Leaving Ha Long Bay and Haiphong behind us, we head due west to Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital city. Much like HCMC, it is the by-now expected array of insane and chaotic traffic, sprawling and labyrinthine streets and alleys, untold numbers of shops and eateries, both on the sidewalks and in small and cramped establishments. We headed to the Old Quarter, which is a blend of non-stop noise, honking of every imaginable vehicle, endless shops and intermittent small hotels, along with sidewalks that are unusable since 98% of them are covered with food stalls and motorbikes(parked or stopped). Our small hotel is an absolute oasis, since we are fortunate to have a “quiet” room at the back, and the staff is stellar. Looking out over the maze of rooftops below us, it becomes clear that the many long and narrow corridors that occur all over the Old Quarter actually lead to dwellings that have no direct street access. It’s a hidden city behind the street’s shop fronts.
The Old Quarter is literally seething with life. It’s an exhausting cacophany, but there is an irresistible edge to the madness. The streets are a visual assault. Commerce is everywhere. Hawkers, street vendors, pedestrians, all manner of vehicles mingle on the mosaic of streets. Ages ago each street had its own kind of goods, each run by one of the 36 guilds. Today the streets are still labeled Hang, which means merchandise, followed by what the traditional product of that street was. The names evoke wonderful images; there is Hang Gai(silk), Hang Bo(baskets), Hang Can(scales), Hang Chinh(jars) and dozens of others . Today the goods are more varied, and there are areas that clearly cater only to tourists. Here, too, crossing the street is an indispensable skill, but unlike HCMC there are more stoplights in Hanoi. Additionally, there are more police around, although many of them are blithely chatting as traffic swerves by.
We visit the huge area where Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum is, although the lines to get in are so incredibly long that we bow out, and instead check out the adjacent museum about his life, which is rather surreal, with all sorts of larger than life sculptures of all sorts of things, all highly symbolic, although as foreigners, we are not really privy to most of the meaning. The Vietnamese tourists tend to be older, some clearly directly off the land, and they are clearly awed. The younger Vietnamese breeze through the exhibits, and focus on taking preposterously posed pictures of themselves with their cell phones. Both sets travel in hordes. We exit the museum and find our way into the so-called Botanic Gardens. It’s basically a park with a nice pond and some quiet places to sit. It is true that Hanoi has substantially more green areas than HCMC, and from the garden we head towards another area with two large lakes, hoping to catch a view of one of Hanoi’s oldest pagodas. On our return we walk down an impressive avenue along which we find the Presidential Palace. As we’ve come to expect, we’re shooed away and told not to take photos by the severe looking military police—although it’s one of the most attractive buildings we’ve seen so far. Instead we stumble upon yet another of the Mausoleum complex entrances, a smallish museum set up in the area where Ho Chi MInh lived, worked and entertained officials, along with the amusing sign that says “Ho Chi Minh’s Used Cars”, meaning the cars he used.
We make our way to the Temple of Literature, the site of a university that was founded about 1000 years ago. It is separated into 5 distinct but connected courtyards, complete with ponds, gardens, and an interesting set of stelae on turtles that describe the contributions of many doctors at the university. A peaceful oasis in the midst of Hanoi’s madness.
We also spend a morning wandering around the “French Quarter”, which still has some of the more appealing buildings in the city, all anchored by the very European looking Opera House. Later in the afternoon we manage to get tickets to Hanoi’s Water Puppet Theatre, for what turns out to be a delightful program. Each vignette is explained in English, French and Vietnamese by a trio of narrator-musicians, and the stories vary from the creation of the Vietnamese people to courtship dances. The puppeteers are hidden behind a bamboo screen, and the puppets are brightly painted and seem to float on the water. At the end of the program the puppeteers come out and sing together, better showing how their art is actually performed. Most worthwhile.
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