Tags
city walks, Hanoi, Hi Chi Minh, Hoa Lo, Hoan Kiem, POW/MIA, Southeast Asia, street markets, Temple of Literature, Vietnam, Vietnam War
It was 1971 or ’72, and I remember sitting at my school cafeteria table, wearing my POW/MIA bracelet for the first time. For those too young to remember, during the Vietnam War, many of us wore a metal bracelet with the name of a prisoner of war or missing-in-action soldier on it. (About 4-5 million bracelets were sold at about $2.50 each.) A recent story I heard about a woman who has spent over 50 years searching for “her” soldier made me realize what a loser I must be. I don’t even remember the name or the outcome for my soldier – how sad! I hope that means it ended well and I was able to forget for a good reason.
What I do still remember is the way the word “Vietnam” made me feel back then; it was a very scary place to imagine for a naive teenager. Later, as an adult, I watched so many sobering movies about the war and its aftermath (Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Good Morning, Vietnam, Coming Home, The Deer Hunter, among others), and the frightening view I had of this time in history was only reinforced. Given those dark and upsetting memories, I was thrilled to see what a vibrant and joyful place Vietnam is today.
The first week I spent in Southeast Asia last month was dedicated to Vietnam, and it wasn’t nearly enough to see the country in full. We spent three days in Hanoi and its environs, including a day trip to Halong Bay. Then we flew south to Danang and drove on to Hoi An, two very different cities.
(Parenthetical note from this linguistics geek: I learned while there that the Vietnamese language only contains one-syllable words, connecting them in speech to form different meanings. All of the place names above are more correctly written as Viet Nam, Ha Long, Ha Noi, Da Nang, etc. I would prefer to write them this way because it more accurately reflects the local pronunciation, but I feared that would be too distracting, so I have Anglicized the spellings. Thank you for reading this aside that is basically for me to see in the future!)
As expected, Hanoi was a big, noisy, crowded, gray-skied metropolis, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Like many cities outside the West, this one had a full range of socioeconomic levels living side-by-side. The elegant old French Quarter with its wide streets and monumental buildings had plenty of tiny side streets, some not nearly as nice as the big ones, and the Old Quarter (Hoàn Kiếm) and City Center pushed right up into each other with a mish-mash of architectural styles and old-new contrasts. As an inveterate walker, I took the opportunity to wander this safe-feeling city in multiple directions.
My first outing on foot was not alone. Because my husband finally gave up his chance to join me on this trip, I signed onto a small group adventure and met the best strangers I could have ever found to spend three weeks with. On the very first evening, four of us decided to walk about 20 minutes to dinner. I slipped on the only pair of nice sandals I’d brought and set out into the humid night. The very humid night. The moisture in the air is the only explanation I have to explain how the 2-inch woven wedge heel on my left shoe separated from the sole and began to slap against the pavement, tenuously connected to the front of the shoe.
At the restaurant, I removed the offending thwapper altogether and kept it in hopes I could glue it back on at the hotel. Alas, no – as I left to hobble home after dinner, clumpity-clumping as if I had one much shorter leg, the right heel detached itself from the sole! That one I ripped off with little fanfare and tossed both woven wedges from my very favorite sandals into a garbage can on the street. The next afternoon’s foray into the city on my own was to find and purchase a replacement pair of sandals, and I had so much fun hunting around and then chatting with a charming salesgirl at a shop that I deemed my shoe disaster to be a lucky addition to my adventures in Hanoi.
Official sightseeing in Hanoi was hit or miss. We visited the Temple of Literature, whose raison d’être was commendable – built in 1070, it is dedicated to Confucius, sages and scholars, and the site of Vietnam’s first national university – but it just didn’t really grab my interest aesthetically, and our guide went on a little too long as we stood in the dusty grounds. It was still a fun visit as throngs of local high school students were taking their graduation photos there.
(Another side note: Vietnam’s literacy rate growth is seriously impressive. After WWII, about 5-10% of the population was literate; now it is over 95%, one of the highest rates in the world. By way of comparison, the U.S. literacy rate ranges from 79% to mid-80% depending on the source.)
Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum and home were similarly tedious, especially because we failed to go in the morning when we could have actually seen his body. I’m not particularly morbid and interested in corpses, but the stories about sending (or not; there is controversy) “Uncle Ho’s” body to Russia for refurbishment each year was just too sensational to ignore! The park and presidential palace were literal bright spots in an otherwise gray day. Without getting too far into political ideologies, it was also interesting to learn about Ho Chi Minh’s goals that transcended simple Communism, namely Vietnamese independence and the idea of blending Communism with nationalism, including his success in allowing markets to continue to flourish within the system.
The last touristy thing we saw was the most interesting – the Hỏa Lò Prison, aka the Hanoi Hilton. Many of us have heard so much about the American prisoners held there during the Vietnam War, but a number of fellow travelers and I were unaware that this famous prison was actually built by the French in the 1880s and used to imprison, abuse, and torture Vietnamese detainees. Left there in the brief period between French control and the war as a symbol of colonialist exploitation and the bitterness of the Vietnamese towards the French, it began a new life in 1967 when the North Vietnamese began using it to hold and similarly mistreat American servicemen. Needless to say, it was a depressing but eye-opening place to behold.
As is often the case, the parts of Hanoi I enjoyed most were the daily street scenes and experiences. One morning we walked in a local market with zero tourists and saw all kinds of strange produce and an even larger assortment of squirmy animal products.
We crammed into a coffeeshop for egg coffees, perching on tiny stools and sipping this odd but tasty combo. I so enjoyed seeing the industrious local ladies in what looked like silk PJs, pushing their carts and balancing their huge woven baskets on a pole throughout the old part of the city.
Another afternoon, I left the group and walked the mile around Hoàn Kiếm Lake in the historical center of the city. It was a brutally hot, humid, and smoggy day, but it was great to get in a brisk walk while watching local families and couples enjoy their city.
We ended our time in the capital with a fancy dinner in the French Quarter, the only really high-end meal we had on the trip. Housed in a restored French colonial villa, the restaurant served traditional Vietnamese cuisine and provided a calm oasis in the middle of this bustling city. It was a perfect last evening in Hanoi, itself a great introduction to Vietnam and Southeast Asia.