The best-laid plans...
As we were in the taxi headed
to the airport during our aborted departure last night, I remarked about the
fact that, though I didn't find Hanoi "attractive" in any normal
sense, I was going to miss it. Thanks
to super typhoon Haiyan, which is currently devastating the Philippines and
barreling toward central Vietnam with no diminution of strength, we have once
again changed our plans. We were
supposed to have been in Hue two nights and then moved down the coast a bit to
Hoi An for two more. Those two cities
are directly in the path of Haiyan, which is expected to strike the coast late
this weekend. Given the fact that we
were to fly out of that area, from Danang to Saigon on Sunday, we decided this
morning to forgo Hue and Hoi An entirely, stay here in Hanoi one more day, and
head to Saigon tomorrow. Accordingly, we
contacted our Vietnamese travel agent again this morning and asked her to work
on the necessary arrangements. While we
are very disappointed that we'll be missing two places we very much wanted to
see, we'd rather live to finish this trip and plan a possible return! I guess the bottom line is, we weren't dying
to get there!
So, we were on our own today,
and it was spent as we typically travel on our own. We chose a few things we wanted to see, a
couple of directions to wander, and we were off! First off, we went around the corner to the
Catholic Cathedral, which we'd been unable to enter a couple of days ago. This morning after wading through joyously,
boisterously happy preschoolers at play (eager to say "hello," they
swarmed around us), we found the back door and paid a visit. Then, it was on to the Buddhist pagoda down
the block, the same place we'd witnessed an evening service a couple of nights
ago.
Through the chaotic streets of
the Old Town and beyond, we wandered. At
one point, along Embassy Row, we were stunned to reach an intersection of
several streets where all traffic was stopped and the usual cacophony of Hanoi
streets totally ceased; it was absolutely, totally silent! There were police stationed multiple points to ensure that no one moved,
revved their engines, or thought subversive thoughts as a caravan of government
vehicles (identifiable by blue, rather than white license plates) proceeded
along Dien Bien Phu Avenue. Once the
signal was given, the uproar resumed -- amazing!
After a rest in a park
dominated by a statue of Lenin, we began to wander with a purpose -- lunch! We came upon a place that I'd read about a
couple of nights ago, but decided was too chancy for our stomachs. I guess we've grown up, because we plunged
right in. The sight of Tom on a
toddler-sized stool, at a midget-height table, under
a ceiling that was almost too low for Mary Ellen, with used napkins and discarded
green leaf food wrappers strewn on the floor was priceless! Lunch was great, cheap and, so far, our GI
systems haven't batted an eye.
After lunch, we headed to the
former An Loc prison, now a museum. The
prison was first used by the occupying French, Japanese, and French again to
punish Vietnamese political prisoners.
It came to notoriety for Americans during our war here as the
"Hanoi Hilton," where captured US pilots ("shot down by the
Vietnamese people") were held. The
propaganda is heavy-handed, with much space and description given to the brutal
treatment of Vietnamese by their occupiers -- horrific, to be sure. But, when it came to the treatment of
American pilots, though, there was evidently nothing but the most humane
treatment. The photographic displays and
written descriptions left no doubt that this was the happiest group of guys to
be found outside a frat house; given the recreational opportunities, the
Christmas celebrations, the health care, the bonds formed with their captors, one
can only imagine how difficult it was for them to leave it all and return
home!
Back to the streets for a dose
of reality, and we headed back to the Old Town in search of the Memorial House,
a museum dedicated to a traditional Hanoi house. It's being gutted and renovated, but we did
happen upon a traditional communal house, once the center of silver craftsmen,
and now preserved as an example of historical Hanoi commerce, domestic, and
religious courtyard structures.
We used our Trip Advisor app,
as we have each night here, to find a place close to our hotel for dinner. Each time, we've been pleased to find
ourselves in a small, authentic (or so it's seemed), CHEAP restaurant with good
Vietnamese dishes. (Tonight’s was not
the best-Tom)
Some thoughts on Hanoi:
-Life is lived on the
streets. Food is cooked and eaten. Old ladies sit and watch the passing
scene. Shops display their wares. Little children play. Happy hour goes on all day.
-Motorcycles rule. They rush like a river through the
streets. The sidewalks are largely set
aside as parking areas for them, driving pedestrians out into the streets to do
battle with them there. (The streets have three contending participants, the
cars, the motorbikes/cycles and the people. There is little room to walk on
sidewalks because of parked motorcycles and businesses so you end up walking in
the street but unlike the others, you don’t have a horn. It tends to get the
blood pumping.-Tom)
-Despite first appearances, the
Old Town is quite organized. The
original historic system of designated streets for each craft guild has evolved
into concentrated blocks of like shops.
Metal, silk, toys, tools, shoes, bamboo, glass, paint, party goods,
sunglasses, locks, tropical fish, clothes, leather goods, flowers, spices,
safes, bathroom fixtures -- you name it, it has its own conglomeration of
open-air storefronts, some of them also home to the craftsmen who create the
goods, on the street, of course!
-There's a temple or pagoda on
every block, or so it seems. They're
often tucked away behind a gated wall and they offer a series of oases steps
away from the crush of the city.
Spending an unplanned extra day
here turned out to be a good thing!
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