September 4th
We pick up our bags (for those who followed our trip to France, you'll know how nice it was for me to type this!) and head outside, where the humidity is so high that it feels like you are walking through a cloud. There we are met by a middle-aged man named Tien Do who will be our guide for the next 3 days. He stays with us while we wait for our driver who arrives a short time later in a 16-passenger van, explaining that he will take us to our hotel, leave us to rest for a couple of hours and then will take us on a 2-hour walking tour of the area.
It takes about 40 minutes to get from the airport in the outskirts into downtown Hanoi. Along the way, Tien gives us some details about Hanoi. It has a population of around 10 million people, but the communist government is currently working on a plan to build 5 satellite cities around Hanoi which will greatly increase its size. He also says that there is a lot of foreign investment. A Japanese firm had just finished (in the last couple of years) the highway we are traveling on and the bridge where the highway crosses the Red River into the center of Hanoi. The river is important because Hanoi (actually Ha Noi) is literally interpreted as meaning "city inside the river" since it is almost completely surrounded by the Red River and one of its tributaries. Everywhere, we see people on motor scooters. Tien tells us that up until 1990 or so, there we almost no scooters (everyone rode bicycles). Then when their decades of wars against first the Americans and then the Khmer Rouge finally ended and the country opened up, scooters began to be imported. Now, there are at least 40 million scooters for a country of 100 million people! Consequently, the air quality is as bad as we saw in Beijing, with many of the scooter drivers wearing KN95 masks.
After a short rest at the hotel, Tien leads us on a 2-hour walking tour of the old quarter of the city. He points out that a lot of the official buildings are yellow. He said that it was the French who determined that yellow buildings are actually cooler in the hot summers than white buildings. In addition, they discovered that mosquitos and other types of insects don't like the yellow color - win, win! One of the first buildings we see is a long, one-story yellow building:
He tells us that this is the famous Hanoi Hilton where American pilots, like John McCain, were held during the war. McCain was held for about 5 years between 1967-1972. Perhaps surprisingly, there is not much evidence of the war. I'm not sure if that was because most everything was destroyed and rebuilt after the country reopened to the world in the 1990's, but a lot of these buildings look much older than 50 years old, so my guess is that there was less bombing of central Hanoi due to the lack of prime targets. In addition, the city was ringed with Soviet SAM missile sites so it may not have been easy to bomb here.
America got into the war because of the domino theory: the Soviet Union and China would simply knock off "democracies" one at a time until Communism ruled the world. But everywhere we look, we see rampant capitalism. We walk by some sidewalk coffee shops with tiny plastic chairs. Tien explains that all of these shops are illegal. They set up shop on the sidewalk and have small, lightweight furniture so that they can pick everything up and disappear if the police appear nearby.
Hanoi is called the city of trees and lakes, and we can see why. Nearly every street is tree-lined, and Tien tells us that there are around 1,000 lakes from huge to very small inside the city. Here are some pictures:
We happen upon a woman selling fruits and vegetables:
Tien is telling the foodies in our group (all of us!) what the various items are, he decides we should try a green orange. The health guidelines for Vietnam are to not eat any fresh fruits or vegetables because they may have been washed by unclean water. But an orange is okay because it has to be pealed. It was not as sweet as we are used to, but way juicier. Tien tells us that orange oranges in Vietnam are considered overripe and sell for less because of having a shorter shelf life.
We walk past a school and see kids playing badminton:
Tien says that public in Vietnam cost very little, but because most families have both parents working, they have to find something for their children to do until they are able to pick them up. This is where the price of school gets very expensive. Tien says that 80% of his children's education costs come from the after-school activities.
Crossing streets is an adventure! While they have traffic signals, Tien says that most people view them as "suggestions". To avoid being hit, you put both arms out to your sides and walk slowly but deliberately to the other side while showing "no fear". Since the traffic is moving at quite slow speeds and the drivers don't appear to be very aggressive, the scooters and cars will just work their way around you.
Tien drops us off at the hotel for a while and says that dinner tonight is included. He will pick us up in a couple hours and we can walk to the restaurant. We walk past the Hanoi Hilton and see a restaurant with a lot of colored lanterns outside. This is a very popular restaurant for tourists and locals alike. They have a huge menu and in the courtyard section of the restaurant, they have people situated all away around the courtyard preparing the various food items. Right next to our table is a woman making steamed rice rolls filled with several kinds of vegetable:
Tien orders for the table and almost immediately, food starts arriving. Some we knew (spring rolls, green papaya salad), some we had never seen. And the food keeps coming until our table for six is overflowing with food. No sooner do we finish one than another one arrives. We do think that Northern Vietnamese food is a bit different from the Southern Vietnamese food we see in California - less spice and very light broths for the soup. By the end, we are totally stuffed. Tien says not to worry, since there is little meat and almost no fat, it is very easy to digest. I'm not so sure as we head back to the hotel for the night.
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