SOUTHEAST ASIA 2024—MARCH 3

SOUTHEAST ASIA 2024—MARCH 3 – 4, HANOI

MARCH 3: Sunday morning in Hanoi. Turns out everything we wanted to see was open, so we plotted our itinerary. I would go to the Vietnamese Women’s Museum while my husband wandered around looking for a perfect Vietnamese iced coffee. Then we would rendezvous at Hoa Lo Prison, also known as the Hanoi Hilton, and tour the facility before going to lunch at Bun Cha Huong Lien, the restaurant where Anthony Bourdain and President Obama ate bun cha.

The Vietnamese Women’s Museum is pictured above, courtesy of Vinpearl, which has a summary of the building’s history and architecture. The museum contains four floors of exhibitions devoted to the various roles women have played in Vietnamese society. The first floor has a gift shop and exhibition space for temporary shows. The second floor is devoted to customs concerning ethnic women from birth to marriage and motherhood. The third floor concentrates on the significant role played by Vietnamese women in wars throughout the country’s history. The fourth floor is a showcase of ethnic costumes. Since we planned to visit the Hanoi Hilton next, I kept it light and spent most of my time on the fourth floor, looking at fashion.

We met at Hoa Lo Prison outside Maison Centrale, the French euphemism for prison. Vinpearl offers this photo and a brief historical sketch of the complex:

When Vietnam was still a part of French Indochina, the French began constructing Hoa Lo Prison in 1896 and finished it in 1901. The prison was initially named Maison Centrale, which was a common euphemism for French prisons. The prison was used to lock up political prisoners fighting for independence in the war. By 1954, it housed almost 2,000 inmates, who were shackled to walls by the dozen and lived in appalling conditions. Several Vietnamese revolutionaries were put under the barbarous guillotine, which the French had used throughout the region.

As noted in Wiki:

Hỏa Lò Prison … was later [used] by North Vietnam for U.S. prisoners of war during the Vietnam War. During this later period, it was known to American POWs as the "Hanoi Hilton". The prison was demolished during the 1990s, although its gatehouse remains a museum.

The most famous American prisoner of war to be interned at the Hanoi Hilton was John McCain, pictured above.

Speaking of politicians, our lunch stop was the hole-in-a-wall Bun Cha Huong Lien.

Serendipitously, we were seated at a table directly behind the table where Bourdain and Obama had lunch. Their table has been turned into a shrine and encased in Plexiglas.

We each ordered the Combo Obama, and it was outstanding.

We walked off the Combo Obama on our way to the Hanoi Opera House, where there was a crowd of young people in front posing for photos with a vintage Karmann Ghia.

There were also families with school-age children standing around. A young girl approached me with a list of questions in English. Her parents stood back, encouraging her to speak my language. When our interview had concluded, her mother gave me a crocheted Hello Kitty purse ornament she’d made.

Not far from the Opera House is Kem Trang Tien, an ice cream emporium jammed that Sunday afternoon with flâneurs. The entire building, which was more like a covered market, must occupy half a square block. Inside, various ice cream manufacturers were serving sundaes and scooping cones.

On our way back to our hotel, we took the path around Hoan Kiem Lake, where Ngoc Son Temple emerged from its island.

Before arriving at our hotel, we stopped at St. Joseph’s Cathedral, at the end of our street.

Per Vinpearl:

At the grounds of St. Joseph's Cathedral before it was built, there used to be a Buddhist pagoda named Bao Thien. This pagoda was the biggest and most sacred during the Ly-Tran Dynasties. At the end of the 18th century, some parts of the pagoda were destroyed to set up a market. Then, the cathedral was constructed at the site, initially of wood. It was reconstructed with baked clay in 1884, and on Christmas of 1888, its construction was finished.

During the French colonial period, Catholicism was widely spread, and St Joseph’s Cathedral became the center of Catholicism in Northern Vietnam. There were daily and weekly ceremonies organized in the cathedral at that time. It served as a religious destination for thousands of Catholics in the Northern region as well as a hiding spot for Vietnamese revolutionary soldiers.

In 1954, after the retreat of French colonists from Northern Vietnam, the cathedral was closed and put under the administration of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam government. It was not until Christmas in 1990 that the cathedral was opened again for the Catholics.

Behind the cathedral is the Moon Men Bar, which ranks very high on our list of cool cocktail bars in Vietnam. In addition to its golden interior, it has a killer view of the back of the cathedral.

Fortified with some craft cocktails, we set out for Ta Hien, (below) known as Beer Street, for dinner. Wall to wall tourists, very loud, and crammed within a night market selling more fake electronics than I’ve ever seen in my life. Not at all my thing.

But the street bands--some retro rock, others traditional--were worth stopping to listen to and video.

MARCH 4: Off to the Vietnamese National Fine Arts Museum this morning to see their collection of antiquities and modern art. Built in the French colonial period as a boarding school for the daughters of French officials, the museum's website describes the building and the collection:

The Vietnam National Fine Arts Museum is one of the nation's most important institutions of culture and learning. Its beautifully arranged galleries house a unique collection of art treasures dating from every era of national life, from early prehistory and classical antiquity through to the epic story of Vietnamese creative genius in the modern age. The Museum’s mission is to preserve, display and inform, building on a keen commitment to research and conservation, and to the sharing of all there is to learn and appreciate about the enduring artistic heritage of the Vietnamese people.

Our work of outreach is intended to inspire both our own citizens, especially the young, and our many international visitors. What we present to the world is a unique source of insight into the artistic genius of the Vietnamese people over time, as manifested in the many ancient and modern masterpieces on show: works of painting, sculpture and the graphic arts which tell a unique and powerful story of culture and creativity that are cherished as expressions of the national spirit and an enduring artistic sensibility, both individual and collectively shared.

On foot to the museum, we passed Train Street, now closed to tourists, who used to cram into the street, which is an active train route with a single track, and then flatten themselves against the shop facades on either side of this extremely narrow street when the train roared through. No way.

We began our museum visit in the antiquities galleries; here is a sample from the Vietnamese National Fine Arts Museum's collection.

The painting collection wasn’t exactly Louvre-quality, and much of the content was Late Patriotic - Didactic, often expressed through heroic images of Ho Chi Minh. Still, there were some appealing works, like this portrait of Little Sister Thuy, deemed a national treasure.

Something we had never seen before were relief "paintings" made of enamel applied to a stratum of copper, which enamel had been etched away to reveal the copper below.

I have to admit, though, that the paintings of Uncle Ho toiling at his monastic desk or smoking in some trippy, hallucinogenic landscape were my faves. Smoking. Seriously?! And check out those Crocs!

Next stop, the Temple of Literature, the oldest university in Vietnam, dedicated to Confucius and where scholars once came to write their exams. Per Vinpearl :

The Temple of Literature was founded in 1070 by Emperor Ly Thanh Tong to worship Chinese philosopher Confucius. It then became the first university of Vietnam, also known as the Imperial Academy. Until the colonial period, it had been open for over 700 years and taught hundreds of renowned scholars and mandarins. Despite the ravages of war, the temple still retains its architectural and cultural beauty.

The Temple of Literature is surrounded by brick walls and covers an area of around 54,000 square meters. It has five courtyards, or areas, of varying styles…[the Great Middle Gate, the Pavilion of Constellation, the Well of Heavenly Clarity, the Gate to Great Success, and the Grounds of Imperial Academy.]

From the Temple of Literature, we grabbed a Grab cab to the Thang Long Imperial Citadel. According to Wiki, the Citadel was built in one year in 1010 and remained the imperial city of Vietnam until 1802, when the Nguyen Dynasty assumed power and moved the capital to Hue.

What remains of the Citadel as it was in the 19th century (above) and as it is in the photo from Vinpearl below, are two gates, a palace, a pavilion, and a flag tower.

The rest is an archaeological site with some lovely gardens, where a group of school children were visiting with their teachers as two gardeners tidied the flower beds.

We wanted street food for dinner and got a recommendation for bun ca fish soup from a woman at Huulala, below, where I ordered a handmade, embroidered, quilted velvet jacket.

The restaurant was waaaaaay out in another area of the city, so we took a cab. We were dropped off in a warren of tiny streets, where everyone was outside eating, squatting on those tiny plastic stools.

We ordered bun ca but really couldn't tell you which one we were served Whichever one of the five on the menu board it was, it was delicious!

This operation was strictly family style, with mamma frying up the fish and tending the broth, which had probably been simmering all day; auntie scooping out homemade noodles, either rice or wheat--your choice--into the bowls; and junior ferrying the steaming soup to your table. It was a food experience we would never have found in a guide book. It was the perfect end to a perfect day.