Nick’s world tour

Welcome to communist Vietnam, and the frantic city of Ha Noi. Before and between trips out to Ha Long Bay and Sa Pa, I spent a few days in Hanoi, capital of Vietnam. It’s a big, noisy, busy city, but has loads of character (though many people disliked it quite strongly!) Though as the traffic never stops, crossing any six lane road requires nerves of steel and quite a bit of luck. “Just walk out into the road slowly, in front of oncoming traffic”, they say, “and it’ll avoid you”. It takes a bit of faith, but this generally does work.

First impressions of the country are that it is heavily influenced by Chinese culture, and appears very different from the other places in SE Asia I’ve been in so far.

I stayed in the Old Quarter of the city, near to the lake.

Every morning, people rise at about 5 am, and by 6 the “Good morning Vietnam” propaganda machine is in action blasting out messages and music across the city. It’s not the best way to be woken up, and distance from the loudspeakers influenced the place I moved to for subsequent nights! A lot of the more modern buildings look Russian and communist in style, and there are plenty of propaganda-style posters and hammer and sickle everywhere.

Van Mieu, the temple of Literature, was a university for mandarins. In one of the five courtyards are rock plates on the backs of tortoises listing all the graduates from 1442 onwards in ancient chinese script.

The Ho Chi Minh museum is modern and quite interesting.

As the name above the door suggests, it is a museum about the revolutionary leader of the country, and founder of the movement that became the Viet Cong in the war.

Some of the exhibits are, what I believe are called, “Conceptual art”. By which I mean they wouldn’t look out of place in the Tate gallery, and really make little sense.

 Nearby, is “Uncle Ho’s” mausoleum. Two of his wishes are that he shouldn’t be idolised and he wanted to be cremated. So in defience of these, he is on every bank note, they renamed the centre of Saigon as HCM city, and he is preserved and displayed for all to see between the hours of 7.30 and 10.30am everyday, for 9 months of the year…

Needless to say, I am never quite around in time to see the man, though I’m told he looks more like a Tussauds waxwork now.

There’s another museum about the tribal history of Vietnam, which filled a rainy afternoon. Though with 54 ethnic groups, each having their own displays, it did get a bit tiring.

The “World Famous Water Puppet Theatre” was just around the corner from my guest house so I thought I should go along.

As something to please big and small kids, it was interesting to watch.

Most evenings are spent eating noodles and rice, and moving from street bar to street bar as they are closed down by the police every evening!

(Especially for Craig, I put extra effort in that time to make it sound like it came straight from the guide book…)