10-29-19 - Hanoi - Big Sauce Tours Returns
/Day 135. Kyle & Leanne joint blog.
With the drama of last night in the rear view mirror, “John & Justin’s Off the Beaten-Path, Big Sauce Tours” is back in Hanoi. It’s been a solid month that we have followed a pre-set tour plan through China, Tibet, Nepal and India followed by Thailand which Justin helped Kyle plan. Scheduled tours where a company prepares you a full day’s itinerary have their perks, but our overall clan-favorite tour guide and planner is our 17 year old son John.
Why? More reasons than we can name but one major one is that John is a natural planner / teacher / leader / bodyguard and at 6 foot 4, none of us lose him. Armed with his World History knowledge and apps up the wazoo, he researches locations thoroughly; every day he’s at the helm so far has been a blast for all.
The Big Sauce day started with a brisk walk to St Joseph’s Cathedral, a 19th century Catholic Church that serves as the Archdiocese for the area’s 4 million Catholics. The church was built during French colonialism in the 1860’s and surprisingly wasn’t destroyed during the war like the fate of many churches. It was however, shut down from 1954 to 1990.
It was a good example of “don’t judge the church by its cover”. From the outside it was clear it had suffered some damage from time, pollution and war. However the interior was absolutely lovely with white, red and gold accents throughout and stained glass windows that were protected by rot iron grates on the exterior. We hadn’t seen a Catholic Church in over a month so we all found a quiet spot for prayer, lingering here much longer than planned in the comfort of our own faith.
We learn that under Communism since the 1950s, religious freedom has been under attack in Vietnam; however of late the environment is supposedly improved although not all would agree. 73 percent of Vietnamese are non-religious with ~30% of those atheists and ~43 percent of those practicing the teachings of Confucius/Taoism or other folk teachings. Buddhists represent 14 percent of the population and Catholics 7 percent.
While at the church lighting candles for our family and friends, Kyle receives a text alert that $400 has been withdrawn from an ATM in China. When Kyle withdrew money at the Hanoi airport yesterday, the ATM had a screen describing how “skimming” ATM cards has becoming a widespread problem and gave instructions for how to inspect the ATM for recording devices. Kyle performed the inspection but obviously missed something as he isn’t in Beijing, China withdrawing money. Before Kyle can make it out of the church, another text comes through that he has withdrawn $375 in Xi’an, China.
Cursing under his breath, Kyle calls the bank where he is promptly put on hold with no indication of how long it will be. As he is waiting on hold, more texts keep coming through as Kyle’s doppelgangers are multiplying fast and furious withdrawing money all over Asia as Kyle watching in horror at our bank balance being drained. Finally, Kyle remembers that he can turn the card off via the mobile app and within 60 seconds has the card turned off. Relieved, he goes back to waiting on hold but his relief is short lived as another text comes through with a withdrawal from India. After 20 minutes on hold and $8,000 lighter, a representative finally comes on the line and after Kyle frantically explains the need to shut his card off now, the agent non-chalantly says, “oh yeah, that’s a known system glitch where we accidentally sent out texts for past cash withdrawals as if they just happened so you can disregard them.” Relieved but not amused, Kyle sarcastically asks “well, maybe next time, can your system “accidentally” send out a text to disregard the system glitch texts before I have a heart attack?”
After the “fraud that wasn’t really fraud” text alerts and the naked hallway guy, we have decided we have had enough adventure for the first 24 hours in Vietnam and say a prayer for a return to the normalcy of exploring the city. Perhaps we should just go back to the hotel. Better yet, we go to Starbucks. That stop put us back together as there is nothing quite like latte therapy.
We then visit Hoan Kiem Lake, the iconic sacred lake in the heart of Hanoi that means “Lake of the Returned Sword.” According to legend, in 1428, Emperor Le Loi was boating on the lake when a Golden Turtle God (Kim Qui) surfaced and asked for his magic sword, Heaven’s Will. Loi concluded that Kim Qui had come to reclaim the sword that its master, a local God, the Dragon King, had given Loi sometime earlier during his revolt against the Ming Dynasty. The emperor gave back the sword to the turtle and renamed the lake to commemorate the event. Turtle tower now stands on a small island near the center of the lake in memory of the legend. Large soft-shell turtles have been sighted in the lake for year and it’s considered extremely good fortune to spot one. After the death of the one of the turtles in 2016, there are only three remaining turtles of the species.
Next we stop at the monument dedicated to Emperor Le Loi who was post-humously known by his temple name Le Thai To and founder of the Later Le dynasty. Le Loi (1384 – 1433) is among the most famous figures of Vietnamese history and one of its greatest heroes who revolted against the Ming Dynasty of China.
Next, we sojourn to Hoa La prison. Built in 1896, this prison — aka “Hanoi Hilton” — is historically infamous for its past brutality. Today only part of the original prison is left standing. This facility first served as the place where the French kept political prisoners (and seemingly future revolutionaries) in horrendous prison conditions in the first half of the 1900s. After gaining independence from France in 1954, it became a school for teaching Communism and then during the Vietnam War, a place for holding American POW prisoners shot down in airplanes. The exhibits described the torture and brutal prison conditions in detail and it reminded us of the Dachau concentration camp we visited in Germany. There was an exhibit on the “Resistance War Against America” (Vietnam name for what we call the “Vietnam War”) which presented 40+ countries and outlined each country’s support for Vietnam and against America. We stomached it all. Sometimes the most challenging parts of history need to be experienced.
Needing something uplifting, we head to the Vietnamese Women’s Museum which focused on women’s role in the family, their role in the Vietnam war (many fought on the front line) and finally their fashion. One exhibit was on the Vietnamese popular worship of the Mother Goddess. Leanne walked out with her inner-Goddess both intact and ready to tackle the rest of Hanoi.
We then grab lunch and devoured our meal in a park by the beautiful tree-lined Lake Hoan Kiem with a view of the iconic Turtle Tower enjoying its cool lake breezes and excellent people watching. We see Vietnamese women dressed up in their traditional dresses for a special occasion. Leanne shares that when she visited in 1997, just a few years after Vietnam opened for tourism, approximately 75 percent of the women wore their traditional Vietnamese dress called the Ao Dai. Nowadays it’s only worn on special occasions.
We visit the Temple of the Jade Mountain on Jade Island on the northern shore of the Turtle Lake. The temple was erected in the 18th century and honors 13th century military leader Tran Hung Dao who distinguished himself in defeating the Mongol invasions of Vietnam three times including the defeat of the three hundred thousand Mongolian invaders sent by Kubla Kahn.
Next we visit the Taoist Temple of Ba Keiu which is approximately 1,000 years old. The primary figure of worship is the “Mother Goddess,” Lieu Hanh. She is worshipped as the Goddess of fertility and abundance and many women seeking to become pregnant worship at the temple although this is clearly not the reason for our visit.
Next we heading to a well-regarded Vietnamese cultural experience, the Thang Luong Water Puppet show. It was a spectacular show with vocals, instrumentalists and puppeteers in lock step on 19 songs. Including one about the tale of the Golden Turtle and his magical sword. Water Puppetry is a uniquely Vietnamese performance having started in the rural village over flooded rice paddies over 1,000 years ago. The acts are short songs and the stories reflect the lives of the farmers and Vietnamese culture. Even today, half of the population work in agriculture. Kyle particularly enjoys one the water puppets who is swimming and busts out backstroking (his stroke as a swimmer) across the lake.
It’s already been a full day of temples, museums, and performance - so we all head back for an hour’s rest and some educational download on what the teens witnessed.
Understanding the Vietnam War from this vantage alone would be a bit one sided so it’s our job as parents to give the teens more context. Thank goodness for Wiki, YouTube and creative minds that create great content to help us out.
We have loved Geography Now, Vox Borders, History Channel and Crash Course amongst others for this sort of supplemental education material. We are all immersing these countries very quickly - quick deep dives - and trying our hardest to leave as smarter, more enlightened and better citizens of the world.
As we arrive back to the hotel, the nice Vietnamese service manager who greeted us yesterday with tea, coffee and refreshing towels is happy to see us. “How was your day?” He asks. “My colleague shared with me the little incident you had last night and I’m very sorry. That’s never happened before I can assure you.”
It’s clear he wanted to ascertain if we were psychologically damaged from the naked guy incident and whether we intended to ruin their incredibly high Trip Advisor rating. We all had a good laugh about it - as now it’s funny - but he assured us they had reviewed the security tapes to ensure the guest didn’t enter the lobby naked or walk through the hallways streaking anyone else. Kyle suggests that the hotel should start a new marketing campaign, “free naked guy comes with every room rental.” The service manager looks like he doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry at Kyle’s joke.
Despite our mantra of getting out and experiencing a culture directly, tonight we eat in the hotel. It’s a bit overpriced but that is pretty normal. They offer you the convenience of rolling directly from your dining table to your room as long as you pay a premium for such convenience. Since we are not used to walking so much after the last month of van/bus touring, it was the best option for one exhausted crew tonight.
