10-30-19 - Hanoi - Reflecting on the Vietnam War
/Day 136. Kyle & Leanne joint blog.
Tomorrow is Halloween and the teens are a bit sad to miss Halloween season back home. Each year, we enjoy a number of spooky-related events and parties around Halloween time ever since they were little. Kyle spends several days on decorating the house too. There is just something extra special about Halloween to us.
To this end, Kyle and Leanne are informed by John that the day must include a few Halloween-related stops. We all agree, but how will we accomplish this in Vietnam? No worries, Big Sauce Tours has the plan.
We start the day with another brisk 30 minute walk but this journey is anything short of boring. Hanoi is filled with 80 percent of vehicles as motorcycles navigating through just a handful of streetlights. Even then streetlights seemed to be a mere suggestion not a requirement to the motorist.
Add to that is the fact that sidewalks are less for the purpose of walking than they seem to be for parking those 45 million mopeds. The rest of the sidewalk is utilized by preschool-sized stools and tables in makeshift temporary restaurants. What isn’t used for moped parking or restaurant space will be used by the countless baskets of goods spilling from the colorful mom-and-pop stores that line the streets. With approximately 3.4 square inches left of the sidewalk not occupied by the previous three constituents, the pedestrian need to share with the numerous street fruit and vegetable sellers who seem to always be “walking and hawking.” Suffice to say, Walking through Hanoi takes an incredible amount of courage with each step.
After close observation, We notice that we are battling through this pedestrian quest pretty much only with other tourists. Apparently no one who is actually Vietnamese dares to walk through Hanoi in the morning rush hour. Or any other time for that matter. Google maps can’t possibly accurately calculate all the maze handling one must accomplish in Hanoi in their walking times.
Adding to your “sidewalk squeeze” dance you must play, Crossing the street is definitely the biggest challenge to your personal mortality each day. Taught first by our Nepalese guide Deepak, you have to use the universal but unofficial “hand out front” method to signal the following message to motorists: “Yes, dear motorist, we are putting our precious lives in your hands and crossing this incredibly busy street with a stream of moving vehicles - of which you are one - approaching us at 40 mph, so do please stop, we trust you, we really do, (insert prayer of choice here), do please slow down and avoid us at all costs. We would wait for no traffic but that moment only comes at 2:34 am. Get it, I beg of you to slow down, see the hand? That’s a pretty please with sugar on top please.”
Suffice to say, it is so incredibly harrying just to walk around Hanoi. Seriously though, part of the issue is lack of public transportation and few lights combined with a super-dense population on the move. The vibe is kinetic and fast-paced.
We arrive at the Vietnam Military History Museum intact beating the French family of four that attempted to pass our crew of seven twice on the busy streets. Oh these small wins. This museum is hard to forget with its collection of downed US plane wreckage and anti-American displays proudly displayed outside. One display that stood out was the list of the 20 or so resistance wars that Vietnamese have fought against invading forces...and prevailed. Leanne aptly points out that the US must have missed that exhibit back in the 60s.
Kyle and I found the presentation of the “American war” interesting as the view was more about how other world leaders all sided with Vietnam and against the Americans. They blamed the French for Vietnamese troops fighting other Vietnamese people. One of the biggest advantages of curating a museum is you create the windows through which you want your visitors to see. For them, it was less about the fact that Vietnam won the war and much more about the fact that Vietnam was justified in winning the war.
After the Military History Museum, we climbed a few steps on the nearby Hanoi Flag tower to get a clearer view of the downed American plane wreckage on display. That was definitely a first for us all. And a bit sad. We witness a fellow American look over the wreckage and saw his pained look too. War is ugly. No way around it.
It is really hard to digest. We have a really good church friend Dennis who served in the Vietnam War. Justin interviewed him about his experience as part of a Boy Scout merit badge. We have the utmost respect for those who have served our country and can only express our gratitude for their service. Thank you Dennis!
One thing we have come to the realization of is that it is the experience of war or terrorism for those who are have not been born is vastly different from those who lived through it. Kyle’s late father’s birthday was Dec 7 and he turned 15 on Pearl Harbor day. We were not alive during WW II and as much as we read and visit World War II sites, we can never view it through the same lens as our parent’s generation who lived through it. Similarly, two of Kyle’s uncles (Uncle Jack & Larry) served in the Korean War. Our visit to Seoul, South Korea enabled us to better appreciate the war; however, we still couldn’t possibly know what it was like to be there.
Fast forward and now we (Kyle & Leanne) are experiencing sites of war and terrorism of our generation. Prior to this trip, we did a Cub Scout overnight on the USS XXX which is the ship where George Bush gave the order to launch the missile attack that started the Gulf War. We have visited the Trade Tower Memorial Museum in NYC where Leanne and I sat huddled in front of our TV in horror as the attack unfolded. The Bosnian Civil War unfolded in the 1990’s on the front pages of our newspapers and took on new meaning when we visited still war-torn Mostar in Bosnia. And perhaps none more significant for us than the end of the cold war and fall of communism symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall on Kyle’s birthday in 1989 after growing up with the constant threat of nuclear war.
Yet, as we can’t comprehend our parent’s wars the same way as they lived them, we can’t expect our kids to comprehend these events we have lived through before they were born. We can only hope that the events of their generation will be few and far between and perhaps not all at all if that is not too much to wish for.
In need of something more beautiful, John leads us to the nearby Vietnam Fine Arts Museum. This museum was a score - just slight bigger than two McMansions, this building displayed Vietnamese art from over 5,000 years ago to present day. Bronze rubbings, lacquer painting, watercolors, statues of Tao and Buddhist significance joined post war paintings with references to fighting, guerillas and freedom. Once again we see references to women and fighting in the wars, the third museum to offer such. John drags Leanne out of there as she loves to devour every painting possible. The best thing about a museum like this is the opportunity to see local artists with national recognition. There are plenty of would-be Picasso’s amongst them had they been born elsewhere perhaps. But John is on Leanne to get moving.
He knows there’s no time to waste as we walk over to the Temple of Literature, a Hanoi must-see. The temple was built in 1070 at the time of Emperor Ly Thanh Tong and is one several temples in Vietnam dedicated to Confucius, sages and scholars. The temple hosts the Imperial Academy, Vietnam’s first national university. The various pavilions, halls, statues and steale of doctors are places where offering ceremonies, study sessions and the strict exams of the Dai Viet took place. The Temple is featured on the back of the 100,000 Dong bill.
It was once a university for the study of Confucianism for over 700 years starting in the year 1076. Students aspired to the prized achievement of having your name inscribed on the stone turtle tablets when you finished your doctorate. The beautiful gardens were serene, symmetrical, and full of meaningful gates and structures. At first only aristocracy (including royal son’s) were able to study there but after some time, the allowed “brighter commoners” to study there as well. Talk about access! As we leave, Kyle asks the kids if they feel smarter having visited the Temple of Literature and they respond affirmatively but look skeptical as if expecting Kyle to launch a surprise pop quiz is on them to confirm their affirmations.
Now comes the time of the day that Big Sauce has planned haircuts and bread trim so the girls and Kyle return to the hotel for an afternoon rest. One of the cool things of Hanoi is that there are 36 streets where every store / shop is dedicated to the same theme. The barber shop is nestled off a street that we dub “Home Depot alley” as every shop has tools and machinery for sale. On the walk back, we end up on the painting dedicated street and Leanne the painter is in heaven. Kyle has to continually remind Leanne that we don’t really need another painting and it will be very difficult to ship home although he ends up secretly admiring the works of art.
After reconvening at the hotel, we head out for the street that is dedicated to Halloween decorations and costumes. In order to get there, we have to make it to the Halloween street, we need to survive getting through the gauntlet that is restaurant row. Restaurant row is a street where after 5pm, each restaurant sets up tables outside on the street. To put it in context, there are about 100 restaurants that stretch the length of the street. This street presents a different navigation challenge than the earlier sidewalk challenges so instead of a million mopeds, we need to avoid the dreaded “Menu Hawkers.”
Menu Hawkers are employees of each restaurant that will aggressively approach you to lure you into their respective establishment. They stand in the 24 inch thoroughfare between tables that is the walkway targeting unsuspecting tourists. So we are getting accosted by a Menu Hawker every 3 meters who grabs each one of us by the shoulder and attempts to walk us to our “preordained” special seat at their restaurant. They are kind and happy and smiling (like the Indian carpet smiley guy salesman) but they are relentless! Somehow it must work. Given we are going Halloween shopping and not to dinner, we have no choice but to decline each and every one of the Menu Hawkers. We label this one of the most innovative but obvious tourist traps as it’s related to what everyone definitely has to do each day — EAT!
Having survived restaurant row, we head to the “Party City equivalent” street for Halloween costumes. In Vietnam, Halloween still seems to be in its intact stage. The hotel employees have told us that no-one trick-or-treats but that some of the younger generation does dress up in costumes. As we survey the Halloween shops, most of the costumes seem to be made for kids only but we figure out a way to be creative and for about $40 we outfit up the crew with something resembling a Halloween costume. We buy local candy on the candy dedicated street with the plan that we will trick-or-treat at each of our hotel rooms tomorrow night.
After finding costumes, John leads us back in a circuitous route that avoids restaurant row. Upon arriving at the hotel, the kids opt for bed and Kyle and Leanne get a fun date night dinner. Kyle had spotted a restaurant he thought would be fun but it’s at the end of the restaurant row and the dreaded Menu Hawkers. This means we’ll have to brave the gauntlet once again to get dinner at our intended place. We make it but not without one of the Menu Hawkers putting Kyle in a bear hug and trying to wrestle-steer him to his restaurant’s tables.
We finally make it to the Prague Pub which serves up both Vietnamese and Western grub. We sit in an outside table right at the entrance to restaurant row which provides for some great people watching. However, we soon realize that we are front and center targets for all manner and sorts of street hawkers. We are pitched lighters, cigarettes, donuts, Christmas greeting cards, Vietnam hats and a shoeshine by at least a two or three dozen different folks. The shoeshine guy even tried to offer a woman with flip-flops a shoe-shine, go figure? We fend them all off somehow before realizing that we would be out of the line of fire if we moved to a table one row up on an upper deck of sorts which we do. For a Communist / Socialist country, it seems pretty damn capitalist to us.
Having moved to a new table, we end up sitting next to a fun German and an Ethiopian couple who are travelling through Thailand and Vietnam for a month. They are quite an interesting pair as she has a fashion model look right out of the pages of Vogue while he is decorated out in a fiery display of colorful tattoos. They are particularly inquisitive about our year-long travel adventure which we discuss at length. However; when the conversation turns to our story of the naked guy in our hotel, they hastily pay the bill and split apparently scared of where the conversation might be going next.
We finish up dinner and make it back down the restaurant row gauntlet for the third time. The street ends in an intersection of three streets and it is complete mayhem. “What day of the week is it?” Leanne asks. Kyle, having completely no clue, pulls out his phone and informs her that its Wednesday. Seriously, there are thousands of people going nuts in the streets at 10pm on a random Wednesday. Having had our fill of craziness for the night, we retire to the hotel and bed wondering exactly what we will find outside our door at 4am this fortnight?
