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Published: June 27th 2009
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On Sunday 21st June we checked out of the Sports Hotel and walked a couple of streets away to Classic 1 Hotel where we would meet the rest of the group on our program. The tour organiser had already booked rooms for us and Amy was in a girls dorm while I was in with two other guys. We went to our respective rooms and met the only two other people who had arrived, Doug and another Amy. After introductions we decided to head out to City View Cafe for a cold drink and to get to know each other.
By the time we got back a few more people had arrived and when 6pm rolled round our guide met us in the lobby of the hotel for dinner. His Vietnamese name is pronounced Zan but I'm afraid I'm not sure how to spell it! He suggested we call him Andy anyway as it is easier for us to remember.
Andy led us to a local restaurant where we had some simple Vietnamese food (rice, grilled chicken, noodles) and got to know each other a bit better. After dinner we went to a cool bar called Hair of the
Dog where we had a few deliciously cold Hanoi Beers and a couple of the guys played some pool. Then we went to "beer corner" for some ultra cheap bia hoi (draught beer). I had heard stories of the ludicrously cheap beer on offer in Vietnam but when we got to beer corner which was just plastic stools set up on the pavement in front of a shop with a keg of beer on a table and ordered a half pint for 3,000 dong (just 10p!!!) I was still shocked. Ok, the beer wasn't exactly great quality but when you can get ten of them for a pound who cares?! We had a few beers each before heading back to the hotel.
When we arrived back the last few stragglers on our course were arriving from late flights so I led them back out to a beer corner, although we chose a different shop with slightly nicer beer (still only 3,000 dong though), to say hello and chat for another couple of hours.
The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel before Andy led us to a bus stop in town to catch a local bus to
The Temple of Literature. When the bus pulled in all 17 of us boarded the surprisingly nice and cool bus, much to the bemusement of the few locals already on board. The Temple of Literature is a Confucian temple and served as Vietnam's first university, functioning from 1076 to 1779. The university was established to educate Vietnam's elite and the exams were famous for being extremely difficult. Only 2,313 students graduated in the 700 years the university was open and all of their names are engraved on plaques within the grounds. We walked around the temple and learnt a little about Conficius and the history of the temple before watching some traditional Vietnamese music being performed in one of the halls on some bizarre instruments including a huge vertical xylophone, a woodwind flute that you clap near to create a sound and a cool looking square guitar. We got a couple of videos that you can check out here:
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That afternoon we went back to the hotel to have a quick run through of all the things we would be doing on the course before heading out for some dinner in the same restaurant as
before. After dinner we went to see some traditional Vietnamese water puppetry. This ancient art form originated in the 11th century in northern Vietnam and was performed by villagers in the flooded rice fields. Puppets are made from wood, then lacquered and attached to rods that are put under water. The puppeteers hide behind screens and the show is performed to music. The origns of water puppetry were apparently a combination of entertainment and appeasment of the spirits that the ancient Vietnamese believed in, as some still do. The scenes are all based around traditional life and folklore. The scenes we saw included "Unicorns playing with a ball", "Fishing", "Agriculture" and "Dance of the Fairies". We got a short video of the agriculture scene that you can see here:
The performance was actually really cool and the theatre (around the size of The Shepherd's Bush Academy in London!) was packed, mostly with locals although there were a few other backpackers scattered throughout the audience. The show lasted for an hour and then we went for a few beers at a bar called Legends, a couple of floors below City View Cafe in the same building.
The
next day brought one of the more surreal experiences of our trip so far. Ho Chi Minh was a communist revolutionary who led Vietnam from 1945 to 1969 and liberated the country from French rule. He also instigated the Democratic Republic of Vietnam movement that led to the Vietnamese American War and is viewed as a figurehead of Vietnamese pride and power, particularly in the north. When the American backed southern Vietnamese city of Saigon fell in 1975 the city was renamed Ho Chi Minh city in his honour. I'm not sure how the anti-communist south Vietnamese feel about this, hopefully I'll gain some insight into this when we get there in about six weeks time.
When Ho Chi Minh died his body was preserved and in 1973 a Mausoleum was built, inspired by Lenin's Mausoleum in Moscow but with Vietnamese influences. His body lies in the cooled central hall under strict military guard. On Tuesday morning we got another local bus to the grounds of the mausoleum. We had been told to dress repectfully and that nobody would be allowed in without long trousers and tops that came to the elbow, not ideal clothing in Hanoi's current heatwave
- the mercury had hit 47 celsius the previous day!
When we arrived at the entrance we were told we had to check all bags into a locker before proceeding to a security checkpoint. Once there we were made to walk through airport style metal detectors and have any belongings in our pockets scanned for any hidden objects. Everything that was passed as ok was then put into red bags that then had to be taken to a third checkpoint. Here another set of guards checked all cameras, presumably for any explosives or other hidden weapons before suspiciously handing them back to us and ushering us on our way. We walked in strict single file through the attractive grounds, past a musuem dedicated to Ho Chi Minh, to the entrance of the mausoleum under the watchful eye of the heavily armed soldiers. When we arrived at the entrance the we were sternly told to be silent and led down a red carpet to the door. The carpet stretched upstairs to the viewing hall and the whole path was lined with frankly terrifying looking soldiers who scanned our every move. Inside, the carpet snaked around the intensely eerie glass case
that contained Ho Chi Minh's embalmed body and we all slowly filed past in silence. At one point I paused to look at the body from particular angle but as soon as I stopped a guard pushed me onwards so I continued around the case. His body is in incredible condition with details such as fingernails and his famous beard all perfectly intact. In fact, he looks like he is simply sleeping. There are rumours that the body is actually a fake and the prisine condition of his body and strict ban on photos certainly didn't dispell any suspicion in my mind. Either way it was an incredible experience, as much for the almost caricatured communist strictness of the whole episode as for the viewing of the body itself. An amusing irony that we found out about afterwards was that Ho Chi Minh had actually written in his will that he was to be cremated and his ashes scattered over Vietnam so the "honour" of the mausoleum was actually against his dying wishes.
When we left the mausoleum we walked to a famous pagoda called One Pillar Pagoda. Along with The Perfume Pagoda it is considered one of the
most iconic pagodas of Vietnam and we lit some incence before climbing the steps to offer some lit incence to the Buddha statue at the top.
When we got back to the hotel we all packed our bags before boarding a bus for a three hour journey to Ninh Binh province for the next part of our program.
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