They call Hanoi the Paris of the East. I don’t know who “they” are, and I don’t know what the hell that means. It was a running joke between Dad and me, though, and anytime Hanoi charmed us, which it did often, we would look at one another and repeat the mantra: you know it is the Paris of the East. Hanoi is one of those cities that feel significantly smaller than it actually is. With a population of about 5 million, it is the second biggest city in Vietnam at only about half the size of Saigon. The charm, beauty, and comfortable feel of the old quarter make it feel even smaller. Despite the manageable size, it remains a bustling city that bursts with life; Hanoi is an easy, pleasant place to seamlessly slip into.
We arrived on a Saturday afternoon, with Mom set to arrive Sunday. Rebecca and I left Lillie and Dad to enjoy spring rolls and Beer Hanoi, and we set off to find lodging. We came back a few minutes later with big grins on our faces, as we found a hostel willing to give us an 8-bed room to ourselves. Thus, my lifelong goal to share a room in Hanoi with my parents in bunk beds was realized. And I’m quite sure they wanted nothing more, after a week or so apart, than to share that bunkroom with their kids. Am I right? Right? Mom, Dad, you there? Who wants top bunk!!
We had a fairly quiet first evening in Hanoi, content to soak in the comfortable feel of the narrow streets buzzing with motorbikes, pedestrians, and tourists alike. We were a couple blocks off of Hoan Kiem, a good sized lake that hummed with activity and shone with brightly colored lights when the sun went down. All of us immediately fell for the charms of the old city, which is very tourist-friendly—most of the sights, restaurants, and museums are no more than a few minutes’ walk away. We all slept well in our bunk beds, one story off the street below.
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| Mullets... |
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| More mullets?!? |
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| ROLLERBLADES! Holy mackeral, Doc, what year is this?!? |
The next morning we headed out to explore the Ho Chi Minh museum and complex. We strolled out of the old quarter and into central Hanoi, where the streets were wider, the blocks longer, and the motorbikes faster.
When we reached the museum itself, we were disappointed to learn that the mausoleum, usually providing a home to the preserved body of Ho Chi Minh, was empty for the late leader’s annual visit to Moscow. He goes there every fall to partake in the preservation techniques the Russians use on Lenin, and to give Russian visitors a chance to pay their respects.
The Ho Chi Minh museum is a large, modern, well-done remembrance of “Uncle Ho,” the fight for Vietnamese independence, and the industrialization and modernization of the country in the latter 20th century. The best exhibit (which I believe was temporary) featured the works of Wilfred Burchett, an Australian journalist who began spending his time in Vietnam in the early 1950s, and developed a close professional relationship with Ho Chi Minh. Burchett painted a portrait of Ho that few Americans would see, of a man with a singular vision of independence and self-determination for Vietnam. He describes first meeting Ho in the jungles of North Vietnam in March of 1954, shortly before the Vietnamese drove the French from Dien Bien Phu. Burchett describes approaching the jungle camp, where the canopy above was so thick and the camp so camouflaged within the surroundings that no helicopter, even hovering a few meters above the canopy, would ever see anything. He describes the way the unassuming Ho presented himself, always warm, always kind always hospitable. Burchett would come to spend quite a bit of time with the man. On this first meeting, Ho was describing the stalemate with the French, who had fortified their base at Dien Bien Phu:
"'This is Dien Bien Phu,' he said and tipped his sun-helmet upside down on the table. 'Here are mountains,' and his slim, strong fingers traced the outside rim of the helmet, 'and that's where we are too. Down here,' and his fist plunged to the bottom of the helmet, 'is the valley of Dien Bien Phu. There are the French. They can't get out. It may take a long time, but they can't get out,' he repeated. And that was the battle of Dien Bien Phu in a sun-helmet."
The exhibit showed two very opposing views of the conflict at the time: that which was reported by Burchett and the Pro-North media outlets, and that which was reported in various U.S. publications. The angles and slant of the respective reporting nearly portrayed two different wars entirely. The American publications focused on American losses and a strong working relationship with the South Vietnamese.
Burchett’s reporting, on the other hand, centered on Ho Chi Minh and his fight for independence. He had spent his life, from a teenager even, preparing for a lifetime fight for independence from western control. His ideals were very American in nature: self-determination, freedom from imperialist rule, autonomy for his homeland. They were the very liberties that were fought for some 200 years earlier in the future-United States. He even co-opted the opening words of the Declaration of Independence into his own writings. His faith and beliefs rested on the strength, pride, and determination of the Vietnamese people, and he never strayed too far from those beliefs, or the people themselves.
While touring the exhibition it was hard not to think of Chi Mai, feeling the same motivations and fighting the same battles, a woman soldier for Uncle Ho, following in her father’s footsteps. One of the most powerful pieces in the museum was an excerpt from an article about the role women played in the war, about the new responsibilities undertaken by them. Women embraced roles as labor force, farm and factory managers, doctors, nurses and combatants. As in many of the pieces in the museum, the excerpt was rich with the pride the Vietnamese feel for their people, their country, and their cause. Chi Mai was one of those women, a revolutionary long before that article, long before it was common for women or men.
It was hard not to identify with and respect the point of view of the North, and the purity of the goal Ho Chi Minh sought. One circuits the museum and comes away with pain and a deep regret that so much blood was shed on both sides. I was nine years old when the Berlin Wall came down. I don’t personally remember the Cold War, and I have no idea what it was like living in America in the mid-20th century with the views of Communism that were espoused by so many. Thus, I visited that museum in Hanoi with very little in the way of preconception or prejudice. But I took two major things away from the museum that day. One, by all accounts, Ho Chi Minh was one of the great leaders of the century: committed, kind, wise, generous, beloved, and humble. He spent his life among the peasants, he apparently never let power and wealth corrupt him, and his driving goal was independence for his homeland. And, like any revolutionary leader, he probably has blood on his hands. And two, the determination of the People’s Army and the North Vietnamese to expel foreign powers from their soil was total and complete. The North was not going to lose that war easily, because they would not ever give up. They believed they were fighting for their country: not an ideology, or a belief, or a cause, but their very homes. What I don’t have a grasp of, and what was obviously not covered in the Ho Chi Minh museum, is the strength of the South Vietnamese government, the wishes of those people, and the independence of thought and political process in Saigon, along with its relationship with the Americans. That is another history course I would love to take. What is certain, however, is that Vietnam is a country with a fascinating recent history, one obviously intertwined with that of my own country, and that history was the focus of much of our conversation with each other and the Vietnamese we met during our travels there.
We all left the museum and greeted the hot mid-day sun in central Hanoi, a bit dazed from our trip to the museum. After walking and talking for a bit, we took Dad to the food street just west of the old quarter to get Bun Cha. Bun Cha was one of the unanimous favorites of the Vietnamese dishes we tried. You get a plate of noodles, a basket of herbs, and a bowl of broth with fire-roasted pork patties in it. The broth tastes sweet and spicy, and you take the noodles, the herbs, garlic vinegar and hot pepper sauce and mix it all together. Then, you take the chopsticks and try to eat it. After that fails, you take the spoon and eat it. It is lovely. The only problem with the Bun Cha was that we could not find it on our motorbike trip, and every time we stopped for a meal of pho (they eat a LOT of pho in Vietnam) Lillie would become crestfallen and look longingly at the bowl of pho, wishing it were Bun Cha. It was tragic.
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| This was one of the larger dogs we saw in Vietnam. |
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| The Old Quarter |
We sent Dad to the airport to get Mom, and we went to find a place to rent our motorbikes for the trip. We went with 125 cc Honda Futures, one for each of the five of us. I assured Lillie and Rebecca that we would want the extra horsepower for the mountains up north. We probably didn’t really need it, but they are more fun. We were all very excited, as we would leave the next morning. We had been wrestling with doing the North-Central area of Vietnam, which Lillie had done alone the year before, or the more famous and traveled Northwest Loop, which wound through Son La and then Sapa. Because of time, our desire to see Sapa, and our ardent desire to avoid buses (which we would have had to take to get up to Ha Xiang in the north-central part), we went with the latter.
After securing our motorbikes with a down-payment, we returned to the hostel to wait for Mom and Dad to return from the airport. We were all ecstatic about her arrival, especially after her delays in Raleigh, Houston, and San Francisco had increased her travel time by a day or so. I’m quite sure everyone in the hostel thought the family on the second floor was crazy when Mom walked in. Lillie, Mom and Rebecca were half-screaming with joyful crying (Mom never has been reserved with emoting has she?), and Dad and I were pretty happy too. Although, it is unclear whether Rebecca was excited about seeing Mom or the box of red wine she carried (her first wine in a month and a half). Either way, everyone was very happy, and we had an evening and dinner where we were all walking on clouds, we were so excited to be together. We missed the hell out of Caroline and the big man though (and Julian, Sue, Jacob, Sarah and Lucas for that matter. They never seemed to take us to seriously when we tried to talk them into joining us for part of the trip. Julian always laughed as if to say, I really want to come to South America and stay in a dirty, cramped bunkroom in a hostel with the two of you and eat rice, but, uh, I’m not sure we have the time).
We had a great dinner that night in honor of Mom’s arrival, one of those places where Rebecca and Lillie and I feel out of place. Beautiful courtyard inside the door, place to store your shoes, hot towels at the table before dinner, the works. The kind of place that makes you remember how long it’s been since you’ve done laundry (or showered, or changed clothes). The food was great though, and we all went to bed happy, and perhaps a little nervous about the start of our tour through northwestern Vietnam the next day. On motorbikes. That we were driving ourselves.
It’s going to be great…
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