Hair Locks on the Pavement
Trip Start
Oct 20, 2008
1
66
93
Trip End
Jan 31, 2009
Hanoi,
Vietnam
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Walked from the Old Quarters to the Temple of Literature (11th Century). This was the first national university in Vietnam. It consisted of classrooms, courtyards and Confucian temples enshrining Vietnamese kings, scholars and of course Confucius. The names of the degree owners were placed on tablets, which were standing on tortoise sculptures. Tortoise is a revered animal in Vietnam, because it's believed that it brought a powerful sword to the Vietnamese king with which he drew out the Chinese in the 15th Century.
Moved on to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. For those who aren't familiar with the subject, Ho Chi Minh is equivalent to Lenin in Russia
Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum
. He freed the country of French colonialism and orchestrated a good portion of the Vietnam War against the United States. His corpse was kept in a Soviet-style monument that was very similar to Lenin's in the Red Square. Although their sizes are quite comparable, Ho Chi Minh's might be slightly taller. Unfortunately, you could only visit it in the morning. I was too late to get in. I learned that the corpse is sent to Moscow every year to be chemically processed.Next to the Mausoleum were 2 houses where he engineered the Vietnam War. The houses were very modest, most probably because they didn't want them to be targeted by US fighters.
On the other side of the Mausoleum was the Ho Chi Minh Museum and the One Pillar Pagoda. The museum was "surreal" as LP has put it. This was the most bizarre museum I have ever seen. It was a hodge podge of modern sculpture work, collages alluding to Vietnamese history and government documents. The exhibition was disorganized and there was limited English labeling. As a result, I couldn't learn much from it. The One Pillar Pagoda was a Buddhist structure originally built in the 11th Century. The version I saw today was reconstructed after the French had burnt the original as they were exiting Indochina for good.
Literature 2
If one more person asks me whether I want a motorcycle ride, I'll punch him in the face.
From the Mausoleum I walked to the Citadel, which is still being used by the Vietnamese military. Passed the Citadel into the Northern part of the Old Quarter. What you see is pretty much the same throughout the Old Quarter: garbage, mud, people sitting on the pavement, fruit sellers asking you if you want to take a picture with their carrying sticks and shops of all kinds, but mostly selling counter-fits. However, there was a slight change in the Northern part in that I saw quite a few barbers cutting people's hair on the pavement. Hence, locks of hair covered the pavements there like carpets. One of these barbers was quite aggressive. He went as far as tightly holding my wrist and pulling my to the barber's chair. He wasn't joking; he wanted to get money from me. This incident reminded me of the sellers who had ganged up on me in Palmyra, Syria. I pretended that I found his actions amusing and walked away. In these kinds of situations, the trick is to not make the aggressor notice that you are loosing your cool. I think I have learned how to do this pretty well.
The quality of the buildings, roads and pavements got a lot worse as I approached the Old Quarter
Literature 3
. The Mausoleum area had to be more impressive, since it is the center of national pride. Also, the government had to show off to the numerous embassies located in this neighborhood. By the way, the embassies are inside the most luxurious estates you can find in Hanoi.I was exhausted. As I was sitting by the Hoan Kiem Lake, a young Vietnamese guy in sweat-pants approached me. Initially, I thought that he was a gigolo, but that didn't turn out to be the case at all. He was a civil engineering major at a local university and he just wanted to practice his English. I was surprised that a university student like himself had never heard of Turkey before. His family lives in a city 2 hours north of Hanoi. Has 2 siblings. He is staying at a hostel far away from the city center. I couldn't believe my ears when he mentioned the high rents of the shitty buildings in the Old Quarter. I tried my best to teach him a bit of English for half an hour. After that, he got up and left for the English Club where the Vietnamese youth gets together to improve their conversation skills. His resolve to master English impressed me a great deal.
Had dinner at a restaurant called "Pho" that was close to my hostel. Ordered something at random. Turned out to be a delicious mix of beef and vegetables
Streets of Communism
. Had a Fanta along with that. The Fanta tasted really bad, which made me think that it was a health-threatening counterfeit. Am I getting paranoid? $3 for all.Went back to the hostel to eat the exotic fruits that I had bought right in front of the One Pillar Pagoda. Well, one of them was clementines, which doesn't really count as exotic. But the other one was a passion fruit. Although I had eaten one before, I had never seen one unpeeled. The segmented yellow and pink peel was intoxicating. Poor choice of adjective for a piece of fruit; I know.
The hostel was of golden value. Even though it was the cheapest Western style hostel that I have stayed at so far, the room was clean, the bed was comfortable, there was free internet and breakfast etc. They are also great with travel info. Highly recommended.
Vietnam beat Thailand in the final of the Suzuki Cup. The Vietnamese filled up the streets of Hanoi to celebrate soon after.
