We’re in the Hanoi international airport ready to depart for Japan. All of my previous notes for Hanoi have disappeared and I’m not redoing all the research. So just big picture info follows.
HANOI - Evening Day 1
Arrived by coach after our day in Ha Long Bay. We did a brief orientation walk around the hotel’s neighborhood, bustling with people heading home and vendors ready to feed them.
Electricity is a bargain if you can tap into a central line.
Preparing meatballs
Batter-dipped deep fried banana. Excellent!
All of this activity takes place on the sidewalks, which are not used in quite the same way as in the states.
Their spontaneously convert into dense parking lots that divert pedestrians into the streets.
As do pop-up family breakfast gatherings
Crossing the street is not for the faint of heart, but the system is efficient and we didn’t see any accidents. Basically, you pick a place to cross, watch for a slight gap in the weaving scooter and car traffic and walk slowly but purposefully to the other side without worrying about the scooters zooming in front of and behind you. You don’t stop or you’ll mess things up. The scooters gauge your pace and maneuver accordingly. I took some videos. No single photo can do it justice. (I didn’t even look at them once I started as I’d have lost my nerve). Lanes seem to be suggestions for cars and meaningless for scooters, as well as preferred direction on one-way streets. The cooperation between cars and scooters is something to behold.
Mark had made reservations at the Michelin starred restaurant Tam Vi where we shared 7 dishes for a whopping $52. Was so good!
HANOI - Day 2
On the bus for a 6 hour city tour.
Ngoc Son Temple, a Confucian temple, sits on an island in Hoan Kiem Lan land in the center of Hanoi. It’s reached by a graceful red footbridge.
Calligraphy scribe in the anteroom.
Students (and their worried parents) come here to pray for success in exams. Offerings include carefully arranged tiers of bottled water, canned soda and melons.
Tried an egg coffee from its 1946 creator
Train street. Twice a day a narrow train chugs down the track giving cafe patrons a thrill
Mark climbing the stairs to a ceremonial building
The Museum of Ethnology celebrates the 54 ethnic groups recognized in Vietnam. There’s a nice collection of relocated houses from several different groups and an indoor collection of artifacts and photos.
The father of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh (or Uncle Ho as he’s affectionately known) died in 1969. His will stipulated that he be cremated and his ashes scattered in several places in Vietnam. However, the Party decided he should be placed in a mausoleum that could be visited, like Lenin. So here he lies.
The mausoleum is closed annually for a month or two for preservation purposes.
The small One Pillar Pagoda is a historic thousand-year-old temple built by a childless emperor who finally had a son. It’s a cultural and spiritual symbol of Hanoi.
Nearby was a temple to the Lady Buddha of Mercy
In the evening we went to a traditional water puppet performance.
Water puppets have 1,000 year old history. They first appeared in villages in the Red River Delta and evolved from peasant entertainment to royal performances.
The wooden puppets are painted in laquer and manipulated from behind a bamboo curtain using poles and strings. The puppeteers stand in waist high water throughout. Accompanied by musicians and singers, they enact traditional stories of legend, religion and myth.
The puppets swam, pulled pranks, fished, thwarted challenges - it was surprisingly entertaining and often laugh out loud funny.
HANOI - Day 3
Our Gate 1 tour ended last night, but we’re spending an extra day in Hanoi and flying to Tokyo on a short overnight flight. We took it easy, hitting a few remaining destinations and repacking Japan stuff into the cheapo small suitcases we picked up here so we can store our large suitcases at the Tokyo airport.
Hanoi Hilton - Hoa Lo Prison
The infamous and most fortified Indochine prison was built by French colonists in the late 1800s to hold Vietnamese political prisoners. After the French were defeated in 1954 the Vietnamese used it first as an education center and then from 1964-1974 to house captured American pilots. (Some were technicians or gunners, but all were considered pilots by the Vietnamese.)
Four fifths of the prison were demolished in the 1990s, replaced with the luxury hotel towering behind it today. The surviving portion was converted into the museum we saw today.
The original main gate.
Most of the museum recounts the harsh treatment of the Vietnam Ming by the French occupiers, but a couple rooms, a temporary special exhibit and an outside memorial address the 10 years of American POW imprisonment. The latter of course showed the Vietnamese perspective and heavy bombings that Hanoi was enduring. Their propaganda vs ours, but overall well done.
John McCain’s flight suit and parachute
The Hoa Lo Prison Memorial
Mark and I got massages here. I’m going to miss the economical and excellent southeast Asian massages. Two 90 minute massages with tip: $30
John McCain parachuted into Truc Bach lake near our hotel in October 1967. This monument, on the site of his capture, was originally intended to celebrate the Vietnamese victory. The monument has since been inscribed with information about McCain. After his death in 2018, both Vietnamese citizens and American ex-pats brought flowers to commemorate his post-war commitment to diplomacy, peacemaking and identifying and repatriating soldiers from both sides of the war.
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