45 for everything for 3 days. Another oddity of control, the police want to register our passports at every new destination.

Check the photos in the Photolog, I’ve got some more posts to blast out shortly. Hope you’re all well, great to get emails from you all so often, and if my replies are short its just I’m loving Vietnam more than Internet cafes.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 11th, 2004 at 5:50 am and is filed under Vietnam. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.