Hanoi Vietnam: a welcoming metropolis with a lot of American history intermixed
By Eileen Ogintz
HANOI, Vietnam — “Please… a picture.”
We feel like celebrities as groups of giggling school children beg us to stop to take photographs with them.
We are outside the Vietnam National Museum of History, where scores of children are on field trips, dressed in different color shirts from their schools.
Many are from outside Hanoi, our guide Dang Viet Khanh explained, and as white people, we are an oddity. They also want to practice their English though they don’t know much more than “Hello, what’s your name, can we take a picture with you” They are adorable.
We arrived in Hanoi after a grueling 24-hour, 2-stop flights from Denver. It is after midnight, but we are welcomed cordially at Bespoke Trendy Hotel, a boutique property in the historic old quarter recommended by G Adventures. Tomorrow we head off on a four-day hiking trip to Sapa, the famous mountainous region with G Adventures and like many here, we can leave luggage as we come and go to Sapa, HaLong Bay, and more.
The Old Quarter is home to over 1000 years of trade that today is more busy than romantic, according to my Lonely Planet guide to Vietnam. There are streets dedicated to various crafts—metalworks, silk, embroidery, lacquer and more. We stop to see how lacquer is produced by hand in Duyen Thai not far from Hanoi, the craft handed down generation-by-generation. But we also learned that young people today aren’t interested and would prefer other work — on computers or with AI. We couldn’t resist buying something as the work is beautiful and the prices so inexpensive.
The National History Museum focuses on Vietnam’s many wars during the 20th Century – with the Japanese during World War 2, the colonial French their defeat in 1954, the U.S. until 1975, the Cambodian Khmer Rouge in 1976, and the Chinese (on and off from 1978-89). Outside, many military aircraft and vehicles are on display, including remnants of a US B-52 bomber, one of 34 shot down over Hanoi during the infamous “Christmas Bombing” of 1972.
While the gist of the exhibits focus on how horrible the American war was for Vietnamese people, today no one seems to harbor grudges. Not only is tourism an important industry for the now united country but “our people are friends,” says our guide.
I used a local travel agency, Asia Focus Travel, to plan our North Vietnam foray and the prices were incredibly reasonable for guides and drivers and taking us where we wanted to go, including the famous prison dubbed by the captured American pilots as the “Hanoi Hilton,” Among the several hundred prisoners was Navy pilot John McCain, son and grandson of famous Navy Admirals who went on to serve several terms as a senator from Arizona and was the Republican presidential nominee in 2008. He was incarcerated here from 1967-1973, when the Paris Peace Accords ended the contentious and increasingly unpopular war. His flight suit and parachute are on display along with photos of how locals helped him when he was shot down and badly injured.
However, the exhibits make it seem as if the pilots were at summer camp, raising chickens, painting, tending vegetable gardens, playing pool and other sports, all smiling. That wasn’t necessarily the case as many reported suffering from beatings, prolonged isolation, inadequate medical care, and extreme psychological pressure intended to force them to make anti-US propaganda statements, according to the American Heritage Museum’s Hanoi Hilton exhibit. Survivors largely testified to severe, ongoing abuse.
Of course, at the same time, people in North Vietnam were suffering terribly from bombings and lack of food. It was after 12 days of intense bombings in December 1972 during which 81 aircraft were shot down and 43 American pilots captured, that the US returned to the negotiating table and signed the Paris Peace Accords in January 1973, finally ending the increasingly unpopular war in the US as well as here.
It’s ironic that today locals couldn’t be more welcoming and friendly, especially the children.
We ended our tour at a restaurant called Rue Lamblot with delicious chicken and vegetable soup, mixed five color salad, grilled pork with lemongrass and chili, deep fried tiger prawns, chicken with cashews and more. Down the street, there was a line outside the door for Pho 10 Ly Quoc Su, a restaurant that has earned a Michelin star for its 10 different varieties of the popular noodle, vegetable and broth dish. Apparently, the family-owned restaurant is particularly known for its tasty broth—the recipe a family secret.
Another day… another chance to try a different Hanoi dish. Asia Focus arranged a food tour for us led by a Samual Hoang, a university student studying—what else—tourism management
We are staying in the Old Quarter of Hanoi but once we get off our quiet street (we love Bespoke Trendy!) it is a s if we are in different world — motor bikes zipping by (there are almost as many as people— some seven million), tiny shops selling everything from knock- off designer goods to toys to traditional robes and trips (there are travel advisors here), conical hats (worn in the rice paddies), and fans as well as shops offering massages (shoulder or feet perhaps ).
Because it is Sunday, there was the bustling Sunday Market where you can get everything from a knockoff Gucci Wallet to a knock off Northface backpack to tee shirts and socks. In the old days, each of these streets specialized in one item — fabric, for example, or fans. Today that’s no longer the case, though the streets are still winding and narrow.
I don’t know what to call the restaurants. The cooks are out in front on the street. “That’s so people can see they are using fresh ingredients,” Haong explains. We walked through a narrow passage where we sat on stools sized for preschoolers, it seems.
Our first stop was to sample a traditional Hanoi dish called Buncha which is grilled pork mixed with a sauce of fish sauce, rice vinegar and sugar, along with papaya, carrots and rice noodles, all in a tasty broth. All this for about $2. Every recipe is different, we learn. When President Obama visited after his presidency and sampled the dish, he became such a fan that the restaurant has called it “Obamacha” ever since. “It is all about creativity,” our guide explained.
“You don’t have to follow any rules.” This tiny shop has been here more than 50 years. That would have been plenty for dinner, but we had more dishes to sample
Next up was Banh Mi, the ubiquitous Vietnamese sandwich that we see in many US cities. But this is much larger and served on a French baguette with vegetables, beef, BBQ chicken sauce…. delicious. It’s just about $1.
When we stop at the tiny shop for Banh Xeo—Vietnamese crepes. It is packed (just eight tables crowded together), the cook manning several frying pans at once cooking the crepes that are filled with vegetables and meats. There is a knack to eating them, we learned — they must be wrapped in edible rice paper and then dipped in sauce.
We tried the popular egg coffee. Vietnamese love coffee—very strong coffee. This concoction is a dessert, topped with a sweet egg cream. This was near the famous Hoan Kiem Lake that is crowded with locals, kids running around playing, adults on their phones.
We figured some of the food shops must have been featured on Instagram because there are Westerners chowing down, others are all locals.
I’m overwhelmed by the crowds, the humidity and the food. I know I will be thinking about the tasty bites when we are back home eating leftovers. Our guide wanted us to visit more stops, but we begged off, not only stuffed, but tired from the bare-bones overnight train back from Sapa to Hanoi.
Good thing affordable massage is an option on every street corner. Our hotel has a spa next door (we even get a discount!) where a 90-minute massage plus a 30-minute foot massage is just $60—including tip. Before we leave, I’ll take advantage of the hotel amenity for a free manicure.
Massage every day? I could get used to this.