Vietnam Impressions

Ho Chi Minh City (HCM city aka Saigon) is bustling. With over 12 million it is Vietnam’s largest and most cosmopolitan city, and the locus of most of the country’s dazzling economic growth.  But what leaves the strongest impression on a visitor are the motorcycles.  There are tens of thousands of them gorging the roads and often the sidewalks, bearing everything imaginable:  household appliances, TV sets, building materials, market produce,  stylish girls driving  in high heels, and families of three and four all sandwiched together. Young motorcyclists (and demographically Vietnam is very youthful) are often talking or texting on their cell phones and usually sport the most fashionable helmets.  After much angst we finally ventured into this sea of motorbikes – amazed that it actually parted for us.  This proved the only way to cross a Saigon street.     

After visiting Cambodia and Laos, we entered Vietnam a second time with plans to spend two weeks making our way south from Hanoi to HCM city.  Hanoi is slower and more inviting than HCM city.  It had celebrated its 1000 year anniversary a few weeks earlier and still retained a festive air.  Street decorations were still up in several neighborhoods.  The city has lovely lakes and parks and an old quarter with some 30 ancient market streets selling their distinctive wares – Hang Glay (Paper Street), Hang Gai (Silk Street), Hang Bac (Silver Street), Hang Mam (Pickled Fish Street), etc.  Most foreigners find Hanoi charming – but not all Vietnamese.  A student blogger in HCM City was reportedly shut down for poking fun at the provincialism of the nation’s capital.  

Hanoi had been the French capital of Indochina and still retains some colonial architectural gems such as the turn of the century Opera House and Eiffel’s (who later gained fame for his Paris tower) steel lattice bridge over the Red River (which was so damaged during the war that is now only for pedestrians).  Hanoi also has some fine French and fusion restaurants and a highly regarded art scene featuring oil, silk, and lacquer paintings, wood and stone carvings, embroidered pictures, and colorful propaganda posters.  The Red River valley was also the birthplace of the ancient water puppet theater originally performed in irrigated rice paddies.  Puppeteers – standing in chest-deep water behind a bamboo curtain – manipulate long poles to bring to life elaborately carved wooden puppets depicting popular legends and stories – such as the “ascending dragon” origin tale of Hanoi’s founding.

We took a two-day excursion to Halong Bay – the “must see”  UNESCO protected natural wonder in the Tonkin Gulf with over 3000 limestone karst formations.  While granting the attraction of lifelike rock outcroppings jutting from the sea (e.g. the “kissing chickens” formation) – Halong Bay was still disappointing.  The bay is polluted and overrun by tourists.  An estimated 1.5 million foreigners visit each year. After a three hour bus ride - which included an obligatory shopping stop where Carol inadvertently brushed against a 6.5 foot tall ceramic urn we were surprised to learn cost $55,000 (including freight) - we finally arrived at Halong’s packed tourist wharf.  Sticking close to our guide, we made our way to the tender that brought us out to our junk.  After an afternoon cruising the bay and kayaking around a popular “floating village” we dropped anchor alongside several other tourist junks for an evening of miserable food (except for a lovely cut carrot and cucumber floral like arrangement) and loud karaoke music. The next day we quickly visited a cave before returning to Hanoi via the handicraft shopping center.  Despite its overcrowding and environmental degradation there is a tourist promotion campaign underway pushing for Halong to be listed as one of the world’s seven “new natural wonders”.

We learned of the oldest pho restaurant in Hanoi from our Halong Bay guide so the excursion wasn’t a total bust.  The “restaurant” was just a hole in the wall in the old quarter of Hanoi – a couple tables some benches and a side of beef hanging next to a vat of steaming broth.  They served only one dish – beef pho. The proprietor sliced raw beef into our bowls, added some raw ground beef and noodles and then poured in the hot broth – cooking the mixture right in our bowls. We sat at a communal table and struck up a conversation, Nga, a girl who had just returned from work (Lehman Brothers) and study in Britain, her mother, Hoa, who managed a hotel, and her mother’s close friends, Huy – a journalist, and Mai, a senior official in the Ministry of Justice charged with developing legal code corresponding to Vietnam’s admission into the World Trade Organization.  Nga was looking for work as an investment banker. All four were Communist Party members. Their English was excellent and their politics remarkably pragmatic. No one asked the too obvious question – given the many American tourists my age visiting Vietnam – whether this had been my first visit.  Quite the contrary, they were hospitable and very pleased to meet us.  After we finished our pho, we were invited to join them for dessert.  We went to another, seemingly identical restaurant, in a brand new Lexus 4x4, that served a dessert of oranges, lychee, nuts, and sticky rice in coconut milk. They wouldn’t let us pay, but Mai will be attending meetings in DC this spring, and we have invited her to “Five Guys” for a hamburger.

Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum is a bit macabre.  Apparently he wanted just to be cremated, but an adoring public wouldn’t hear of it.  Instead “Uncle Ho” is on permanent display. The Russians – close allies at the time – designed the heavy, boxy granite and concrete mausoleum in their inimitable 1970s Soviet style, and applied the same embalming methods for Ho as they did for preserving Lenin and Stalin.  Each year the corpse is brought to Russia for maintenance.  

Flying out of Hanoi, we reached Hue in a downpour that would last our entire stay.  It dampened our enthusiasm take a junk up the Perfume River and motorcycle rickshaw to the many Nguyen palaces, pagodas and tombs in this UNESCO world heritage site.  Hue was the capital of central Vietnam (Annan) under the Nguyen dynasty that ruled for two centuries until Bao Dai, the last emperor, personally abdicated to Ho Chi Minh in 1945.  (For an alternative history visit the official website of the present day Nguyen Emperor who lives in California).  The crown jewel of Hue is the massive Citadel.  To reach the inner most Forbidden Purple City we had first to cross a moat and then pass through two gates – one breaching the 10km long outer wall, and the second passing through a 3km fortified wall that surrounds the Imperial Enclosure.  Regrettably many of the historic buildings in the Citadel were destroyed by US bombing. Still the Citadel, and nearby royal Nguyen tombs - which appeared to be lifelong public works projects for several of the emperors - reflected a lavish imperial lifestyle.  This good life was due largely to the French taxpayer, but it came with considerable intrigue.  Most of the official photographs of Nguyen emperors that we saw included French official or two standing close to the throne.

Hoi An – about a half day’s drive from Hue via Danang is fast becoming a major tourist destination.  On the outskirts of Danang (after crossing Marble Mountain), the rains stopped and the temperature rose.  Ocean beach property for the next 25 miles to Hoi An was littered with new condos, luxury hotels, golf courses and construction cranes. Bypassing the beach we headed instead to Danang’s Cham Museum which houses the world’s largest collection of playful and seemingly contemporary Champa sculptures dating to the 5^th century.  The Champa’s hindu civilization – with its origins in South India – ruled central Vietnam for over a thousand years and aspects of this culture persist today.  Later we visited My Son, an important archeological site, carpet bombed during the war, where much of the museum’s collection had thankfully been unearthed and catalogued by a French archeologist who then lobbied successfully for the museum.  That in itself is an interesting story.  It is quite remarkable this amazing collection is not in the Louvre. 

Hoi An, a UNESCO world heritage site like Hue, was a originally a Champa civilization port and later an important port for early trade with China, Japan and Europe.  The town once had ancient Chinese, Japanese and Dutch sections and tourists can still visit well preserved Chinese assembly halls and congregation houses, a restored Japanese Bridge, and 19^th century Japanese homes modeled on Kyoto architecture of the time.  Many shops are situated in historic buildings, and owned by descendents of these early traders.  The Chinese who started coming from Fujian Province in the 17^th century preserve customs now lost in China.  Unfortunately Ho An has been “discovered” and like Halong Bay has too many tourists. But it is still very much worth a visit and, time permitting, to have clothes made.  Trip Advisor and other internet sites are replete with debate over where to find the best tailor shops, though in truth they’re all pretty much alike. The fabric is Chinese or Vietnamese even when it is labeled “Italian wool” and the last fitting is usually squeezed in right before one’s flight departure so as not to unduly drag out the tailoring process.  After paging through fashion magazines – Carol picked a silk jacket and ensemble and I had a couple shirts made – all of which turned out pretty well.  But a silk kimono that Carol had made was cut way too big and never was fixed despite several fittings.

Though we visited the War Remnants Museum and Reunification Palace in Saigon, we had little interest in retracing the war nor in resurrecting the painful memories that would come with it.  A singular exception was the day trip we took to the Cu Chi Tunnels near the Cambodia border.  The Cu Chi district has over 250km of tunnels first dug by the Viet Minh in resisting the French, and later extended by the Vietcong to stage attacks against US forces.  Some tunnels even burrowed under the US military base at Dong Du enabling surprise attacks.  Deadly traps and improvised bombs made the job for US troops entering this underground labyrinth extraordinarily difficult and dangerous.  But history is written by the victors, and at Cu Chi the sentiment is decidedly anti-American.  School children and peasants are honored for their courage and sacrifice in resisting US aggression.  They are shown in photos – some with the epitaph “American Killer Hero” written below.  And nearly as tasteless in this grim battlefield is the public shooting gallery where one can win prizes firing an AK-47 or a machine gun at life-like targets.      

I personally think it is bunk, but it’s said that the eclecticism of the Cao Dai religion reflects the many cultural influences that entered the Mekong delta in south Vietnam.  This hierarchal and disciplined local religion combines belief in Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism – as reflected by leaders who dress either in red, yellow or blue garments depending on which of the three primary religious themes they follow.  But the religion also embraces several additional latter day saints.  Cao Daists believe that all history is divided into three periods, and for the modern period (aka “the third alliance between god and man”) the Chinese statesman, Sun Yat-sen, a Vietnamese poet, Nguyen Khiem, and the French Poet, Victor Hugo, are the most revered.  Less significant but still important saints include William Shakespeare, Joan of Arc and Vldimir Lenin.  The Cao Dai receive inspiration and guidance through séances mediated by adolescent girls which are interpreted by the senior-most spiritual leader at the time.  Revelations from such ceremonies have facilitated highly pragmatic Cao Dai alliances with the French, the Americans, the Japanese and the Vietcong.  In Graham Greene’s “The Quiet American” (a novel based loosely on fact) the unsavory Japanese-trained general who presented himself to the CIA as the proponent of a “third way” – a political alternative both to Communism and to French colonialism - was the Cao Dai leader Trinh Minh The, who broke from the ranks of Cao Dai hierarchy with 2,000 followers to form his own US-backed militia and political movement. 

Luang Prabang

"The Vietnamese grow rice, Cambodians watch it grow, and the Laotians listen to it grow" - French colonial aphorism

Situated on a peninsula where the Nam Khan River joins the Mekong, Luang Prabang is arguably the most laid-back, welcoming, and non-materialistic place to ever be graced with an international airport (which, unfortunately, is now being expanded to accept larger aircraft). A UNESCO world heritage site featuring scores of Buddhist monasteries it is a popular destination for backpackers and tourists alike – perhaps the most famous of whom is Mick Jagger – who's photograph graces many of the town's finer establishments.

The influx of tourists threatens the monastic way of life and the broader Laotian culture which values community, interpersonal relations and feelings over materialism and individualism. There are notices posted at monasteries advising tourists on the proper way to respectfully give rice during the 5.30 AM pilgrimage of monks with begging bowls through the town center. UNESCO and international cultural organizations like "Restoration without Borders" help restore murals and train monks in restoration techniques. Many monasteries were damaged during the Indochina wars with France and the US. Indeed the US alone dropped more than two million tons of bombs on Laos (an estimated 30% is still unexploded) and the Phou Si Monastery on the towering hill overlooking Luang Prabang still features a rusting Russian artillery piece.

We were fortunate to have arrived soon after the monks had left their monasteries to proclaim the end of the rains, and the big celebration was scheduled for that night. Seemingly everyone in Luang Prabang was set to work building elaborately decorated boats to float down the Mekong. Many shops were closed and even our hotel receptionist was disgruntled because he alone had to work. The Mekong that evening was filled with garlanded boats and flower wreaths alight with candles, and hot air paper balloons lifted into the evening sky by candles were visible from miles away. We joined the procession down the monastery steps to the banks of the Mekong with our marigold wreathes alight with candles and set them afloat as well.

Laotians are superstitious often believing in spirits and the need to appease them through offerings. For instance, many Laotians believe the spirit of the last monarch, King Sisavong Vong (who was sent by the Pathet Lao along with his family to perish in a prison camp) still resides in the Royal Palace which is now a national museum. So few Laotians will go to the Palace especially after dark. Consequently we were able to get front-row center seats for a ballet at the Royal Palace Theater one evening.

The performance of the Royal Ballet at the Palace was colorful and entertaining. The traditional orchestra included a wooden reed instrument, drums, a bamboo xylophone, a zither and a one-string instrument. The dancers, who depicted the Ramayana story and abduction of Sita – wore handmade costumes and masks. The best dancers were up front. Younger and less gifted dancers were behind often watching their more accomplished colleagues instead of the audience. The deer that had enticed Sita to leave the safety of the magic circle was particularly graceful as were the intricate hand movements of the more accomplished female dancers; and the male monkey army dancers (who traveled to Sri Lanka to rescue Sita) amused the audience as they scratched and jumped to the music.

Expats seem to find their way here – marry and fall into a low stress lifestyle that often entails opening a small shop and hiring Laotians to run it. The nearest good hospital is up the Mekong in Thailand, but with good health Luang Prabang is a great place to retire. A Frenchman owns the city's best bakery, another Frenchman the best silk weaving shop. A French woman from Normandy (who met her Laotian husband on line while he was studying in Switzerland) runs a bar and restaurant near the Royal Palace. "Yuk", a Chinese woman, and former NYC fashion industry agent in Hong Kong dropped out to open a lovely wood carving shop – and the list goes on.

An aspiring artist – from whom we purchased a painting – P Noy is really quite good. Though she has no formal training, she has an eye for color and has developed her own style. She likes to paint Hmong and other ethnic women. P Noy is much better than Joy – another young female artist who opened a shop right across the street from P Noy. Although their work at first looks similar, P Noy was just being honest with little hint of annoyance when she explained that Joy always copies her work.

Hooray for French colonialism! The French cuisine here is delicious and abundant. It is hard to eat fried river seaweed and sesame served with pounded boiled buffalo skin and chilies on any occasion, but especially when you can just as easily order roast quail, wild boar, good French wines and delectable desserts. It's incomprehensible to me how King Sisavong Vong could have had Limoges porcelain and the finest French cutlery in his banquet room yet only serve Laotian food. Perhaps the 1960s cookbook by the anthropologist who studied the court – and its kitchen – could help explain.

I remembered we had left some small, individually wrapped chocolates in the fridge when we changed hotel rooms, and asked the management if they could locate them. After a long while someone knocked on our door and said the cleaning staff and driver had eaten them all. He offered to reimburse us. Later we ran into the driver – he approached us as we were leaving for town with three chocolates in hand and confessed that these were all that remained. He offered to buy us replacement chocolates. Checking out the next day, the head receptionist was also apologetic.  She too offered to reimburse us. Again we declined, but I asked her if she had eaten any. "Just one" she said.