Our first day in Vietnam was spent in Hanoi. Hanoi is a lovely city. The old town, where we stayed, is filled with colonial architecture. The buildings are bright colors and are covered with balconies and elaborate woodwork and molding-- how refreshing to be in a city with no skyscrapers! The streets are shaded with trees, which I'm sure is a relief when the weather is hot. I'm not exactly sure what the temperature was in Hanoi, but it certainly felt much cooler and much less humid than in Bangkok. Like a lovely spring day rather than a boiling hot summer day. We hit the town after checking into our hotel and booking our trip to Halong Bay. Although Hanoi was our jumping off point for all of our side trips, this was really the only day that we would be able to experience it.
Our first stop was the lake. Hoan Kiem Lake is located in the heart of central Hanoi. When you come to the lake early in the morning (which I did) it is surrounded by older Vietnamese stretching and doing tai chi and other exercises. At night, the lake is lit up and couples, young and old, stroll around it. The trees are filled with glowing orbs and the lake itself is surrounded by what appear to be flashing, color shifting Christmas lights. I'm not sure if this was just for the 1000th Birthday of Hanoi (which happened this month) or if this is normal. The lake has two small islands with shrines/temples on them. One of them, Ngoc Son Temple, is accessible by bridge. We hopped across to the temple to take a better look. The island was wooded and pretty, the temple itself was nice but it is really the unique location that makes it a must see.
Next we headed to the Ho Chi Minh Museum. I have not been very impressed by the museums in Asia. Most of them have been a jumble of artifacts under poor lighting, but this museum was really well put together. It was filled with fascinating displays of photographs and artifacts from Ho Chi Minh's life along with a special exhibit on Ho Chi Minh's devotion to improving education in Vietnam. I didn't really know much of anything about Ho Chi Minh before going to Vietnam, so it was a pretty edifying experience.
After finishing the museum we toured the rest of the Ho Chi Minh complex. We saw the underwhelming one-pillar pagoda standing in a pool of disgusting water and then looped around to see the front of Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum. Normally you can go inside and see his preserved body, but the mausoleum is closed in the month of October. I'm fine with that... not a big fan of dead bodies. Near the mausoleum we saw the Presidential Palace and its grounds. We were able to walk past the stilt house Ho Chi Minh lived in for several years. I was pretty impressed that he lived so simply-- way to practice what you preach-- and then I saw the luxury cars in his garage.
Our last tourist stop on Day 1 was at the Temple of Literature, which was once the first university in Vietnam. Inside the compound there are beautiful temples and reflecting pools, all decked out for the 1000th birthday celebration. In particular I was fascinated by the giant turtle steles. These were giant stone tablets with big turtles on the bottom. On the tablets the names of doctors educated at the Temple of Literature are inscribed in Chinese characters. While in Vietnam I learned that the Vietnamese were ordered to use the Chinese language when the country was controlled by China. Rather than do that, they just began writing their own language with Chinese characters, which is why most temples and pagodas have Chinese writing on them. When the French colonized Vietnam they switched to writing Vietnamese in our alphabet.
As Hanoi was our home base for the trip I feel like I got to know the city fairly well. At night when we came home from tours we would wander around the old quarter, looking for restaurants to try. I particularly enjoyed Hanoi in the morning, when the city was just waking up and the air was still cool. The city is just so much calmer than Bangkok, even with the streets jammed with motorbikes. I also loved the crusty bread sold on the street corners. Bread is pretty easy to find in Thailand but it's not really eaten much by Thais. And when you do find it here, it isn't always that great.
On my last day in Hanoi I was able to visit Hoa Lo Prison, where John McCain was imprisoned during the Vietnam War. The museum was quite sobering. Most of the displays and information presented revolved around the terrible treatment of Vietnamese at the hands of the French. They even had an original guillotine (with pictures of several severed heads next to it... creepy). On the other hand, it seems like the Americans had a grand old time in prison! From the pictures I saw, they played basketball, celebrated Christmas, and joked around with their Vietnamese guards.
In short, Hanoi was just lovely and I'm glad that I was able to spend so much time there. In the next few days I'll blog about the other parts of my trip: Halong Bay, the Perfume Pagoda, and the Mai Chau Valley. You can see pictures of all of these things on my flickr.
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