by John Thomson
I landed in Hanoi with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation. I’m a history buff; I knew the settlement was prehistoric and I wanted to learn about Hanoi’s transition from a fiefdom to a communist state and lately, to a rudimentary form of capitalism. But I was also nervous. It was 40 years after the end of the Vietnam War, or what the Vietnamese call the American War, and I must confess I was worried about any residual resentment the Vietnamese might harbour towards the West. We Canadians are similar to Americans. We look the same, eat the same foods and share a common language. In the eyes of the world, we are virtually indistinguishable from each other and as a North American, I felt conspicuous dropping into a capital city that had once been bombed.
Noi Bai International Airport was not particularly welcoming. My wife and I were whisked into a cold, grey, concrete outbuilding where we presented our passports to dour, unflinching officials and then to another counter where we paid 25 U.S. dollars each to get our visas stamped. I wanted to question the surtax but we pressed on.
A 45-minute taxi ride from the airport took us to the Ba Dinh district, one of several prescribed tourist districts in the city and dropped us off at our hotel, the Hong Ngoc Cochinchine, an older but well-maintained establishment in a neighborhood loaded with English speaking merchants, lots of ATMs and a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet. It was close to the prescribed sights, the Opera House, Bach Ma Temple and of course the Old Quarter. The friendly matron at the front desk greeted us in English but she could also converse in French. In fact we heard a lot of French during our stay.
Dinner time was particularly cacophonous. The tables were close together and I overheard a gaggle of French tourists discussing their day. No surprise there. But German? I struck up a conversation with the nearby table. Peter Wolff was from Berlin and his daughter Natalie was from Wellington, New Zealand. They had agreed to meet halfway between the two in Hanoi but Peter had another reason for visiting Vietnam’s capital city. “My Dad remembers collecting bottles for Vietnam,” said Natalie referring to the decade after Vietnam’s reunification in 1975 when Berlin was in East Germany and Vietnam had an economic relationship with the Soviet bloc. Peter wanted to see Hanoi for himself. His impressions? “Vietnam doesn’t think of itself as a third world country,” he said, impressed with its positive, let’s get on with it attitude.
Truong Tran, the English-speaking manager of a nearby restaurant, Hanoi Fusion, elaborated as we dined sumptuously on stuffed squid and eggplant. Tran was finishing his commerce degree while running the family business. He told us his countrymen were very proud of what they had accomplished since the War ended in 1975. “When they see an opportunity, they take advantage of it,” he said. “The Vietnamese nature is to be happy, cheerful and upbeat,” he continued. “Content but not complacent.”
Hanoi is a city of contrasts. On one hand, we saw leafy boulevards and opulent mansions. Hoan Kiem Lake is literally a sea of tranquility smack dab in the city core. A pagoda, Ngoc Son Temple, sits on an island in the middle of the lake. It’s a peaceful refuge. Turning a corner reveals another side of the metropolis, dense Hanoi with tall, skinny structures fighting for space while thousands of scooters and motorbikes buzz about town.
Walking revealed another facet of Hanoi life; whether it’s conducting business, entertaining friends or eating meals, everything happens on the sidewalk. Hanoi is an outdoor society. It’s also been called “a plastic chair society” because the locals sit on small plastic chairs – the kind you get in toy stores – accompanied by stubby, truncated tables. We passed families cooking the evening meal on curbside braziers while Hanoi youth congregated in the many outdoor cafes, hunched over their smart phones, addicted to western music and fashion.
That entrepreneurial, let’s get on with it attitude came to the fore in the Old Quarter. Sandwiched between Hoan Kiem Lake and the Red River, the Old Quarter is Hanoi’s historic shopping district. Originally it was a maze of 36 streets, each one named after the good or service being offered. The jewellery street sold jewellery; the silk street sold silks. Today the area has expanded to more than 50 streets but Hang Dau, the Street of Shoes, still stands out. “Oh my God,” gushed the teenaged street vendor as my wife and I walked along the Street of Shoes. “It’s embarrassing,” he said as he pointed to my wife’s well-worn sandals. True, the sole looked like it was going to come off and the vendor, who had followed us for half a block with his toolkit in hand, was more than willing to do the repair. Now. At this very moment. And then as suddenly as it began the encounter was over. He flitted away, spying another tourist no doubt, waving us a fond adieu. “Have a nice day” he shouted as he vanished from sight as quickly as he appeared.
We tackled the Military History Museum next. This was the exhibit I was nervous about because I expected a jingoistic diatribe against the United States. The outdoor concourse was filled with captured American warplanes. The centrepiece was an obelisk fashioned out of the wreckage of a B-52 bomber. Was this setting the tone? Suddenly a column of schoolchildren filed past us on their way to an interior gallery. “Hello” they chanted in unison, anxious to practice their English, Vietnam’s second language after the fall of Vietnam’s economic partner, the Soviet Union, in 1991. “Xin chào” we replied in Vietnamese. Inside, homemade weaponry and dioramas showcased Vietnam’s conflict with both France and America. Thankfully, the propaganda was toned down. Instead much was made about homegrown ingenuity and persistence, the point being Vietnam had endured centuries of conflict and it always would.
By week’s end, we had acclimatized to the humidity, the congestion and yes, the people. Leaving the hotel at dawn one day to take advantage of the cool morning air we stumbled into a residential enclave bordering Truc Bach Lake. The community was just getting up. Families were eating their breakfasts on the sidewalk at those ubiquitous stubby tables and plastic chairs. “Hello,” children yelled to us as we passed by. “Xin chào” we replied. We passed a group of men doing morning exercises in the communal park. One man was pulling himself up on parallel bars and I asked him if I could take his picture. He flexed his bicep and gave me a huge smile. Surprisingly, the camera seemed to draw people to us rather than scare them away. A young mother squatting on the stoop of her apartment wanted me to take a picture of her child. Her child, no more than four, formed the peace sign with her fingers. An older child, playing by herself on the sidewalk, followed her example by flashing us the peace sign too.
Hanoi is a young city, half the population is under the age of 35 and as our Vietnamese friend Truong Tran, the manager of the nearby eatery, pointed out his millennial friends are too young to remember the American War. Or to care. The young made us feel welcome. They were open and friendly and curious.
Make no mistake; Vietnam is a one-party state. Dissent is not encouraged. It is not an ideal situation. There’s poverty, pollution and a ramshackle infrastructure but there’s also optimism, enterprise and an easy going give-and-take vibe that, for me, can be illustrated in the simple act of crossing the street. Since there are few controlled crosswalks in Hanoi and the locals don’t stop for pedestrians, getting to the other side required good timing and a stiff resolve. The trick was to look for a break in the traffic and walk slowly and confidently into the stream while looking the driver straight in the eye. It worked. Nobody cared if we were Canadian, American or whatever. Scooters and motorbikes gracefully swerved around us. We had miraculously melded into the rhythm of the street. Mission accomplished; my curiosity had been satisfied and my trepidation squelched.
If You Go:
There are no direct flights from Vancouver to Hanoi. BC travelers must connect through Europe, China, Australia or Indonesia. We travelled from Vancouver to Hong Kong via Cathay Pacific with a connecting flight to Hanoi via Dragonair.
Hanoi is awash in over 500 hotels, from the opulent to the perfunctory. The Hong Ngoc Cochinchine at CDN$55.00 a night came with free Internet and air conditioning. The legendary Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi can be yours for Cdn$400.00; the nearby Hilton Hanoi Opera costs CDN$200.00 a night.
The local currency is expressed in dong. For rapid calculations we reckoned on 20,000 dong to the Canadian dollar. Large 50,000, 500,000 and 1 million dong notes are commonplace.
Vietnamese food is phenomenal, a mixture of French, Thai and Chinese influences tempered with their own unique blend of herbs and spices. A simple, rice noodle soup called pho (pronounced fah) is the staple.
John Thomson was trained in television news and current affairs and although his work took him around Canada and the United States, he never made it to Vietnam. It was too far away, too dangerous or too expensive. Now that the country is once again part of the global community he felt it was time to see Vietnam for himself. Mr. Thomson’s current stories, other places and other issues, can be seen on his Woodfall Media page.
Photo credits:
Hanoi street food market by Daderot under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
All other photos by John Thomson:
- Central Hanoi, Hoan Kiem District
- Ba Dinh Street Vendor
- Ba Dinh Street Cooks
- Old Quarter Street of Shoes
- War Museum Concourse
- Lunchtime in Hanoi
Our next stop was a traditional courtyard house, built to accommodate the many members of a traditional extended family. This was a large sprawling house, a maze which seemed to contain at least three courtyards each surrounded by long, low buildings containing various storage, sleeping and common rooms.
“Look at these children,” said the guide. “They are smiling and mischievous. They are normal, happy human beings. Now look at these same children a few years later, how sad and serious they are. Before, they were individuals. They all dressed differently and wore bright colours. Now they are soldiers of Mao. They are all dressed the same. See how sad they look!”
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Chandni chowk is also home to the representations of the different religions in India. The imposing and gorgeous Mughal era Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in India looms over the hustle and bustle of the market while the Fatehpuri Masjid, another Mughal mosque is on the other end. Nearby are the Gurudwara Sis Ganj, the Sikh temple established in 1783, the 16th century Digambara Jain temple and the Gauri Shankar Hindu temple which is dedicated to Lord Shiva.
While it’s true that a mall visit can really have no redeeming purpose, we do make it a point to go to at least one to catch up on the new world of modern Delhi. The idea of shopping malls arrived in India in the 1990s as the country opened to the global economy. Delhi got its first mall in 1999 and since then shopping malls have proliferated all through the city. The DLF Promenade Mall in South Delhi is a shopping destination full of high-end international stores along with top-notch Indian brands. We particularly enjoy the various food kiosks in the food court that sell everything ranging from burgers, Indian style Chinese food, foods from Punjabi cuisine, South Indian delicacies such as dosas and idlis and Mughlai dishes of kababs and curries.
The whole complex was developed by a Japanese hotel chain in the verdant jungle about a hundred km Southeast of Miri. During our first full day at Royal Mulu we joined a small group for a fascinating excursion to one of the nearby karst limestone caves festooned with myriads of glistening stalactites and stalagmites. The quiet beauty of the cave was alive with swarms of (free-tailed) bats, many flying in and out the entrance and others hanging quietly on the walls. Later in the afternoon back at the resort we enjoyed some soothing swims in the lavish, Jacuzzi equipped swimming pool.
To make life at hut #5 even more difficult, the battery for the lights, fed by solar panels, is low due to many days of cloudy weather. The kitchen area alone is lit off and on, yet Sham cooks and serves us what turns out to be an excellent dinner, which we enjoy inside followed by tea on the front steps. The rain has stopped for a while and we can watch the fireflies flitting around. The no-see-ums fortunately stopped their stinging activities when it got dark.
To make the trip more exciting we have to climb aluminium ladders for many steep or vertical rock sections. A total of fifteen ladders, Sham tells us, since he was a member of the trail crew that installed them. This trek turns out to be quite a workout for the old legs and arms. The hiking poles are life savers even if they are sometimes in the way, dangling from our wrists, as we scramble up the many ladders.
I have just reached the top rung of another steep ladder leading to a wide, rocky platform when I come face to face with a snake coiled on a boulder, staring at me. “Watch out! a snake here, it’s a green one!” I shout as a warning to Esther who is climbing on the ladder just below me. “It’s only a small pit viper!” is Sham’s reassuring cry. I am lucky enough to have the camera ready, the little creature must be scared because it stays absolutely motionless while I quickly take a shot.
Within less than half an hour the view of the fantastic limestone “forest” is obscured by the lowering clouds. As a consolation, we have a nice lunch and a good rest with leisure to admire the beautiful red throated pitcher plants growing profusely on the inside edge of the platform and nearby a small garden of white Impatiens flowers.
Curiously, from the 1930s an early morning radio program has become synonymous with Mahalaya. This audio program known as “Mahishasur Mardini” or “The Destruction of Mahishasur” is a compilation of chants, devotional songs and recitations from “Chandi Mangala Kavya”, a holy scripture that can be translated as “The Auspicious Poetry of Chandi”, where Chandi is a namesake of Durga. These poems are a hallmark of medieval Bengali Hindu literature that eulogizes the worship of a particular god or goddess. Mahishasur Mardini was recorded by All India Radio and is narrated by Birendra Krishna Bhadra who, because of this recording is an iconic name in all Hindu Bengali households.
Following the day of Mahalaya, the preparations for Durga Puja begin in earnest. Statues of Durga and her children are put up in neighborhoods of cities, towns and villages. The artisans or idol makers had started their work in the month of July. Traditionally, a dollop of mud from a prostitute’s home is used to start the creation of the clay mix for the Durga idol. It is then mixed with clay from various sacred river beds and patted on to the basic grass model that gradually takes the idol shape. The idols are painted and dressed in the finest of silks and bedecked with flowers and jewelry and transported to all corners of India and even abroad for the Puja. In anticipation of the arrival of the idols, parks, community centers, or any available block of land is rented by Puja organizers weeks before the beginning of the festival. Money for all expenses is raised through donations and sponsorships by local residents and businesses. The venues are transformed into an arena for celebration by the putting up of pandals which is a kind of a temporary shelter or tent. While some of these pandals might just be a simple construct consisting of a large colored cloth on upright poles covering a swath of space, most nowadays are complex, artistic and architectural structures built exclusively with bamboo, clay, cloth and coir.
The best of the innovative pandals with highly creative and inspiring decorations can be seen in Kolkata, in the eastern part of India, capital of the state of West Bengal and the true hub of Durga Puja. In recent years, pandals in Kolkata have taken shapes of the London skyline, Buddhist temples, illuminations of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals, replicas of historic Indian temples and even highlighting issues of social cause such as empowerment of women. Pandals are lighted up with thousands of twinkling lights and chandeliers and devotees after entering would make their way in to see the Durga idol. Pandal hopping is now a time honored ritual of Puja and it is not unusual to see long lines of people waiting to get a glimpse of a magnificent pandal. The number of Pujas in Kolkata, whether communal or in households have numbered upwards of four thousand. An air of fun and frolic, devotion and gaiety fills up the city.
No matter where Durga Puja is celebrated, whether in India or abroad, the rituals and traditions followed are the same, handed down over hundreds of years.
The five days of the Puja are observed as Shashthi, Saptami, Ashtami, Navami and Dashami, also known as Vijayadashami or Dusshera which is also the penultimate day of Navratri. On Shashthi, the first day of Durga Puja, there is celebration of the arrival of the deity to the mortal abode of earth by the symbolic unveiling of her face. The next three days are devoted to the worship of the goddess, with devotees on all days offering Pushpanjali, meaning offering of flowers, accompanied by Sanskrit chants. Ashtami, the third day of the Puja is characterized by Sandhi Puja, when the goddess is worshipped in her warrior form to the accompaniment of 108 oil lamps and 108 lotus flowers along with clothes, jewelry, sweets, vegetables, fruits and flowers. Sandhi Puja which begins in the last 24 minutes of Ashtami ends with the arrival of Navami, the fourth day of the Puja.
On the last day of Dashami, all the idols are carried in a procession with much fanfare and are immersed in a nearby lake or river. This event, known as Visarjan, meaning immersion in water, marks the end of Durga Puja.
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