Hanoi I flew into Hanoi from Luang Prabang, Laos on February 23rd, the night of the Canada/Sweden hockey gold medal game at the Sochi winter Olympics. I’m posting this here because, for me, it’s part of my journey. No-one here knows anything about hockey, never mind the winter Olympics – snow? ice? I arrived at my hotel to discover they had screwed up my reservation and had to move me to another hotel. That was fine, but it meant another hour or so before I could get the result of the game. Got to the new hotel, opened a Tiger, couldn’t get WiFi going, finally got on-line, hunted down a web page with the score and the way it was reported it looked like 3-0 for Sweden 😦 – SHITE! Looked again and saw it was 3-0 for Canada!!!! Sid the Kid does it again! Party time in Hanoi, on a dark, rainy night (photo courtesy of the Canadian Olympic team website)!
Have you seen the movie “Blade Runner”? It’s a cult classic, with a young Harrison Ford in the lead role. It’s dark, dreary and raining all the time with ‘strange’ looking folks up dark alleyways transacting their business. Well for me that describes Hanoi on a dark, chilly, rainy night in February. The taxi drive from the airport with the clouds ‘on the deck’, the rain falling and the spray coming up off the roads … well, after sunshine for the last year and a half, I wanted to get on the next plane out-of-town! Hanoi is a vibrant, exciting city. I’m just describing my arrival and it turns out Hanoi’s weather this time of year lends itself to “Blade Runner” comparisons – cloudy, rainy, dark and chilly. The weather forecast one day was “dreary”. Their word, not mine. And that’s what it was while I was there, “dreary”. So, don’t visit in winter unless you like “dreary”. Some Hanoi sights. Click on the photos for a closer look. The Hanoi Cathedral below. It might be a clue to Christianity’s importance in Vietnam? I can relate to that.
You’ll find some of the loveliest smiles, startlingly lovely, under these traditional Vietnamese hats.
How do they keep the lights on?
Look at the chaos in this next scene (2-click). The photograph has no single point of interest. As a photograph it’s a mess. I wanted to capture the chaos, as I saw it. Look at the workmen on the pole struggling with the wires, the woman crossing the road with her heavy load, the overloaded motorbikes, the expressions on people’s faces, the clothes hanging to dry, the stuff caught in the wires and trees, the ‘junk’ for sale in the stores (one man’s junk is …), the traffic, the signs – who has time to read them?
The body of Ho Chi Minh, lovingly known as Uncle Ho or “Bac Ho”, is on display in a glass case in a mausoleum here. I walked through with a few thousand other folks to view him. He literally looks larger than life. Somehow, I don’t think it’s really him, but …? There’s a steady stream of people passing by every day of the year. Not sure if he’d appreciate this custom, but he’s so loved by the people of Vietnam. He’s everywhere. His face appears on every Dong (Vietnamese currency) denomination. Here’s the mausoleum. Photographs aren’t allowed inside.
A lot of pomp and ceremony surrounds the mausoleum, just like Buckingham Palace, I guess – people everywhere need a symbol. My symbol’s at the top of this post.
Students file through every day. Uncle Ho is George Washington in these parts.
Welcome to the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” below. Built by the French around 1890 when Vietnam was part of French Indochina. The French tortured and executed Vietnamese political prisoners here – see the guillotine below. The prison was later used by the North Vietnamese to hold American POWs during the Vietnam War. The POWs tell grim tales of their time here. John McCain was held in the Hilton for parts of his 5 years as a POW. Most of the prison was demolished and only a small section remains today.
A look back below to the times when European monarchs and politicians believed they could do whatever they wanted around the world.
What are those strips hanging on the line, mid left? Wife skinned her husband last night?
Walking the streets of Hanoi, caucasian/’white’ people seem out of the norm. It’s not like walking the streets of Toronto, where you see every race and nationality imaginable. Of course there are tourists here, but the people appear to be 99.999% Vietnamese. In old Hanoi one afternoon, I happened upon a long line of cute kids in their uniforms leaving school. Their faces lit up when they spotted me. They all waved and shouted “hello” at the top of their lungs – happy to see a ‘whitey’ and practice their “hello” greeting. It was a riot and sure put the spotlight on me – I didn’t have my camera handy, damn it! More Vietnam to come …
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