This is the 4th in a series of a Old Soldier returning to Vietnam....
Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam....
March 7, 2015
The flight from Tokyo to Ha Noi was
six hours, and the time changed, advancing two hours. Hanoi airport 20 or so miles north of the
city. Modern, clean, well organized, no problem clearing passport control and
then to baggage. No police visible in
the airport, no guns, no swagger.
Driver met us,
and we swept down a six lane highway with traffic going every-which way. For a socialist country, their traffic habits
are ungovernable! Swirling, crowding, dodging each other mainly scooters carrying
one, two, three, even four persons. No
one obeying any rules except red lights.
New York City is tame compared to this derby.
Rice and
vegetable fields mingle with industry and homes. It is March 7, maybe 55f, drizzly and
overcast. We approach the city and three
to four floor houses appear, narrow, sometimes just gray cinder block, many
time painted with open verandas. There
is evidence of French influence in the architecture.
To the old city
(population of Hanoi is over 6 million), and we are soon in a maze of narrow
streets, teeming with little open air shops, motorcycles parked on sidewalks,
people selling all sorts of things in open shops, cooking on the street,
preparing foods, live frogs, birds, fish, vegetables and noodles. Very entrepreneur. Our driver pulls up on what I thought was a
slum street and three bell men run up to our car, open the doors and welcome us
to the Tirant Hotel. Modern, clean, plumbing western. $80 a night for a deluxe room. T.V., computer, wi fi, etc.
Grace,
cousin Karen and Glenn Holliman
Later dinner on
the 11th floor overlooking the city, looking well-worn and yet high
rise banks popping up among the mainly four story apartments and businesses, an amazing cacophony of shapes, sizes and movement.
The
ultramodern mixed with the old....that is Ha Noi in 2015.
Dinner was Asian
by choice – excellent calamari, a red wine Da Lat from Viet Nam, tasting like a
shiraz, and my fatigue slipped away.
Beef and pork with rice.
Conversation
with the receptionist in the tastefully decorated bar - perhaps all of 25,
thin, attractive, excellent English.
Asked where we were from. Told
her I stationed near Ho Chi Mien City (Saigon) in 1969 and was there animosity
due to the American War as they call it?
She smiled sweetly, no, that was the past. And the war was because of leaders, not the young
soldiers.
We walked the
streets for an hour, overwhelmed and intrigued by the street life, trying to
absorb the sights and sounds of ‘ancient’ Asia.
To a lake,
somewhat like the one in Central Park, NY….a pagoda, a temple if you will, Buddhist,
swarming with tourists, almost all Asian.
Took many photos.
Somewhat like
visiting St. Patrick’s in NYC only much smaller.
Below, the turtle 'arising' from the lake with a sword in its mouth somehow saving the city from Chinese domination in centuries past. China, the elephant to the north, has often and for long times dominated Vietnam. Wish our country's leaders in the 1960s had paused a bit to reflect on that important bit of Asian history.
Below, the turtle 'arising' from the lake with a sword in its mouth somehow saving the city from Chinese domination in centuries past. China, the elephant to the north, has often and for long times dominated Vietnam. Wish our country's leaders in the 1960s had paused a bit to reflect on that important bit of Asian history.
To bed by 9 pm,
trying to let nature reset our body clocks.
So far, so good….thanks in large part to our tour guides Jim and Karen Holliman who took many of the great photographs you are seeing.
Next post of my trip back in time, more on Hanoi, the enemy capital of the United States in the 1960s.
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