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As this was my first full day in Hanoi, I decided to get up and make the most of the day. I got out my guide book and planned a kind of circular route around the city capturing as many of the major sights that I thought I could fit in to one day.
After leaving the hotel and walking 10 minutes up the road, I had very quickly realised why everyone in Hanoi drives a motorbike. There was no one else walking around and I was starting to sweat already, at least on a bike you would get some breeze. It must have been about 40˚C today. Oh well nothing I could do about it, just made sure that I always had some water with me.
My first stop and probably the most central part of my walk was the Hoan Kiem Lake. Legend has it that in the mid 15th century, Heaven sent Emperor Ly Thai To a magical sword, which he used to drive the Chinese out of Vietnam. One day after the war, he happened upon a giant golden tortoise swimming on the surface of the water; the creature grabbed the sword and disappeared into the depths of the lake. Since that time the lake has been known as Ho Hoan Kiem (lake of the restored sword) because the tortoise restored the sword to its divine owners.
The first part of the lake that I came to was the south side where the Thap Rua (tortoise tower) was. This is basically a tower set on an islet in the middle of the lake which is often used as an emblem of Hanoi, you can't get to it so I just took a photo or two on my way around to the north side of the lake where I went to visit the Ngoc Son (jade mountain) temple purely to go and have a look at the embalmed remains of a giant tortoise supposedly from the lake itself. There is still 'supposed’ to be a giant tortoise living in the lake and it is ‘supposed’ to be good luck if you spot it. Personally, I think this is another "Loch Ness Monster" story for the tourists!
After the lake I walked for about 15 minutes wandering the maze of streets know as the old quarter as I was looking for St Joseph Cathedral. I knew it wouldn’t be open as the guide book says it’s only open to the public between 5am and 7am and 5pm and 7pm but I just wanted to see something that resembled home and not just another temple.
My next stop was a fairly close walk from the cathedral and was the famous Hoa Lo prison museum (known as the Hanoi Hilton). There is not much of the original prison left now as the majority has been torn down and the land has been developed on. They have saved part of the original prison and it is now open as a museum.
Within the prison they did still have some of the original death row cells showing how these prisoners were detained and there was also an original guillotine on display along with many items used to torture the prisoners. One that caught my eye was a little hand operated generator/dynamo used to electrocute the prisoners. In some of the other cells they had dummies with their legs in shackles just as they would have been many years ago, but I could probably not imagine what the real conditions were like and actually how many prisoners would actually be shackled on these benches, not to mention the smell and mess in here.
History lesson time.....
The Hoa Lo Prison (Vietnamese: Hỏa Lò), later sarcastically known to American prisoners of war as the "Hanoi Hilton", was a prison used by the French colonists in Vietnam for political prisoners and later by North Vietnam for prisoners of war during the Vietnam War.
Future U.S. Vice Presidential candidate James Stockdale and decorated U.S. Air Force pilot Bud Day were held as prisoners at the Hanoi Hilton, as was future Senator and 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain, who spent parts of his five and a half years as a POW there. Air Force colonel and record-setting parachutist Joseph Kittinger spent 11 months in prison there. Brigadier General Robinson Risner was the senior ranking POW, responsible for maintaining chain of command among his fellow prisoners, from 1965 to 1973.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoa_Lo_Prison
Carrying along the main road I arrive at the Temple of literature, where the front gate is still inscribed with a request that all visitors dismount from their horses before entering. So I promptly did! After buying my ticket and entering through the gates I was approached by an American couple to take their photo and then in return I asked if they would take mine too.
The temple complex consisted of 5 courtyards with a reflection pool in the first and the normal drum and bell towers that I had got used to seeing everywhere. Either side of the third courtyard stand two great halls which house the true treasures of the temple. These are 82 stones steles. Another 34 are believed to have been lost over the years. They sit upon stone turtles and are inscribed with the names and birth places of 1306 men who were awarded doctorates from the triennial examinations held here at the Quốc Tử Giám ("Imperial Academy") between 1484 and 1780, after which the capital was moved to Huế. All the visitors here went around touching the heads of these turtles, yes all 82, it must have been for good luck or for good learning or something like that. I didn’t bother as there were too many. I just had to wait a while so that I could get a photo without anyone in it.
History lesson 2 for today.....
Temple of Literature is a temple of Confucius in Vietnam. Although several Văn Miếu can be found throughout Vietnam, the most prominent and famous is that situated in the city of Hanoi, which also functioned as Vietnam's first university. It is featured on the back of the one hundred thousand Vietnamese đồng banknote.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Literature
That evening I had all intentions of going to the famous water puppet show, so I went out with my camera. On the way to the theatre I took a couple of pictures of the lake and the Thap Rua (tortoise tower) and the Ngoc Son (jade mountain) temple where I had been earlier today. I got to the theatre only to find that because it was the weekend, they were sold out of all tickets. Oh well what do I do now?
I was kind of fed up of the food that I had been eating so I got out the guide book and found an Indian restaurant called Tandoor. When I arrived all the tables downstairs were taken so I was put upstairs in a room all by myself. I placed my order and looked around at no body, thinking this will be fun. Then two people walked in and we recognised each other. It was the American couple from the Temple of Literature that we had taken each others pictures. They asked me if I would like to join them at their table, so I did.
After we had had dinner, the 3 of us went out on to the street for a few drinks. The cheapest place to get drinks in Hanoi is on the street corners with the locals watching the world go by (and some of the near misses that the motorbikes have). The beer here was 15,000 dong (52p) per bottle. After we had had a couple of drinks the people who owned the stall gave us a flyer for a bar called “The Hair of the Dog” and as the flyer got us a free drink we went over to see what it’s like.
It’s seemed OK and we even had a few games of pool against some locals, two of which were called Quong and Ha. As the evening progressed I was invited by Quong to go sightseeing with him tomorrow, I was at first a bit dubious but said yes anyway and he said he would come and pick me up at my hotel and show me around the city. Let’s see if he turns up in the morning?
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