February 4, 2015
Today we start exploring Hanoi with the help of our guide.
Our bus dropping us in the Old Quarters
Yesterday’s excitement with traffic takes on new dimensions today as we board a bus to navigate the narrow streets and traffic ‘rivers’, which we learned the locals refer to as organized chaos. We quickly learned that size does matter. The bus can go anywhere it fits and wants go. We visited three sites this morning: the Hoa Lo Prison, the Temple of Literature, and the Ho Chi Min Mausoleum.
Scaled model of original Hoa Lo Prison
Prison Quarters
Guillotine
The Hoa Lo Prison was built by the French following Napoleon’s decision to invade and hold Vietnam as a French Colony in the 1850’s. It was built to imprison, torture, and kill political prisoners. But-of-course, it included France’s preferred method of execution: the guillotine. Hmmmm, brings to mind a contemporary organization that is using a much more portable instrument…the saber. While they had separate compounds for female and male inmates, they did not distinguish when it came to torture or execution. During the American/Vietnam war, the prison held US pilots whose airplanes were shot down. The US airmen named it the Hanoi Hilton. One of the prisoners was John McCain. After it was shut down following the war, a large section was demolished in the 1990’s to make room for high-rise apartments. One side of the prison with the original walls, cells, and torture chambers, houses today’s prison museum. The government has orchestrated three take-aways to support the way they want to be viewed in today’s world: 1. The brutality of the French and the Vietnamese dictators they supported; 2. The bravery of the people of Hanoi in fighting and shooting down American warplanes, including ‘hundreds’ of B-52 bombers; 3. How humanely the American captive pilots were treated.
Van Mieu, Temple of Literature
List of Doctorates Awarded
Family Celebrating a Graduation
Celebrating a Degree
The Temple of Literature was founded around 1070 and dedicated to Confucius. It was the first University in Vietnam. It was originally used to educate the children of nobles, but later became a more open university. They awarded doctorates every year and ‘published’ the names and exam scores by engraving the successful candidates’ names on stone tablets, which were carried on the backs of stone turtles. Turtles are highly regarded in the Vietnamese culture for wisdom and longevity. Today, the grounds are used for many special occasions including graduations, weddings, etc. It was fun to see the crowds of people, carrying bouquets of flowers for a family member that just received his/her degree – very happy and proud. The Vietnamese value education very highly. They aspire to have all their children educated to the highest level possible. One family posed for us and asked Roselie to email the photos to them. It was fun to be surrounded by all this joy and pride.
Finally we went to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, which contains the embalmed body of the ‘father of Vietnam’s independence’ in a glass coffin. We just viewed the building and grounds from the outside. It was built-in 1975 and is modeled after Lenin’s Mausoleum in Russia. We did not go inside since it required tickets in advance and very long wait line to see the coffin.
The afternoon brought on yet other new adventures. First our guide took us on a walk through the Old Quarters of Hanoi. The streets are very narrow and teeming with people and scooters. We learned how to navigate these streets by forming a ‘sticky rice’ glob [10 of us], and then stepping into the traffic – confident in the theory that size matters. Magically, we got across safely. The Old Quarter is where everyone goes to buy anything they need, including daily trips to the open food market. The streets are organized and named after the type of products they sell. There is ‘Paper Street’, ‘Silk Street’, ‘Gold Street’, and so on. The rationalization is that if you are looking to buy a certain item, efficiency suggests that you find all the stores and vendors in one area – it works well.
Old Quarters Traffic
Old Quarter Food Market
Paper Street Shops
Property taxes are based on the street-front width of the building. So all the buildings are ‘tube buildings’ – as narrow as 10 feet wide, two to four stories high, and extending several hundred yards all the way to the next street. The multi-generation, owner-families live inside this tube. The rooms and apartments have no windows, no natural light. The building is passed on from generation to generation. When a building does go up for sale, it is at a price in excess of $50,000 for every 10 square feet.
As it was getting dark, we hired a rickshaw for a tour of other parts of the Old Quarters. What a fun ride! What strength of legs our driver had! We gave him a big tip. He dropped us off at the theatre to watch the infamous Water Puppet show. It featured puppets of dragons, soldiers, farmers, etc. acting out a Vietnamese peasant story, using a pool of water as the stage. We had not read up on the story, so while interesting, it was not impactful. It’s more of a tourist attraction than entertainment for locals. The audience was all tourists. I’m glad I saw it but it is not something I would see again.
Finally, a note about food: We all heard about the wonderful Vietnamese and French food. Our expectations were high. After two dinners at highly recommended restaurants, we are disappointed. We are not discouraged. We will continue to look, ‘cause we love to eat and taste new dishes – we just haven’t found the right key to unlock this chest of culinary delights. The quest goes on.
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