Hanoi — The Towering Travelers

We spent our last two days in Vietnam wandering around Hanoi, the capital city. Our hotel was located about a mile from the Old Quarter, which, as the name suggests, is where the original city was located. We spent most of Saturday on a tour with Dang around the city. In contrast to the south, Hanoi was cold. It was rainy all day on Saturday, but we spent some time walking around the city anyway.

First, we went to the statue of Lý Thái Tổ, the king who moved the capital of Vietnam to Hanoi.

Bikers ride by the statue of Lý Thái Tổ (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Next, we walked around Hoàn Kiếm Lake, which is in the heart of the old quarter. Giant turtles live in the lake, and according to lore, it was where the emperor Lê Lợi restored a precious sword to the Golden Turtle God in the 15th century and erected the Tháp Rùa temple in the middle of the lake. We visited the Temple of the Jade Mountain, which is on a small island on one end of the lake accessible by a bright red bridge. The temple, like the other temples we visited in Vietnam, had food offerings for the gods. We noticed that there were a lot of crackers and asked Dang if that was normal. He said that people usually put fruit and non-perishables, and that sometimes the quality of the food is questionable (he made a joke about giving the gods diabetes with all the cookies and cola, which was pretty great). The temple also has a giant turtle, about 250 kg in weight and 2.10 meters long, that the citizens of Hanoi found in the lake and mummified.

Offerings in the Temple of the Jade Mountain (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Us in front of the Temple of the Jade Mountain (Photo/Dang Vu)

After walking around the lake, we visited the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology. There are 54 ethnic minorities in Vietnam—the Viet, who make up 86% of the population, and the 53 minorities that mostly live in the mountainous areas along the borders of Laos and Cambodia. Across all of these ethnic groups, there are 8,000 festivals celebrated in Vietnam each year. The museum is very nice. It uses a combination of artifacts with descriptions, videos, dioramas, and an outside part of the museum that has sample housing and ceremonial structures from some of the ethnic groups.

Nicole climbs down the stairs leading up to a house in the outdoor portion of the Museum of Ethnology (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Next, we walked around the French Quarter and visited the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. The French Quarter is full of beautiful buildings with architecture that is either French or a combination of French and Vietnamese style. French officials lived there originally, but now the buildings are occupied by members of the Vietnamese government.

A house in the French Quarter combines French and Vietnamese influence (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum is a large, impressive structure that was not endorsed at all by the man for which it was built. It’s only open for a couple of hours each morning, so we just visited the outside.

The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We were on our own for lunch, and we went and found a French fusion restaurant that was recommended by our hotel. They had an amazing soup—it was two soups, pumpkin and coriander, poured into a yin yang shape. Absolutely delicious.

Two happy diners have their picture taken in front of Green Tangerine (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Delicious yin yang soup (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After lunch, we did some wandering.

Dominos delivery, Vietnam style (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Nicole meets a tiny puppy (Photo/Jason Rafal)

In the afternoon, we went to a traditional Vietnamese water puppet show in the Old Quarter. Water puppet shows happen on a special stage that has a pool of water, in this case about two and a half feet deep, in the center. Instead of having strings, the puppets are controlled with bamboo sticks along the bottom that are hidden under the surface of the water. The music at our show was provided by six people who played instruments and sang during each act. The performance was really interesting, and I wish I had been able to understand the dialogue and songs. It’s a really great form of puppetry.

The dance of the unicorns (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Farmers chase a fox away from the flock of ducks (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The puppeteers come out after the show (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On Sunday, we wandered the city by ourselves. We went to the Chợ Đồng Xuân, which is the big central market in Hanoi. It’s really huge—three levels of shopping. Unlike the market in Ho Chi Minh City, no one was actively trying to sell us stuff. We even found something that we wanted to buy and couldn’t find anyone to take our money, so we bought from another stall.

A man carries a giant sack of something through the market (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The three floors of Chợ Đồng Xuân (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We also visited the Temple of Literature, which is a temple of Confucius that was Vietnam’s first national university, was originally built in 1070 and reconstructed in the 13th and14th centuries. The temple is now more of a museum, but apparently graduations still take place there, as was happening on this Sunday.

Graduates throw their caps at the Temple of Literature (Photo/Jason Rafal)

That evening, we had our farewell dinner with our tour group. We had several courses and drank shots of Vietnamese whiskey, which tasted more like strong rice wine. Early on Monday morning, we said goodbye to Dang and started our very long journey back to the United States.

I hope it’s clear how amazing this trip was. We learned a ton about the politics and culture of Vietnam, which was very interesting, but we were completely drawn in by the beautiful landscape and incredibly kind people. It’s really a remarkable place, and we would highly recommend a visit.