26 September in Hanoi

This morning we had breakfast at the hotel. I must say the breakfasts have been well catered. There is always bacon and eggs and little sausages as well as vegetables with chicken and other stir fries plus fruit. But this hotel excelled itself and provided French pastries.

As we were walking to catch a bus for our city tour, we passed a CD shop with all the knock-off CDs and Like a Virgin was blasting out of the speakers. Our guide started to dance and sang “Like a surgeon” and said “that's a good song!!!”

Our first point of call was the Hanoi Hilton, the jail built by the French who colonised Vietnam in 1868. This was to impose French law on the locals. At the time of rebellion against the French there were many prisoners executed in this jail and torture implements abound in the displays. The French left Vietnam in 1954 although they had virtually left during WW2 but returned after to try to get established again. It got very complicated as the French collaborated with the Japanese against Ho Chi Minh. By this time Ho Chi Minh was well established and had many followers. The prison was then used to punish dissidents as HCM had declared the north an independent state which was not appreciated by those in the south. In 1964 America bombed Hanoi and so began the war between communism and capitalism under the pretext of sorting out a diplomatic incident.

There were many B52s shot down and then the prison was used to house the American pilots in apparently better conditions than previous prisoners had suffered hence the name the “Hanoi Hilton”. HCM died in 1967 after the Tet Offensive but the war continued until 1975. Of course, the most famous of the prisoners held here was John McCain. There is a photo of him being pulled from the lake after his plane crashed and another of him with his arm in a sling getting medical attention and looking quite jaded.

I was intrigued by the list of Cause of Death of prisoners in the jail. One was listed as “right groin deterioration” - I immediately thought of Harry Kewell who has survived this affliction many times LOL.

Our next stop was the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum but we didn't see him as he was in Russia having a face lift which apparently happens for 3 months every year. We went into the complex and saw the Presidential Palace from where HCM directed the war effort, the building now being used for hosting international visitors. In the same area are two houses where Ho lived, one of which is a stilt house built in a dark wood with shutters – a very comfortable if small house. A small pagoda called the One Pillar Pagoda was in use by locals praying with their incense sticks. This was a much larger structure built in the year 1000 but it was blown up by the French as a parting gesture and reconstructed.

Next we went to the Temple of Literature which is where there is a temple to Confucius and evidence of the emphasis put on being scholars and on order in society. There is a very complicated history involving emperors and their mandarin followers and adherence to Confucianism which lays down rules for the status quo to remain – organising the state and the roles played by people at all levels.

Over the road from the Confucius temple is KOTO, a restaurant school set up by an Australian/Vietnamese called Jimmy Pham. The students all come from impoverished backgrounds and according to Cuong once they graduate they get jobs in 4 and 5 star hotels. There is a plaque on the wall to commemorate a visit by PM Julia Gillard in 2010. I saw a documentary about this place on TV a few years ago so am pleased I saw it. They also serve excellent tucker and Meryl had a mint and pineapple smoothie which was excellent by all accounts. KOTO is an acronym meaning, "know one teach one".


In the afternoon, after packing, we went to the Post Office for Meryl to post a parcel and then on to the Illy Cafe where fair dinkum coffee is served and from where we could watch the huge roundabout below with its traffic chaos.


So we survived the hoi polloi of Hanoi.

That night we boarded another overnight train bound for Hue over 600kms south. Justin tried one of the duck eggs with a baby duck inside. He obviously had trouble swallowing. We heard him say to Cuong: "I was expecting a baby duckling but if I'd eaten the legs I would have spewed - that was a bit wrong". Of course we all enjoyed his discomfort and happily he lived to tell the tale.