I walked into the Vietcombank in Hanoi with a hundred U.S. dollars and came out a millionaire. No I didn't rob the place — at an exchange rate of sixteen thousand to one my hundred U.S. bucks became 1.6 million Vietnamese dong.
Finding pocket space for all the bills was only the first challenge posed by my unaccustomed wealth. Figuring out whether I owed someone two thousand or twenty thousand dong was never quite clear and showing any sign of uncertainty was an invitation to get ripped off. Taxi drivers particularly are adept at sliding the decimal point a couple of zeros in their favor.
The next big challenge was getting back to my hotel. This required crossing several main streets flowing curb to curb with motorbikes and other assorted vehicles. In Hanoi the flow of traffic never stops. Waiting for an opening is as futile as standing on the banks of a river and waiting for the water to stop going by — so you just wade in, keep looking upstream, and don't make any sudden moves. At first it's intimidating but miraculously the traffic, like the water in a stream, just flows around you without even a pause.
After the first bewildering day or two we got the hang of the money and traffic and discovered a fascinating city that beckoned to be explored, on foot, in peddle-driven cyclos, and on motorbikes amid the organized chaos of the streets. Perhaps more than any other Vietnamese city Hanoi has embraced the legacy of its long and turbulent colonial history while retaining its traditional Asian culture and fierce national independence.
For more than a thousand years the Vietnamese people waged an on-again-off-again battle against Chinese domination only to be colonized in the mid-1800s by the French. But the struggle for independence continued, first with the Franco-Viet Minh war, followed by the tragic intervention of the United States in what the Vietnamese refer to as the "American War", and finally the ideological struggle between North and South that finally lead to reunification in 1976.
Today Vietnam is one of Asia’s economic tigers and Hanoi, its bustling capital city, throbs with the sights and sounds of a young generation rushing headlong into the future. But Hanoi also acknowledges its past — ancient Chinese pagodas, French colonial houses, the preserved wreckage of an American B52, “Uncle Ho’s” mausoleum. It’s been called a living museum but exploring Hanoi’s teeming streets is no ordinary museum experience.
We spent most of our first day walking, and getting hopelessly lost, in the Old Quarter where street names change every few blocks, where streets disappear into a warren of alleyways, and alleyways disappear among a jumble of markets and courtyards. Located on the banks of the Song Hong (Red River) the Old Quarter is Hanoi’s original commercial district and each of its 36 streets bears the name of the product sold there back in the 13th century — Hang Muoi (salt), Hang Gai (silk), Hang Bo (baskets). We gave up trying to follow our map and just wandered in the general direction of Hoan Kiem Lake. The pastel coloured houses are a practical blend of French colonial elegance and modern Asian economy - narrow to reduce taxes and embellished with elaborate balconies for show - but the street scene is pure Vietnamese.
Between the shop fronts and the traffic-choked street hundreds of parked motorbikes share the sidewalk with people preparing, eating, selling and transporting food of every description. Motorbikes piled high with merchandise weave around women with baskets of bananas hanging from bamboo poles slung over their shoulders. And in the midst of it all a few people, seated on tiny stools beside the curb and oblivious to the chaos around them, enjoy a quiet game of cards with their friends.
At Hang Gai Street we found ourselves at the north end of Hoan Kiem Lake. Surrounded by shade trees, benches, and paths winding through a strip of grassy parkland Hoan Kiem Lake is a tranquil resting place in the very heart of Hanoi — a place for early morning tai chi or quiet meditation. We crossed the Rising Sun footbridge to a small island where Ngoc Son Temple is surrounded by leafy gardens and open alcoves, where people come to pray or simply to escape the frantic pace of life on the streets.
I showed our address to a nearby cyclo driver, agreed on a price, and climbed aboard for the return trip to our hotel. When you’re hopelessly lost a cyclo is the answer and there is always one ready and waiting. Used by both tourists and locals these three-wheeled, peddle-driven contraptions are practical, cheap and fun. The passenger rides on a canopy-covered seat between the two front wheels and the driver peddles and steers from the back half of a conventional bicycle attached to the rear. The view ahead is unobstructed and often exciting, especially when the driver veers across oncoming lanes of traffic.
By using cyclos we extended our exploration to more distant destinations and discovered some of the myriad back roads and shortcuts known only to their drivers. They took us to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, the stilt house where Ho once lived, the one pillar pagoda, and finally to lunch in a dirt-floored roadside café.
During our visit to his Mausoleum Ho’s pickled remains were in Russia for their annual maintenance. In his absence the building was closed and only a few people strolled across the great surrounding square. Like Mao Zedong’s final resting place in Tiananmen Square, the massive stone building that houses Ho’s remains has a stark Soviet look reminiscent of Red Square. Like Mao, Ho Chi Minh is revered as the liberator of his people, and, according to a local guide, when Ho is here people line up for hours to file past his body. Behind the Mausoleum, surrounded by gardens and carp ponds, is the modest stilt house where “Uncle Ho” lived during part of the American War and it is preserved just as he left it – miraculously untouched by war. The nearby One Pillar Pagoda was not so fortunate. Designed to resemble a lotus flower, the original Pagoda was built in 1049. But in a senseless act of revenge French soldiers destroyed it before surrendering to Ho Chi Minh in 1954. Its reconstruction is a symbol of Vietnam’s resurgence from foreign domination to independence – one of many memorials where we got a glimpse of history from the Vietnamese perspective.
On a later motorbike tour through one of Hanoi’s upscale residential areas we stopped at tiny Huu Tiep Lake where the partly submerged wreckage of an American B52 bomber, shot down by a Vietnamese missile in 1972, is surrounded by French colonial-style houses. A nearby plaque celebrates “The outstanding feat of arm” which contributed to “defeating the U.S. Imperialists”. An even grimmer vestige of Vietnam’s troubled past is Hoa Lo Prison. Built by the French in 1896 to detain anti-colonial revolutionaries, the prison was designed to hold 450 inmates. By 1930 there were 2000. Even now, walking through its dark corridors - past tiny cells, rows of leg-irons, and heinous devices of torture — is a mind-numbing indictment of French colonialism. For some inmates the guillotine, still standing in one of the back courtyards, must have come as a relief. Though most of the displays focus on the prison’s role during the French occupation they also acknowledge its use during the American War. Dubbed the “Hanoi Hilton”, Hoa Lo prison is where many U.S. pilots, shot down over North Vietnam, sat out the rest of the war.
I was glad to leave the depressing corridors of Hoa Lo and get back on the streets of modern Hanoi. When you’re weaving through traffic on the back of a motorbike it’s hard to dwell on the past, and when you’re only inches from other motorbikes — front, back, and centre — you have to be an optimist. And that, more than anything else, is the feeling I took away from Hanoi. Due respect has been paid to its history, but modern Hanoi is moving confidently into the future and leaving its troubled past behind.
