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| Hoan Kiem Lake and Tortoise Tower |
A busy day ahead. There's much to see in Hanoi. And I have only 2½ days to see it all.
With the help of Rosie aka Kha Han (meaning happiness), I’ve got lots of information as to what’s where. First, a short walk to see the old French cathedral, St. Joseph’s. On the road leading to it, I pass a café called simply “The Church”, and a fast food called “Take Eat Easy”. Right after that a Buddhist temple, Chua Ba Da, hidden down an alley and holding a service to a full house. Just down the street, another religion: Roman Catholicism. St. Joseph’s quaintly has a welcome mat at its entrance. Inside, more tourists than parishioners. I sit down in the pew and a feeling of A World Disappeared sweeps over me. The stained glass inscriptions are in French: l’ange gardien - the guardian angel - but the French are long gone. I hear children playing next door beyond one open door (it’s a school) and motorcycles and cars honking beyond the other.
In one side chapel are gilded brass panels. A Vietnamese woman tries to pray as her little girl watches the tourists watch them and take pictures. In another chapel, a plaque in the floor, the tomb of Giuse Maria Tinh Van Can. Was he one of the Vietnamese martyrs this chapel is dedicated to? There were 140,000-300,000 of them. Their torturers “hacked off limbs joint by joint, tore flesh with red hot tongs”. For some reason, stories of this reached Ste. Thérèse of Lisieux in France and she was to be sent to Hanoi. But she contracted tuberculosis and died first. A little link with a history I thought I knew.
Back outside, I turn my back to the leprous walls that so need to be renovated, but that world is no more. Unless the Vatican steps in, the tropical climate will ultimately have its way with St. Joseph’s. I head off past other remnants of the French colonial era, mixed in with tiny, sad shops and decaying sidewalks. I pass a lovely garden in front of what was once an embassy (name noted and research done once I get back home). I pass a school where children are practicing a song for some event or visit. I pass birds singing in cages hung just outside shop doors. I pass a deformed man with wasted legs selling pop-up paper cards. “Where are you from?” he calls to me, in English. I reply “Paris”, in case Agent Orange caused his deformity. He’s that age.
Finally, I reach the “jade green” waters of Hoan Kiem Lake, the lake of the returned sword. Legend says the Vietnamese emperor was given a sword to help him fend off the Ming Chinese invaders, a sword pulled up in a net by a fisherman in this lake. After the Mings were defeated, the emperor was sailing in a boat on this lake. A turtle rose up out of the waters and asked the emperor for the sword back, which the emperor did. And it disappeared back into the lake. At the south end, on a tiny island is the Tortoise Tower.
There are no more turtles... at least none that have been seen. One died in 1968, the other - the last - died recently, in 2016. No more tortoises, but maybe still a sword? If you want to see what this turtle looked like, the mummified remains of the last two can be seen in the 15th century Ngoc Son Temple (Jade Mountain Temple) further up the lake on Jade Island. The temple itself is for taoism and confucianism; no Buddhas here. Entrance price? 30,000 dong ($1.50) will buy you passage over the Japanese-style red wooden bridge and entrance to the temple.
At the head of the lake I buy a ticket for the HoHo Tour Bus (hop-on/hop-off, not a Santa laugh, or a reference to Ho Chi Minh). Pollution will be bad here today - my eyes water as I await the bus, and I cough - which is why so many people are wearing masks, some very colorful on the stylish ladies. My ticket is valid for four hours, but I have to wait... and wait... and wait. When it finally comes, I pick a seat in the front, for better visibility. The lady “guide” gives me earphones for the audio, then helps me with them. Her seat is across from mine. We head off, past St. Joseph’s Cathedral, past Ho Chi Minh’s tomb, past West Lake (Truc Bach), which the audioguide tells me John McCain parachuted into when his plane was shot down on a bombing mission over Hanoi (with a monument to his capture there now). Unfortunately, the audio is useless for more than some details because it keeps skipping ahead to keep up with the bus.
We reach the Temple of Knowledge, and I get off. This is one of Hanoi’s highlights, and for another mere 30,000 dong. Lying just west of the city center, it’s another haven of peace amidst motorized bedlam all around. And their audioguide is much better than the HoHo one; it gives a full history of the complex where Confucianism was taught as of 1070. This first university of Vietnam is a series of five courtyards. In the third one, a line of stone turtles, one for each winner of the mandarin’s exam under the Li Dynasty. In another building is a statue of a crane on the back of a turtle (him again!), which represents duality: heaven and earth, dry and wet... Another feature is the 700-kilogram (1,543-pound) wooden drum, constructed from fifty 300-year-old jackfruit trees and called the thunder drum for the sound it makes. The last detail that strikes me I discover when looking down from the innermost building’s second floor: the tiled roof below is littered with coins and paper money! A Hanoi version of Rome’s Trevi Fountain? What were those people wishing for?
I’ve spent a whole hour here, and more, fascinated by the archaeology and history, and distracted by the numerous photo shoots (fashion? marriages? senior-year photos?). When the HoHo Bus comes, guess who’s in it! The same bus lady. We recognize each other, and as there are almost no passengers besides me, we talk. (Her English is excellent.) When we reach the stop near the Opera, she points me in the right direction; this is the old French Quarter and, typical of French planning, there are roads radiating out in all directions, like the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
Unfortunately, there are no visits of the interior of the Opera House unless you attend a show. When the lady shows me a flyer, the show - “My Village” - turns out to be a kind of circus-y event including people walking on tall bamboo poles... in their bare feet! I may have to see that!
On to the nearby - but, for me, hard to find - Hôtel Métropole, my destination for tea time. (I’ve skipped lunch.) This is a legendary place built in 1911 during the French colonial era. Among its famous guests, Graham Greene, Somerset Maugham and Charlie Chaplin, for whom a pastry has been named. I pick a table in the conservatory and sink my weariness into a chair. The waiter brings me an Assam tea, served in bone china and perfectly steeped. He allows me to graze the pastry tray and I choose three miniature cakes plus a piece of chocolate. Perfection! A magic moment reminiscent of colonial days, minus the war.
All that’s left to do is walk back to the lake and beyond, to my Apricot Hotel. After a shower, a dinner of shrimp and pork nem (spring rolls) on the rooftop terrace, with a glass of chilled white wine, and then some reading until my eyes are as tired as my legs.
In one side chapel are gilded brass panels. A Vietnamese woman tries to pray as her little girl watches the tourists watch them and take pictures. In another chapel, a plaque in the floor, the tomb of Giuse Maria Tinh Van Can. Was he one of the Vietnamese martyrs this chapel is dedicated to? There were 140,000-300,000 of them. Their torturers “hacked off limbs joint by joint, tore flesh with red hot tongs”. For some reason, stories of this reached Ste. Thérèse of Lisieux in France and she was to be sent to Hanoi. But she contracted tuberculosis and died first. A little link with a history I thought I knew.
Back outside, I turn my back to the leprous walls that so need to be renovated, but that world is no more. Unless the Vatican steps in, the tropical climate will ultimately have its way with St. Joseph’s. I head off past other remnants of the French colonial era, mixed in with tiny, sad shops and decaying sidewalks. I pass a lovely garden in front of what was once an embassy (name noted and research done once I get back home). I pass a school where children are practicing a song for some event or visit. I pass birds singing in cages hung just outside shop doors. I pass a deformed man with wasted legs selling pop-up paper cards. “Where are you from?” he calls to me, in English. I reply “Paris”, in case Agent Orange caused his deformity. He’s that age.Finally, I reach the “jade green” waters of Hoan Kiem Lake, the lake of the returned sword. Legend says the Vietnamese emperor was given a sword to help him fend off the Ming Chinese invaders, a sword pulled up in a net by a fisherman in this lake. After the Mings were defeated, the emperor was sailing in a boat on this lake. A turtle rose up out of the waters and asked the emperor for the sword back, which the emperor did. And it disappeared back into the lake. At the south end, on a tiny island is the Tortoise Tower.
There are no more turtles... at least none that have been seen. One died in 1968, the other - the last - died recently, in 2016. No more tortoises, but maybe still a sword? If you want to see what this turtle looked like, the mummified remains of the last two can be seen in the 15th century Ngoc Son Temple (Jade Mountain Temple) further up the lake on Jade Island. The temple itself is for taoism and confucianism; no Buddhas here. Entrance price? 30,000 dong ($1.50) will buy you passage over the Japanese-style red wooden bridge and entrance to the temple.
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| Jade Mountain Temple |
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| Temple of Knowledge |
We reach the Temple of Knowledge, and I get off. This is one of Hanoi’s highlights, and for another mere 30,000 dong. Lying just west of the city center, it’s another haven of peace amidst motorized bedlam all around. And their audioguide is much better than the HoHo one; it gives a full history of the complex where Confucianism was taught as of 1070. This first university of Vietnam is a series of five courtyards. In the third one, a line of stone turtles, one for each winner of the mandarin’s exam under the Li Dynasty. In another building is a statue of a crane on the back of a turtle (him again!), which represents duality: heaven and earth, dry and wet... Another feature is the 700-kilogram (1,543-pound) wooden drum, constructed from fifty 300-year-old jackfruit trees and called the thunder drum for the sound it makes. The last detail that strikes me I discover when looking down from the innermost building’s second floor: the tiled roof below is littered with coins and paper money! A Hanoi version of Rome’s Trevi Fountain? What were those people wishing for? |
| Opera House |
Unfortunately, there are no visits of the interior of the Opera House unless you attend a show. When the lady shows me a flyer, the show - “My Village” - turns out to be a kind of circus-y event including people walking on tall bamboo poles... in their bare feet! I may have to see that!
On to the nearby - but, for me, hard to find - Hôtel Métropole, my destination for tea time. (I’ve skipped lunch.) This is a legendary place built in 1911 during the French colonial era. Among its famous guests, Graham Greene, Somerset Maugham and Charlie Chaplin, for whom a pastry has been named. I pick a table in the conservatory and sink my weariness into a chair. The waiter brings me an Assam tea, served in bone china and perfectly steeped. He allows me to graze the pastry tray and I choose three miniature cakes plus a piece of chocolate. Perfection! A magic moment reminiscent of colonial days, minus the war.All that’s left to do is walk back to the lake and beyond, to my Apricot Hotel. After a shower, a dinner of shrimp and pork nem (spring rolls) on the rooftop terrace, with a glass of chilled white wine, and then some reading until my eyes are as tired as my legs.
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