My first Vietnam trip - Hanoi and Ha Long Bay

This was my first trip to Vietnam.  I learned from news and various media that communist Vietnam is also going through incredible market economy changes to modernize herself. I have many Vietnamese friends, and almost all of them or their parents came to America when the American and the South Vietnamese lost their war in the mid 70's. They don't like the communist regime.

I joined a 5-day, 4-night Taiwanese tour group, which cost me about $1100 USD with everything included. This tour uses Vietnamese Airlines and it has no mandatory shopping. The fees for Vietnamese visa and all meals are included.  The visa is on a separate piece of paper, and there is no trace of the visit on your passport. This becomes a common practice when visiting certain countries. The lodging accommodation was excellent with one night at Ha Long Bay Novotel, one night at the Indochina Sails Cruise Junk, and two nights at the Hanoi JW Marriott.

Indochina Sails Cruise Junk

Logistically, the flight from Taipei was very early, so that we managed to visit a couple of tourist spots in Hanoi before we took a 4-hour-long bus ride to Ha Long Bay in the afternoon.  The bulk of the travel on the road is of State Highway caliber at best and often goes through small towns.  It will be a quick 2-hour run in the future for this 200-kilometer trip when they upgrade to true Interstate Highway caliber roads.


Ha Long Bay is truly beautiful and is a mature karst and limestone landscape.  It is Guilin on the sea, but at a much larger scale.

Panoramic View from the top of Titop Island

Sunrise in Ha Long Bay

Early morning in Ha Long Bay

 

Vietnamese straw hat at the Boat Terminal

I had my Vietnamese straw hat before the bay tour.  It was handy and good thing to have for the weather in this region.  But it immediately conjured up the image of a Viet Cong from the Vietnam War era.


Like many developing nations, Vietnam had to balance the zealous development projects with environmental and ecological concerns.  This half-finished amusement park near the beach was an example that many of my tour group members felt unnecessary at all.

Half-finished amusement park near the Ha Long Bay beach

On our way to Ha Long Bay, there were many unoccupied resorts and buildings near the beach.  We were told that they were yet to recover from the 2008 economic recession because of over-development.

Unoccupied beach-front resorts and buildings

Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam. It has more than one thousand years of history, and for the most part, it was dominated by the Chinese.  Hanoi was taken by the French in 1873. It became the capital of French Indochina in 1887.  It became the capital of North Vietnam in 1954 when the colonial period ended.

Spectacular telephone pole wiring in Hanoi's Old Quarter

Modern-day Hanoi is divided by a river.  The New Hanoi quarter was built in the last twenty years, and roads and streets are well planned with many new modern buildings and hotels. Old Hanoi quarter is the original Hanoi. This picture shows spectacular telephone pole wiring.

Typical tall and narrow buildings in Hanoi and suburbs

The architecture and style of the houses and buildings are heavily influenced by the hot and humid weather and by the French adaptation of existing Chinese structure. They are in general tall (high ceiling) and narrow.

Temple of Literature (Confucius)

Ancestral Workship Hall

Chinese writings are visible only in temples and ancestral worship halls. The Temple of Literature, aka Temple of Confucius, followed the Chinese civil examination system to promote study and to select government officials.
The Vietnamese pronunciation has very strong similarity to some of the southern Chinese dialects. Modern-day Vietnamese romanization/writing is based primarily on the Portuguese pronunciation system.  I was told that the grammatical structure is a mixture between that of Chinese and French.


The French brought in Catholicism to Vietnam. I visited the St. Joseph's Cathedral in the old quarter.  My old habit of looking for Catholic Church happens to be part of the tour :-)

Hanoi St. Joseph's Cathedral

Hanoi Hotel Metropole (Sofitel Legend)

The historic 1901 French colonial-style Hotel Metropol is charming and beautiful.  Our tour group had one of the lunches there.


Ho Chi Minh Museum is a place to see Vietnamese history from the North Vietnamese perspective.  The Ho Chi Minh mausoleum is next to the Ba Dinh Square. The tour guide said that there is an annual maintenance trip to Moscow in the Fall. This is quite unbelievable to me though. The communist party did not honor Ho Chi Minh's wish to have himself cremated. He was out of the country for 30 years, traveling and residing in many countries, until he came back to Vietnam in 1941 to lead the independence movement. I was fascinated to learn that he was in Canton, China between 1925-1927 at the Whampoa Military Academy, where he would presumably have been acquainted with many Chinese Nationalist and Chinese Communist pioneers. It was documented that he married a Chinese wife, Zeng Xueming, in that period.  But this is denied by the Vietnamese government to perpetuate the myth of his celibacy.

Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum

We went to see a water puppetry show in a theater.  It is pretty interesting to think about the techniques required to perform with controlling sticks under the water.

We visited the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology in whirlwind style.  It was best to do it that way, because the humidity level was quite unbearable for the June weather.
Vietnam has many small ethnic minorities, who need education and job training to keep up with progress in the whole country, and there is much to do.