Ha Noi has stayed in my thoughts ever since I first visited almost thirty years ago, and I’ve told many people since that it’s one of my favourite cities. Recently, however, I’ve done a lot more sampling of the world, making it’s easier to compare memory with reality. And all things considered I have to say it still comes out high on the list. But not for the sort of reasons you might expect.
This isn’t a city with beautiful parks and seamless architecture, like Paris; or famous museums and iconic buildings, like London. It doesn’t have the ancient ruins of Rome, or even the sort of medieval market you’ll find in Fes.
In fact, Ha Noi is very, very hard. It’s hard to get across the street, since there are precious few stop lights, and even when you do find them, they’re impossible to trust. You take a leap (or at least a step) of faith just to go for a casual walk, wading out into the incessant rush of motorbikes, cars and cyclos (those Vietnamese tricycles with the passenger riding interference up front).
The trick is to just cross at a constant speed, so that whatever is coming at you can judge if they need to slow down, speed up or swerve. The other trick is to find someone (anyone!) to walk next to, with them hopefully keeping just a wee bit up-stream.
And the weather in Ha Noi is hard, at least in summer, when the temperature reaches 38°C or more, every day, and the humidity gets as close to the maximum that seems possible without the sky opening up and pouring all the moisture onto the ground. A short stroll is all you can manage before sitting down for a rest (and a fresh-squeezed mango juice).
Of course the sky does open up, periodically. Ha Noi is right on the banks of the Red River, notorious for its crop-destroying and people-drowning floods. So when it rains in the city there aren’t many places for the water to quickly run away.
If you stay for anything more than a week or two in summer you can expect at least one afternoon deluge, with the streets around your hotel filling up to hopefully just below the level of the lobby floor.
I well remember seeing this sort of flood on one occasion, and watching the water begin to lap at the foot pads of all the motorbikes stacked sideways along the street. No one seemed to bat an eye until a large SUV came rumbling through, obviously going too fast.
In an instant people began running out from all the nearby shops. But it was too late. The wake created by the vehicle knocked down all the bikes, like dominoes toppling in a long, shiny metal row.
Yes, I think that hardness is actually one of the big reasons I love Ha Noi. It’s hugely chaotic, and energy-sapping, and so full of so much you don’t really understand that when you do eventually pull yourself away, and think back to all that went on, you realise that you have incredibly intense memories, all the more vivid for having been so hard won.
ooOOoo
Ha Noi is a city full of treasures, but my favourite part is a district that is both the most revered spot in the entire country, and one that also evokes some of the strongest visions of the French colonial past. It’s quintessentially Viet Nam, and at the same time different to anywhere else in Southeast Asia I’ve ever been.
To get there you walk through the west side of the Old Quarter, along what for obvious reasons the locals call Computer and Washing Machine Street. But you can’t turn left too early, since the side streets are all shut off. The reason is that the main barracks of the Vietnamese People’s Army (the Citadel) is in the way.
Finally though, you get to the right corner, and find yourself looking down a broad avenue lined with towering mahogany and sau trees. On either side are two and three storey “residences”, although it’s unlikely that anyone actually lives in them anymore.
Once, though, they were the privileged palais of French civil servants and business people, at a time when France was building a rudimentary infrastructure in Viet Nam to exploit its natural resources and rubber plantations.
There was colonial money aplenty in the late 1800’s, and La Belle Epoque found its way to Ha Noi in the form of plastered villas, complete with towering ceilings and dark green shutters that wouldn’t be out of place in Paris or Lyon.
Heat, humidity, and the Vietnamese penchant for lack of maintenance has over the years left many of these buildings to develop a look that might best be described as “tropical decadence”. You almost expect Somerset Maugham to walk out the front gate dressed in a white suit and straw panama, a yellow silk handkerchief cascading rakishly out of his top pocket.
Nowadays many of the buildings seem to house various government offices, although it’s difficult to tell. Some don’t even have brass plaques with Vietnamese writing on the gate posts.
But you can tell something “functionary” is going on by the addition of unsightly corrugated iron car ports in the front gardens, and the female office staff coming back to work after the traditional public service two hour lunch.
To keep up with the theme of intrigue in a hot climate, you’ll also find a number of embassies and ambassadors’ residences along the leafy streets.
Many of them look to have housed their country’s diplomats (and their secrets) since the early 1900s, while others have at least changed name plates with the times (especially with the addition of new states from the former Soviet Bloc).
These leafy avenues with not quite so much traffic are a wonderful place to meander, particularly when the temperature becomes truly sapping in the overhead sun. However, if you walk just a little bit further north the scene abruptly changes.
On the left is a sprawling, white, abstract (and yes, Stalinist) museum, and beyond that a large park. The park also contains a couple of grand French-style structures – the Presidential Palace, and a one storey house next to a small reflecting pond.
The main attraction, however, is on the opposite side of that pond. There, seemingly out of place even amongst these remarkably contrasting architectural styles, sits a simple, mahogany-clad summer cottage on stilts.
Ho Chi Minh’s house, Ha Noi
If you look on the Internet you’ll see speculation (from American sources, it seems) that Bac Ho (Uncle Ho) didn’t live in the house very much, since it would have been a great target for US war planes.
The sources also say that the whole idea of Ho leading a simple life-style was “propaganda”, that word Western politicians always use to describe stories emanating from Communist countries, but never their own.
It’s really hard to tell where the truth lies, but I have no doubt Ho Chi Minh spent a fair amount of time in this, or other such places, especially after he relinquished power in the early years of the war, through to when he died in 1969. By the end he was an old and often very sick man, and the “other side” would have known that the big decisions were all being made elsewhere.
What can’t be denied, however, is that for the Vietnamese, Ho Chi Minh is a combination of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and the stories they tell about him likely have at least as much credibility as similar tales about chopping down cherry trees.
So if you are Vietnamese, and even if you are not, once you’ve seen the stilt house you can’t help but walk the short distance to the place where the Father of Viet Nam now rests. His body lies in state, embalmed in that strange practice of Communist countries, so that everyone can walk by the glass case and see the man in the (very much preserved) flesh.
Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum
The mausoleum is another Stalinist epic, all sharp edged pillars, and a crown with the words “HO CHI MINH” just a little bit too square, making it look somehow all out of proportion as a result.
Everywhere there are guards, in white uniforms and hats, marching back and forth in front of the wreaths left by the constant string of visitors from the countryside.
The guards have shrill whistles, which they blow to alert people to the many infractions they might commit. Chief amongst these is to walk, even momentarily, on any of the 240 large squares of grass laid out in front of the tomb.
The grass is carefully tended. So carefully, in fact, that it is only ever cut with scissors, by a team of women caretakers who continuously work their way around the massive field.
The reason such care is taken, and why no visitor is allowed to tread on so much as a blade, is simple. It is said that each leaf represents the soul of a countryman or woman who has died in defence of their beloved land.
~originally composed in December, 2011~