Day 2 Wednesday 17 December 2014
We are awoken (well we were not asleep) in what are theoretically the early hours but it is only 21:00 back in the UK. Vietnam has a 7 hour time difference and following a not bad breakfast we are on descent into Hanoi.
First annoying experience, despite the cases being given priority stickers at Gatwick we endure a longish wait before they emerge. Meanwhile we are entertained by four boxes apparently containing Johnnie Walker whisky going around and around on the carousel!
Exit with nothing to declare we are met by a young guide and meeting the two other ladies on this tour (whose bags had been first to emerge so had also had a long wait), we head to the hotel and get our first taste of the Hanoi rush hour. Public transport seems a little lacking – as far as I can see they have built a new airport terminal to cope with growing traffic but there is no rail connection to the airport! There is heavy use of mopeds / motorbikes with this being a very heavily used mode of transport.
Our first stop is a coffee and the Museum of History which enables our guide to give a run down of Vietnamese history over the last 2000 years. Controlled by China until approx 1000AD, Hanoi was formed and became the capital of an independent country in 1004 AD. Much of the next 400 years or so was to be subject to continued invasions from China until the Vietnamese under resourceful leaders seduced the Chinese navy into the mouth of the river where stakes had been buried which, as the tide dropped, trapped the invaders and enabled the Vietnamese troops to inflict a heavy defeat. The tactic was so good that it was used a second time, the Chinese having apparently forgotten the history in the meantime.
This period ended when the French came and Hanoi became the headquarters for French Indo-China in the nineteenth century. That initially ended with the Japanese invasion and so in 1945 with the Japanese withdrawal Vietnam became independent and certainly our guide considered this an important date. Led by Ho Chi Minh the French returned with the intention of recovering Indo-China and the Vietnamese guerillas were born.
The French built a huge garrison at Dien Bien Phu in the north of the country in a deeply wooded valley. As we acknowledged the mists hang around in the morning in winter and under this cover from aircraft the Vietnamese were able to construct narrow paths through the woods to the top of the surrounding hillsides and were able cut the land supply lines to the garrison and also to rain down firepower from the hillsides inflicting a heavy defeat. The French surrendered the North and the country became divided into two – North and South Vietnam.
https://flic.kr/s/aHsk3rhzPd
This album records our two days in Hanoi and are now in the order they were taken I think, so should match this blog a little more closely.
Hanoi has recently celebrated 1000 years of existence and has created a giant mural covering some 4 km along the major city road, parts of which we saw and appear in the photos. We then drove around part of the city seeing the Lake of Restored sword and the temple at Quan Thanh temple which was at the north gate of the original city.
Following on from sleep in the afternoon we wandered around the corner from the Movenpick hotel with the intention of sampling some Vietnamese food. Quan Ngon restaurant is an obviously popular place; after a false start a waitress with some English (and English is a much taught language in Vietnam we found) helped us through the menu and we ordered far too much. Hanoi soup to start is an absolute must. Either beef or chicken noodle – but good and refreshing. The highlight was a shrimp speciality in a pancake. But then we were also given rice paper and a variety of herbs and so with the shrimp pancake, herbs and lettuce and then roll up within the rice paper so that it is a little like we would eat crispy duck and pancake in the UK but also resembling a rice paper pring roll. Crowned the best course however was a beef dish on various greens which was very tasty. Plus some rice and other bits and pieces.
Time for bed.