Hanoi history, heritage in 1 hour

HANOI, Vietnam – Hop-on sans-off bus sightseeing city tour gives a thorough, if micro, vista of the culture and history of the capital and by extrapolation, of the entire nation.

Starting and ending at Hoan Kiem Lake, the focal point of the city’s social life, where stands Turtle Tower in the middle of the lake and vermillion wooden Huc Bridge at the northern end connecting the lakeshore to Ngoc Son Temple, rich in both folklore and historical significance. 

The majestic St. Joseph’s Cathedral, once dubbed the Notre Dame of the Orient, and the Cu Bac Church (Church of Our Lady of the Martyrs) represent enduring Catholic presence in the country where the overwhelming majority is Buddhist.

French colonial elegance still highly palpable in the châteaus along tree-lined boulevards and avenues even if repurposed into restaurants, government offices, and diplomatic missions.    

Belle epoque lives on in the Hanoi Opera House.  

The heroes memorialized in monuments – Le Thai To, first ruler of the Ly Dynasty who set his capital in Hanoi; V. I. Lenin whose thoughts on revolutionary praxis and socialism make the very bible of the socialist cause; the Ho Chi Min Mausoleum, where lies the father of the republic (alas, but a passing glimpse of it from afar). Uncle Ho, here and there though, along the route.  

The symbols of the struggle for freedom popping out of verdant parks – The Flag Tower, The Imperial Citadel of Thang Long, Hoa Lo Prison Relic, the Museum of Vietnamese Women – all testimonies to the fervent nationalism of the Vietnamese people.

Then, the wealth of cultural heritage in one small loop – Taoism’s Quan Thanh Temple; Tran Quoc Pagoda, the oldest Buddhist temple in Hanoi; One Pillar Pagoda, and The Temple of Literature dedicated to Confucius.  

A matter of course, if not the natural order, for French architecture to house haute couture and choses très chères, read: Prada, Louis Vuitton, Dior, Berluti, Tiffany & Company, Balmain, Emporio Armani, Valentino, Guerlain, to cite only the ones that were sighted. Joie de vivre!

Alas, a contradiction – dialectical, most definitively – in a socialist state awash with, indeed, luxuriating in capitalist decadence decades ago decried, denounced damned as counter-revolutionary: in the words of Marx himself as “commodity fetishism.” Alack, Marx is long dead – in the spirit, as in the flesh much earlier.    

Marxists, though, do not weep. They go into exegeses. In this Hanoi instance, see the broad display of historical materialism in the evolution of this nation, albeit in the microcosm of the capital – from the Ly dynasty to French colonization, the victory at Dien Bien Phu, Ho and the democratic republic, the civil war, US involvement, the Fall of Saigon, reunification, market economy, to ASEAN’s fourth largest economy in terms of GDP. We can go into full-on dialectics here.  

Wow, what hath an hour bus tour of Hanoi wrought. 

 

 

 

Hanoi Journal: CAFÉ GIANG: Coffee's holy grail

 

HANOI, Vietnam – No simple haven but a virtual heaven, becoming a veritable pilgrimage site for coffee lovers from all over, is this traditional coffee shop tucked away in some side street in the Old Quarter of Hanoi.

Indeed, Café Giảng holds a kind of a holy grail for the devoted afficionados – “cà phê trứng” or egg coffee, generally accepted as having been invented by the man after whom the coffeeshop was named. 

Egg and coffee do really make strange cup fellows, but found flavorsome fusion in the exigencies of the first Indochina War in 1946. Vietnamese brewers and drinkers prefer the strong and bitter French-press Robusta coffee balanced not   with cream and sugar but with sweetened condensed milk. Even as there was a shortage of milk caused by the war, there was plenty of poultry. Necessity birthed experimentation with whisked egg yolk substituting for milk. And the rest, as cliched, is history – in this wise, told and retold over millions of hot cups or cold glasses of cà phê trứng. 

Simple as the egg coffee recipe is – Vietnamese Robusta coffee first brewed in a cup added with raw chicken egg yolk and whisked to a creamy mix first, the taste varies, depending on the drinker’s palate – from liquefied tiramisu to meringue-like egg topping, to custard crème, even to drinkable crème brûlée! 

Of cà phê trứng’s goodness though, there is no argument. Hot cup after hot cup, cold glass after cold glass. Enhanced, no doubt, by the café’s vintage Vietnam vibe – the narrow alley from the street to the ground floor with three or four small low tables and wooden low stools and the kitchen whence emanates that glorious whiff of coffee beans; the even narrower staircase to the second floor with three rooms separated by arch entryways; and the narrowest of balconies fronting the street.    

Aye, no Hanoi experience is complete without a Café Giang visit. Punto Lifestyle Team/Photos: BZL

 

Hanoi Journal: War isn’t over

NEITHER REDUCED to a footnote of history nor consigned to its dustbin, the Vietnam War still rages – in old propaganda posters, both original or reproduced in canvas, cardboards, even in refrigerator magnets sold in specialized shops and bookstores.  

Easily catching the eye – and capturing the mind – is “Nixon Phai Tra No Mau” picturing the Motherland striking with red bolts a bomb with the face of Tricky Dicky about to fall on ruins inscribed “benh vien.” The shopkeeper translating as “Nixon must pay for our blood with his blood," with the other term as “hospital.”

"Chiến thắng Điện Biên Phủ trên không" screams another with an illustration of a USAF B-52 bomber broken in two mid-air by a giant fist with the iconic star – “The victory of Dien Bien Phu in the air" – referencing the Vietnamese interception and downing of French aircraft in the climactic battle that ended the French colonization of Indochina. Therein the implication Imperialist America will suffer its own Dien Bien Phu.

Ever present in all shops selling propaganda posters is, needless to say, the portrait of Ho Chi Minh, the founding father of the Republic of Vietnam. One most poignant with the inscription “Trong Trái Tim Tôi" – “in my heart,” translated the shopkeeper, palms on her left breast.

As well, the words of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen: “All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory… Memory is haunted, not just by ghostly others but by the horrors we have done, seen, and condoned, or by the unspeakable things from which we have profited.” Punto Lifestyle Team/Photos: BZL

 

Halong Bay: Nature’s own masterpiece

 

SWELTERING SUMMER heat dissipates in the cool sea breeze once the Olympus cruise boat sails out of Tuan Chao Harbor. As cool to the eyes, the emerald waters whence rises a scatter of Halong Bay’s over 1,960 green-topped limestone islands and islets: Bo Hon, one of the biggest and, arguably, the most visited for its Sung Sot Cave.

Some 100 steep steps jampacked with tourists queued under the scorching noonday sun from the dock to the mouth of the cave deprived this certified senior citizen of seeing Sun Sot’s much-vaunted “spectacular stalactites and stalagmites.” Finding refuge in Olympus’ air-conditioned dining salon savoring the aftertaste of the lunch buffet of fresh seafood, fruits, and regional delicacies. 

Next, to Hang Luon. At the base of the limestone mountain, a natural tunnel – its dimensions dependent on the ebb and flow of tides – echoing with the thuds, the thumps, and the bumps of kayaks and small paddled boats at the narrow opening entering and exiting a tranquil turquoise lagoon enclosed by towering limestone mountain cliffs dotted by bushes, vines, and trees, under skies of blue and fluffy clouds of white – nature’s own canvas mirrored in the water’s calm surface. 

Such scene, at once stupendous and serene, glosses over Luon Cave’s stalactites seemingly more concretized than calcified.

Finally, Ti Top Island. A stay of 45 minutes leaves only one of three choices to do in the island named by the Great Uncle, President Ho Chi Minh, after Russian astronaut Gherman Titov who made a visited with him in 1962: kayaking, swimming on the crescent-shaped beach, and climbing 450 steps carved out of the steep side to the island’s peak where a marvelous 360-degree vista of Halong Bay is promised. 

Took the climb but did not get to the promise: the 71-year-old knees nearly buckling at the 250^th step, needing to settle down on a view deck gasping for dear breath… and still marvel at so breathtakingly beautiful a view.

The descent was much easier, but all thoughts of swimming banished by the beach vanished in the high tide and the swarms of swimmers. 

Sailing back to Tuan Chao Harbor, “the much-awaited highlight of the cruise – how we party in Vietnam,” a crew member crowed at the Olympus’ upper deck, it’s tiny jacuzzi overflowing with three pairs of Brazilians, men in swimming trunks and the ladies in two-piece barely-there suits, squeezed in. Finger foods and slices of fruits, cocktail or tea, beer – for sale, dance music, alas, party pooper there. 

But indeed, the best part of the cruise is saved for last. Sunsets at sea are always spectacular, Halong Bay’s is spectacularly stunning. (Second of Punto Lifestyle Series on Hanoi, Vietnam)