Easy-riding in Hue

One overnight train later and we reached Hue (pronounced H-way), once of huge political importance in Vietnam through the 19^th Century to the beginning of the second world war. Jumping on the back of a moped, we proceed to have one of the best tours of the trips. Starting our visit with the Citadel, the Imperial Palace modelled on Beijing’s Forbidden City, we raced through Hue traffic feeling totally at ease with our skilled drivers who all seemed to have that Vietnamese trait of amazing special awareness. As with most historical and religious sights in Vietnam, the Citadel was practically destroyed in the Vietnam War, bullet holes visible throughout the site. With great comedic gestures, our guide did his best to rebuild and redecorate the palace in our imaginations. Great emphasis was placed on the number of concubines the former Nguyen emperors had and their life with the Forbidden Purple City, hidden away from prying eyes.

A five minute ride later we visited Thien Mu Pagoda, a Buddhist structure, place of worship and monastery. In Vietnam, Mahayana Buddhism is practised, differing from Theravada as practised in neighbouring Cambodia and Thailand. The first boy in the Vietnamese Buddhist family can be sent to the monastery as a child, living there to receive a religious upbringing although they do attend the local school. At 18, the boy will decide whether to continue monastic life, a choice for the rest of his life. Quite a discussion ensued as to whether it was right or wrong to guide a child in such direction at a young age and whether this is still regarded as normal practise by a family. Another case of needing to stay longer in the country to really understand; I’m somewhat devoid of an opinion.

The Pagoda is a quiet reflective place decorated with well cared for Bonsai trees and another beautifully adorned temple area. The monastery was home to Thich Quang Duc, the infamous monk who in 1963 doused himself with petrol and set himself on fire in protest of the policies by the then president. The image was reproduced throughout the West. Remaining at the Podoga is his old car, acting as a reminder of the event: quick, cameras out everyone! Then back to our trip, I guess without truly understanding what we’ve seen.

With the wind in our hair, rain pricking our skin, our mopeds sped into the countryside surrounding Hue. Within minutes, after skating across a dodgy bridge built especially for mopeds, we hurtled down small brick paths through rice paddy fields, past grazing water buffalos and lone fishermen. I was probably gripping the back of the bike a little tightly at this point. We made a few stops to see an old arena built for the Emperor’s Elephant vs Tiger matches (the elephant was undoubtedly always the winner), a street of ‘workshops’ selling the usual selection of souvenirs with added demonstrations of cone-hat making and incense sticks, more temple ruins, and on to a lookout point over the Perfume river. At one point the narrow path we rode was the only visible solid land in the flooded plains, an exhilarating view of water seamlessly meeting the sky. As the light of day faded, we rode past roadside stalls cooking up evening delights, weaving in and out of other moped drivers eager to get out of the persistent rain. We arrived back soaked, excited and full of tales of things our driver did and things we saw.

An unexpected trip to Ninh Binh & Tam Coc

As soon as we arrived in Vietnam, we were glued to BBC Weather reports warning of not one but two typhoons heading straight for Hanoi at exactly the same time we were there. With the Philippines pretty devastated by typhoon Nesat, our excursion to the doomed Halong Bay was cancelled much to both our disappointment and relief. Our alternate trip for the day was Ninh Binh, 60K outside of Hanoi.

Leaving Hanoi, weaving in and out of traffic, the scenery very quickly changed from the urban sprawl into rice paddies and dramatically rising conical hills. Perhaps this is the inspiration for the typical Vietnamese hats?

First stop for the day, yet another big temple site built for previous emperors. Our guide for the day explained to us in more detail about the significance of the area and the mix of religion, spirituality and devotion. I particularly liked the significance of the building features such as the wavy style of roofing symbolising the ups and downs of life, the raised doorways to be stepped over to prevent bad spirits from entering and the numerous carvings of dragons, tortoises, phoenixes and unicorns. We were all fairly amused by the offerings laid in front of statues of the emporer – not just incense but packets of biscuits and cans of beers.

After a very local lunch of more spring rolls, rice, chicken, vegetables and mixed dishes of unidentified foods, we were off to Tam Coc to check out a rather stunning labyrinth of limestone hills jutting out of rice paddies.

Along with a few bus loads of other Halong-Bay-alternate tourists, we boarded small wooden fishing gondolas for two, rowed by a local farmer looking for a bit of easy extra cash. An older lady also joined our boat as an extra rower, spending most of the journey in fits of laughter, poking Jon, exclaiming in broken English how handsome he was. The scenery was beautiful, a maze of huge craggy rocks protruding into the sky out of flat green waters that seemed never-ending: one of those places where a photograph can never quite capture all it’s beauty. It didn’t seem overly-touristy until we surfaced out of the darkness of a limestone cave and our boat remained by a group of other boats selling drinks, bunches of souvenirs pushed into our face. We did buy a drink and snack for our rowers and resisted the attempts to make us buy more in our first truly pushy tourist experience of Vietnam. Armed with how to declare ‘Oh my God!’ ( pronounced something like ‘Oh Shoi Oi!’) in Vietnamese, we delighted our rowers with our language skills and feigned surprised looks at the cost of the merchandise on offer so it was a more amusing experience than annoying. Our hostess continued to chuckle and shout ‘Oh Shoi Oi’ all the way back to Tam Coc particularly enjoying swapping her conical hat for Jon’s baseball cap.

This was a perfect Halong Bay substitute: similar style countryside and peaks bursting out of huge river systems akin to the sea. As for Nesat, well, for my first typhoon, I have to say I was pretty disappointed by its lack of force. I’ve seen bigger badder storms in KL, Manchester even! There wasn’t even much rain just a little windy. The second typhoon hit us a few days later and once again failed to live up to BBC expectations. Scare culture news tactics has permeated the weather updates.

Hanoi sights for the average LP day-tripper

Sightseeing in Hanoi provides interesting insights into Vietnamese culture rather than being astonishingly beautiful or spectacular, although I’m saying this having seen other parts of Asia. Ngoc Son Temple situated in the Hoan Kim Lake in the middle of the city started my slightly confusing journey into the spiritual and religious life of the Vietnamese. From what I gather, Vietnamese are Buddhists, Taoists, Confucian (which I had never heard about before), a mixture of all as well as worshiping previous emperors. Attempts at trying to unravel all of this would require a rather long stay within Vietnam. What is obvious is the important role religion and belief has in Vietnamese society from small shrines decorated with fairy lights and lit incense found in every dwelling to the burning of money (fake money so we found out) at the start and end of a shopkeepers working day for hope and to give thanks.

The Temple of Literature was more obviously devoted to Confucius and those educated there over 700 years ago. The most interesting exhibit was the huge stones recording the names of those passing examinations carried by tortoises. Tortoises are figures of endurance and strength, one of the four symbolic animals, the others being dragon, unicorn and phoenix. Without much of a guide to go off, I think we missed out on true understanding of what the temple was all about.

The best insight into the political culture of Vietnam came from the Hanoi Hoa Lo Prison, also known as the ‘Hanoi Hilton’. Built in the 19^th Century, the museum focussed on the occupation by the French and the conditions of imprisoned American soldiers during the Vietnam war. Exhibits describe in detail how well American POWs were treated, a case of outstanding historical propaganda. That evening, we googled information on POWs during the Vietnam war, especially John McCain’s experience, painted so rosily in the museum contradicting the brutal account on an internet site reproducing parts of McCain’s autobiography. A further shining example of the contradictory nature was the name given to the prison by American POWs : Hanoi Hilton – an ironic term as conditions were so bad or, as the museum states, because the prison was just like staying at a Hilton Hotel. It’s hard to get a true picture of the reality, it would be easy to simply discount the government run museum’s account as fiction but the historian in me would like to see more source evidence and read more about it before coming to a final judgement. One conclusion I can make, the museum is a visible example of the communist regime here which is somewhat hidden to the non-Vietnamese speaking tourist behind the seemingly capitalist everyday life.

The ancient Vietnamese art form of Water Puppetry (www.thanglongwaterpuppet.org) is one of the major tourist must dos in Hanoi. The 45 minute performance in Vietnamese (we had a basic outline as to what was happening in the English programme) was entertaining but 45 minutes was enough, especially with the tiny seating space for my legs. The performance featured Vietnamese traditional music and song as well as depictions of rural life using a variety of intricate puppets dancing on the ‘water’ stage. It was worth seeing but definitely geared towards the paying visitors. I did ask our guide whether the art form was still prevalent in rural Vietnam but she was unsure; I hope a more authentic version still exists somewhere.

Hanging out in Hanoi (for slightly longer than expected)

Good morning Vietnam!

If KL really is crazy, Hanoi is insane. The minute we got off our very nice and efficient Air Asia flight, we embarked on the most nail biting drive of my life. Witnessing the road traffic here is worth the visit to Vietnam alone. Mopeds rule the roads here, weaving in and out of each other, dodging cars and trucks, carrying the most ridiculous loads: trays of eggs, hens strapped down on to a pile of straw, crates and crates of beer carefully balanced – all travelling on the highway.

It was a hazy, polluted filled blue-orange sky that greeted us to Hanoi. Since then we’ve seen nothing but cloud and rain so perhaps we should have appreciated it more. From the airport to Hanoi, today’s Vietnam was summed up: water buffalo and rice paddies between Canon and Panasonic factories. The architecture of the city is totally different to any other place I’ve visited in Asia. Five to six storey, very thin, perhaps 8-10 ft in width buildings are packed in together with barely any patches of greenery in the actual city (the surrounding areas very quickly become fields of some sort). Most of the buildings are very long to compensate for lack of width, to keep the dwelling cooler.

Our first venture outside Anh Hotel, a lovely little place, did not see us going far mainly because we lacked the ability to cross a road and had absolutely no idea of direction! We witnessed the end of the school day, watching kids pile on to mopeds driven by their parents – one kid on the front, one on the back, neither wearing helmets, chuckling away. After looking like bunnies in headlights, we returned to the hotel, eager to meet our tour group and guide and work out just how the chicken crosses the road.

Hanoi is an organised chaos, probably why I loved it. It’s a true hive of constant activity. Everyone is busy doing something from early in the morning to late at night, seven days a week. There doesn’t seem to be any demarcation between work life and social life: everything is mixed together. People are asleep in their shops, moped drivers are constantly dropping by for a chat, some sort of meal is being eaten. People’s homes are turned into make-shift grocery stores and coffee bars, with their laundry hanging up to dry and a TV blearing in the background. We went to one little coffee shop and after serving us, the whole family upped and left on a moped leaving us baffled as to who we were to pay as the chickens hopped around our feet.

The stereotypical image of a Vietnamese lady in a conical hat carrying two baskets adjoined by a wooden pole placed on her shoulder is reality. Such an efficient way of carrying produce but, having later tried one out, it must lead to some serious back problems. Add to this image all the zooming mopeds, wandering dogs, food cooking away on every street corner, constant stream of people buying and selling and tapping away on mobile phones and you’ve got Hanoi.

A good night’s sleep: learning how to get decent kip on a train…

For three nights in Vietnam, we’ve taken the sleeper train as a cheap easy and quick way of travelling that keeps our days free for sightseeing. We got lucky on the first and last train – clean, decent sleeper compartments with, most importantly, a western clean toilet! Each compartment contains two bunk beds and a little table with more than enough room to store the ever expanding backpackers.

The first train had a ‘restaurant’ carriage which the whole group decided to check out. After walking through cheaper and cheaper classes we realised just how lucky we were with our compartments and, again, most importantly, the toilet facilities. Carriage after carriage, people lay sprawled over seats and just when I was about to think the restaurant was a vicious train rumour, we spotted flashing disco type lights through a far off door. It was a different world to the rest of the quiet train: noisy, packed, smoky and drunken. Westerns made up the majority of the raucous crowd sat in booths with the occasional amused local wedge in between. The train guards, turned bar men, watched on and joined in eager to pump up the volume of various pop songs, this being their entertainment for the night. I think our group were all in a little shock of the surreal situation. Apparently after we left some folk decided it was time to dance on the tables…We didn’t find another ‘restaurant’ on any other train so it was a missed photo opportunity.

Sleeping on the trains is an art. I had a form of train jet-lag after the first train, not being able to sleep through the rackety tracks or the expressive braking which made me think they drive trains much like they drive on the roads. By the third train, the ear plugs were in, a glass of wine was downed and I had become used to the motion, my deep sleep only woken by the ‘wake up!’ wailing ballad through the loud speakers. I love watching the scenery pass by in the mornings: people starting their days, stirring metal pots of broth, praying at their miniature home temples, carrying various goods in the Vietnamese baskets. Then there’s the landscape; from the urban dwellings to dark green cone like hills and rice paddies fields with lazing water buffalos.

The less said about the second train, the better. When a small cockroach scuttled down the compartment wall, I decided against using any of the given linen and avoided using the toilet as much as possible.