Halong, Hanoi and Uncle Ho

A perceptive friend who's travelled extensively in Vietnam observed; "the whole country reminds me of one giant ant hill." That's a pretty apt description of many things in this country, the traffic in particular.

I arrived in Hanoi after a one night layover in Bangkok. I was much more prepared for Bangkok this time and really enjoyed it. Upon arrival at the Hanoi airport, I headed outside to hop in a cab. Immediately, things were different. A line of cab drivers greeted me with shouts of "Michael Jackson! Michael Jackson!" I quizzed the drivers to see who could name the most #1 hits from "Thriller" and the winner and I were off (he got 1, "Billie Jean.")

The Vietnamese have a different way of expressing themselves on the road. There are more than 7 motor bikes for every car in this country. In Hanoi, there are 200,000 cars and 1.5 million motorbikes. It also should be noted that the motor bike riders follow (and I can't stress this enough,) NO ROAD RULES AT ALL. The only means of communication between riders, drivers and pedestrians is incessant horn honking.

Honking a car horn here does not mean "get out of my way" or "I hate you" like it does in the U.S., it just means "here I am." Without it, (the logic must go) people would crash into each other constantly. As I was about to ask my driver why he was honking so much, he turned completely around (we were moving at about 40 mph on something that resembled an expressway) and told me he needed to make a phone call. "OK..." I said as he came to a dead stop and turned off the engine, without pulling out of the lane! There was no shoulder to the road and traffic zipped around us as though this was a perfectly normal occurence. I felt somewhat unsafe, but compared with what was to come, this was nothing.

As we reached Central Hanoi, the driver again turned completely around while we were moving. This time he was checking my reaction. This guy must be used to driving Westerners, because he got a good laugh at my open mouth gape. The streets were completely jam packed with 125 cc motorbikes. Visualize, if you will, the worst urban traffic jam you've ever seen. Now, take 95% of the cars and replace each one with 10 motor bikes. Now imagine the riders (usually 2 per bike, sometimes as many as 4) following no rules at all. No helmets, no street lights or stop signs anywhere, and many of the riders talking on their cell phones!

Your next question must be; "How would one cross such a street?" Well, you just go for it. One of the nice things about the motorbikes is that they are very maneuverable. Another is that the bikes are so small that the rider has great impetus to avoid hitting you. So you stand on a street corner, and in spite of better instinct, you just walk directly into the on-coming traffic. Incredibly, I've not yet seen anyone come close to getting hit.

In spite of the chaos in the streets (which you sort of get used to,) Hanoi is a lovely city. There are big lakes everywhere. The architecture is a nice mix of functional 3rd World dwellings and striking French Colonial strucutures. In fact, the French influence extends beyond the architecture into food (I wasn't expecting great quiche in Hanoi,) language (everything is written in French here) and of course, the war monuments.

The Old Quarter of Hanoi shows the juxtoposition of the French and Vietnamese cultures. The areas around the Cathedral and Opera House (both pictured) feel very European. Posh cafes and high fashion shops clash with the aggressive motorbike drivers and hole in the wall, locals-only restaurants.

After 2 days of wandering, I took a 3 day excursion out to Halong Bay. According to the Western news I'd seen, this whole area was shut down to tourists. Well, apparently no one told the people here about the terrifying "Bird Flu" pandemic. In fact, the whole thing is hardly in the papers at all. A few restaurants don't serve chicken to tourists, but that's about it.

Like Luang Prabang, Halong Bay is a UN "World Heritage Site." The skies were overcast the entire time I was there, but the scenery was still fantastic. There are over 2,000 rock formations and islands jutting out of the Gulf of Tonkin. Like my trekking tour in Chiang Mai, I was fortunate to be surrounded by a group of really great people on this tour. This group was made up of 6 Aussies, a New Zealander, a Frenchman, a hippie from Northern California and me.

We took meandering cruises through the bay, toured caves (one was beautiful and unadulterated, the other might as well have had escalators going through it.) and trekked in the hills. 3 days, including most meals, all accomodations (we stayed on the boat one night and the rooms were amazing,) a fantastic tour guide and transport to and from Hanoi cost a whopping $70.


When I returned to Hanoi, I set off to see the landmarks and museums. My first stop was Hoa Lo prison. This place is famous among Vietnamese as the prison used by the French to torture "Vietnamese Patriots." It's famous among Americans as the "Hanoi Hilton" that housed John McCain as well as other POWs.

The exhibits focus on their anger toward the French while extolling the virtues of the way the American POWs were treated while in the Vietnamese prison. The torture rooms and solitary confinement chambers used by the French are still intact. They even have two guillotines on display. On the other hand, American POWs are shown playing basketball, "receiving gifts" from their captors and eating feasts. There is even one caption that implies that the soldiers are so happy, they don't want to leave when the war is over.

In Hanoi, there is a massive complex devoted to Ho Chi Minh (his mausoleum is pictured.) Unfortunately, I missed seeing his body, which is available for public viewing. They send "Uncle Ho" to Moscow once a year for maintanence, so hopefully he'll still be in good shape if I ever come back.

On the other hand, nothing is embalmed in his museum, which is a good thing. The Ho Chi Minh museum is one of the most impressive tributes to any subject, that I've ever seen. Every display is a work of art. The theme is to show not only the resilience of the Vietnamese (who've fought the French, Americans, Chinese and Cambodians on their own soil since 1955) but the horrors of war.

My favorite display was one where they took anti-war art from Spain and made a sort of collage. They used many images from Picasso's "Guernica." It, like most of the museum, was very effective and really avoided a lot of the heavy handed propaganda you find in other exhibits here.

There are many, many images of "Uncle Ho" in Vietnam. Oddly, when set against a red backdrop, he looks just like Colonel Sanders. In fact there is a famous quote of an American pointing this out to a Vietnamese officer. The officer replied "No they are not alike. Uncle Ho was a General."

After a couple days of this, I decided to head south to see more of the war history. Hue, in Central Vietnam, was my first stop. More on that later.