Lets start with the traffic here. Its not "traffic" like traffic in Bangkok. Here I am talking about wide boulevards, bordered by three or four story shop houses stretching out all the way to the airport 45 minutes outside of town. Run down, but not dirty. The first thing I noticed about drivers here is the Hanoi Honk. Its a polite little honk, sounded at any potential juncture, to be interpreted across a wide variety of scenarios. For example, you honk to take a left, to take a right, to go straight. To make sure the one of a million motorcyclists is not caught unawares. You honk to say hi. In 45 minutes, our driver honked about 45 times.
But then again, he drives here and it makes sense to have ones wits about you. To err on the side of caution. To over-communicate even. You see these are the most egalitarian boulevards I have ever seen! Cars and motorcycles of course are to be expected. And bicycles too - no problem on the highway - in the middle lane even. In fact, two wheeled modes of transportation are even afforded extra accommodations it seems! Wrong way down a one way?Exiting on entrance ramps? No problem! Crossing a median to go the other direction, pulling out in dead of night into oncoming traffic? Eh, just a bit of a problem!
This place is a gem. None too shiny. Maybe one of those old ones with a rose cut. The old Hanoi Metropole is french and beautiful, it's belly fired with the hum of a good bar and jazz in the evenings. No hint of mega-malls encroaching. Kids, sitting on low-slung stools eating dinner, spilling out out of the open-fronted noodle shops and out into the street. And from what I can tell, these people are live in a very different frame of mind.
We started our day with a half-day tour of the city, guided by quite possibly the most ill-suited tour guide known to man (I would think to be a tour guide, you should like to talk). In half a day, we visited the Ho Chi Minh complex, the Hoa Lo Prison, the Temple of Literature and got noodles in Old Quarter. This feat of course was made easy by the sheer fact that our guide a) sprinted ahead of us, b) rushed us if we lingered and c) didn't explain anything.
What did glean, however, that people truly revere Ho Chi Minh. I think the only parallel I can draw is to how devout Catholics revere the Pope. He is the country's great liberator and man of culture. He sacrificed for his people (he never married). He lived a simple life (in a simple home built for him by his people). He predicted the end of the American War (before his death in '69). And against his dying wishes, his people embalmed him and put him on display, so that the South Vietnamese could pay their respects to him once their country was reunified. In fact this is still being done, as many Vietnamese consider it important to make the pilgrimage here to pay their respects before they die.
Now, I was not allowed to go see Uncle Ho due, I am told, to my "exposed armpits." Eh?? I did get to join up with a million school children from the countryside, and parade around and past the house he lived in. And I went into the Ho Chi Minh museum.
Being uninitiated, I thought the people would be hard pressed to fill a giant museum with the memorabilia of a single person, but fill it they did! With bronzes. With memorials. And my personal favorite, pictures of memorials in other places. Snapshot and inscription: "Uncle Ho in Budapest." "Uncle Ho in Moscow" "Uncle Ho in Hue."
The thing I don't get is despite being Communist, they get none of the free stuff. No free medicine. No free schooling. They do get to vote however, for the one guy the one party nominates for election. And all this we learn from our guide, without any sense of irony, sarcasm or incredulity. We are far from New York indeed.
My point is not that these people are backwards or a bunch of chumps. They have over 30 universities, for example. Their art market is thriving. There city had integrity. They are gracious hosts to the Americans and the swarms of French who come to visit, even while memorializing the scourge of the Imperialists in various museums like Hoa Lo prison.
Coined the Hanoi Hilton by the American fighter pilots captured during the Vietnam war, the museum made on the site of the Hoa Lo prison was as interesting as a set of historical facts, and as a living representation of their interpretation. Most of the museum memorialized the first hundred years of the prison's use, mostly by the French to imprison and tourture political insurgents leading up to and during the French War. There were several rooms dedicated to the brief period where they used the prison to house American POWs. These were filled with nice sweaters, cigarettes, an example of an American "Begging Card," campy pictures of pilots feasting, decorating a Christmas tree, opening packages from home. They even displayed John McCain's flight suit in full regalia. All very weird. And weirder still, despite this place being dark, dank, and completely outdated, the prison continued to be used until 1993.
We then went to the Temple of Literature, which was founded in the 11th century by the Mandarin Royal Court. It was pretty, it was dedicated to Confucius, it was the first university in Vietnam. Wish I could tell you more - that's about all I could get out of our guide.
After a busy morning, we got ourselves a lovely $2.50 meal of beer and
steaming Bun Bo Nam Bo. Wheat noodles, sour beef, bean sprouts, peanuts and lime. Good stuff. Real good stuff. I am happy to report, that "Fancy Food" is back in full swing.
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