Our Last Tastes of Ho and Hanoi Before Heading Home

I already gave it away, but we were never destined to see Hanoi in the sun.  We ate breakfast at a window-side table and it was raining quite heavily at the time.  In fact, during the night, I had been awoken by a huge thunderstorm with a tremendous amount of lightning.  K said she didn’t hear a thing, which I envied.

Gray and Dreary Morning in Hanoi

Today was our only full day in Hanoi, and primarily consisted of a city tour.  The rain had turned into a mist by the time we all loaded into the bus, which included more sounds of sniffles and coughs every day.  I again marveled at our driver navigating such a behemoth vehicle in and amongst the running current of scooters.  Our first stop was the national ethnology museum, the grounds of which comprised a selection of native homes from across Vietnam.  This was very similar to ethnology museums we’d recently visited in Romania and Poland, and I have a particular fondness for them, for reasons I can’t easily articulate.  Rain had abated for the most part while we made our way through a series of transplanted native buildings from the various areas of the country.  Each was distinctly different from the other, which was both surprising and refreshing.  We often commented, too, about the fact that the museum grounds were literally abutted by apartment blocks on all sides, with balconies looking right over the park-like museum.  Several found it odd, whereas I envied the people lucky enough to have those apartments.  They had built-in tranquility right outside, with guarantees for quiet neighbors.  The museum included two very nice shops, both of which sold unique handmade gifts which we had yet to see anywhere else.

After piling back onto the bus, our next stop was to see the man himself, Ho Chi Minh.  His body is preserved like Lenin’s body in Moscow.  In fact, his mausoleum was a “gift” from the Soviet Union and is almost identical to Lenin’s in Red Square.  Before he died in 1969, Ho Chi Minh was adamant that he didn’t want his body to be a shrine, and he repeatedly requested that he be cremated, with his ashes spread at various locations across both North and South Vietnam.  Those wishes were immediately ignored, with his body being sent to Moscow for preservation.  To actually see his body, one must queue up very early in the morning, and it is only open for inside visitors for a couple of hours every day.  Scores of people do line up every morning, but we were told repeatedly that it is a non-satisfying experience, particularly as you must walk past his body very quickly, and no pictures are allowed.  His mausoleum sits on a huge Soviet-looking (no surprise) square in the center of the government district, directly across from the Parliament building and adjacent to the presidential residence.  Scores of foreign embassies and government ministries dot the neighborhood, too, with some (including the Canadian Embassy) sitting within the walled center of the complex. 

Several members of our group elected to not get off the bus, most – we learned later – in silent protest again the idolization of Ho.  We arrived soon after inside visiting hours had ended and before most tours arrived, so again we hit the sweet spot.  We had to go through security screening, but it was quick and painless, with no one else in line.  Once inside, we could walk down and see the very formal honor guard outside, along with all the Soviet-era trapping of typical communist idolatry.  Small tourist shops lined a promenade behind the crypt, most replete with every conceivable item bearing Ho’s image.  Again, the juxtaposition of capitalism in the literal shadow of a communist leader was off-putting.

A light rain had started by now.  The line to clear security was now quite long, so we were glad to reboard our bus.  After a short drive, we ended up at a brewery, when Tony “treated” us to fresh-brewed beer and some typical local snacks (fried corn kernels, rice crackers of all sorts, etc.).  It was a nice break, and we avoided the rain while sitting and socializing.

President's Residence in Hanoi

Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum in Hanoi

Vietnam's Parliament Building

Made Me Miss Our Chippy!

Suckling Pig at the Brewery

Once again on the bus, we headed to a market area of the city, where we disembarked.  Tony did an outstanding job ushering the 36 of us through a myriad of very small streets, all crammed with every kind of stall selling all kinds of goods, including lots of flowers.  It was a pleasant assault on the senses, with all kinds of odors (all good) and sounds.  Scooters weaved in and around us, so keeping us in toe and as “sticky rice” for street crossings was a challenge, but Tony seemed to handle it with ease.  We emerged from the tight collection of streets to find ourselves across from a large lake, which Tony claimed was named “John McCain Lake.”  This is where McCain’s jet crashed and from where he was taken after he completed a bombing run against a nearby power plant.  I never saw a sign or even a map showing that name, so I’ll assume it’s an informal name, primarily for American tourists.  In the center of the lake, on a small island, stands a beautiful little temple.  We had some time here to explore and look around, which was nice, and the rain held off.

Duckling

This was our last day, and we were in fact beginning our journey home this evening.  Everyone else was not leaving until the next day, but with work and the timing of available flights, we were on a late-night departure out of Hanoi.  There were a few more gifts we wanted to buy, and I had assumed we would have had an opportunity during the city tour.  This did not pan out, so once we were back at the hotel, we had to decide how to handle these last-minute “needs.”  We were all to depart for a famed Vietnamese water puppet show around 5:00pm, after which we’d travel to our farewell dinner.  K and I had already told Tony that we would have to miss the dinner, as our airport transfer was to arrive at 6:45pm.  We didn’t have much time, so I asked at the Front Desk and they identified a large indoor market about a 10-minute walk from the hotel.  We elected to head there, though it was now raining lightly, and the walk was rather challenging, given the traffic and (much worse) the fact that the sidewalks were mostly blocked by parked scooters, meaning that we had to keep going in and out of the street.  We were relieved to arrive at the market hall, which was huge and absolutely packed to the gills with small stalls and all kinds of goods, from household plastic buckets, to underwear, to souvenirs.  We quickly found what we wanted and began the reverse walk to the hotel.  We had not eaten lunch and we were missing dinner (at least until the airport), so we ducked into a KFC (one of the very few Western fast food outlets we saw during the entire trip).  A quick bite down, we got to the hotel and did our final suitcase pack, finishing just in time to leave for the water puppet show.

I’d never heard of water puppetry but, evidently, it’s a centuries’ old practice of putting on elaborate puppet shows in rice paddies.  It was a way to tell history, legends, and stories of morality to illiteral rural populations.   It has since evolved into a lavish indoor practice, with elaborate puppets of all sorts.  I still do not know how they are controlled.  We were in the second row, in front of a huge indoor pool, and I never saw anyone beneath the water, controlling the puppets, so it must be done with some kind of remote apparatus. Knowing we would have to leave before the show was over, we said some quick goodbyes to folks on the tour and took seats on the end of the row.  Near the end, we quietly snuck out and ordered up another Grab car.  Traffic was very heavy and as I watched the incoming car creep along on the app’s map, I was a little concerned about getting back to the hotel on time.  My standard pre-departure angst was again unfounded as we made it back in plenty of time to change, freshen up, and get to the lobby early.  That was all well and good, as the transfer driver arrived 15 minutes early, which I never mind. 

Inside the Water Puppet Theater

The rain was quite heavy as we made the 30-minute drive to the airport.  We had a huge transit van all to ourselves, which seemed quite unnecessary.  The airport, while modern, was typical Asian, in that there was a huge common check-in terminal, and you had to consult a central screen to find your check-in area and desk, as it could change from day to day.  Turkish Airlines was at the far, far end – of course – and we could see the long line as we approached.  The business class check-in line was very short, but everything moved slowly as it appeared almost every passenger was checking in huge cardboard boxes full of Lord knows what.  I’d never seen anything like it.  I was wondering if we were really on a cargo flight or something, and I joked that the plane would be too heavy for takeoff.

We had about 90 minutes to kill in the lounge, and we got some snacks and just detoxed from what had been a long, long day.  I had a long call on WhatsApp with Anna, with whom we had only been able to text most of time, while K did some shopping.  We boarded on time and even left a little early.  The rain was extreme as we taxi’d, and I saw lightning on the horizon, which is my last memory of Vietnam, before we took off and disappeared into the low clouds.