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Published: August 7th 2007
Impressive wood
Carving on Giarai tomb, Museum of EthnologyHue->Hanoi was another train journey, mainly because it was the fastest option and was also the only choice that didn't include an overnight section. Lunch and dinner were the same insipid offerings as on the Ho Chi Minh City->Da Nang leg, but at least there were spare seats and the staff swept the train at frequent intervals (a necessary task as everyone simply threw their rubbish on the floor - a Southeast Asian trait).
Hanoi was rather warmer than I was hoping it would be, but it also brought some benefits such as the existence of Double Chocolate Milanos. The streets were completely crowded with traffic, with the Old Quarter being a health hazard in the extreme. I found this rather spoiled the atmosphere, as I'd been expecting a pedestrian-only warren of alleys offering a glimpse into Vietnam's past (as some of the streets have been home to shops selling the same types of goods for hundreds of years).
I visited the Military Museum, which covered the wars with France and the US, and contained hardware ranging from jet fighters to tanks to crossbows. It was ludicrously patriotic, with every North Vietnamese soldier a "hero" and everyone else the
"enemy" or "US aggressors" or "imperialists". Amusing captions included "Bowl used by army hero to refresh himself by drinking his own urine to keep on fighting" and, slightly unbelievably, "Each Polish citizen gave 250ml blood to the Vietnamese people". There was also a plaque detailing who was responsible for all the US aircraft shot down, broken down into categories that included "Militia women" and "Militia aged people".
This triumphalist tone contrasted with some of the images presented in the Museum of Ethnology, showing (presumably inadvertently) how the gradual weakening of the original hard-line communist doctrine has coincided with an increase in the country's prosperity. This museum was predominantly concerned with the different tribes living in Vietnam, and had some interesting buildings from a selection of these peoples. It also contained a special ruler for measuring pigs.
My 3rd Hanoi museum was that dedicated to Ho Chi Minh, whose overly reverential tone (the guide pamphlet constantly referred to "His" rather than "his") and weird exhibits (e.g. there was a reconstruction of a cave he'd lived in, but shaped like a human brain) were strangely compelling. I also visited the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, which involved a large amount of
queuing and security arrangements for less than 60 seconds in the mausoleum itself. Flanked by guards who made sure no-one dawdled, Uncle Ho lay in repose in a dark suit, looking (unsurprisingly) frail, in a glass chamber in a cold, simple room. To get this far, we had to leave our bags (but not our cameras) at one booth, our cameras at another, then afterwards picked up our cameras from a third before returning to the first to pick up our bags.
On the subject of cameras, my beloved FZ20 decided to finally give up the ghost so, with none of the latest Panasonics available in Hanoi, I chose a Canon S3 IS, which is usually considered as a rival in the superzoom category. I'll be interested to see just how it compares.
My favourite thing that I saw in Hanoi, which I suspect will be my favourite thing from Vietnam as a whole, was a display of water puppetry. This is a traditional Vietnamese art involving puppets moving in and on water, operated by a crew hidden behind a screen. Though the audience for the performance I attended was 99% tourists (and the legroom would have cramped
Stamps
Possibly not traditional a pygmy), the show was sufficiently different to anything I'd seen before to make me believe it really did have its roots in Vietnamese tradition. The puppets were ornate and colourful, and there was plenty of attention to detail (e.g. in one scene of a man fishing, at the side of the pool was a lotus flower with 2 butterflies hovering over it), humour (e.g. in a scene of a man guarding some ducks, a persistent cat finally caught one and was then chased up a tree by the irate man), and sheer impressiveness (e.g. 4 water dragons dancing and breathing fire) that the 40 minutes flew by.
Hanoi also saw me reunited with LA Woman after her trip to Sukhothai in Thailand to take part in a Thai New Year foreigner beauty pageant. A highly creditable 2nd place had been her reward, though accusations of rigged judging dogged the winner. Our plan was to get our China visas in Hanoi, but the rules had recently changed - a single-entry 3 month visa in 3-4 working days was no longer available, so we plumped for a single-entry 1 month visa in 6 working days, giving us time for trips
to Ha Long Bay and Ninh Binh (blogged separately).
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