01.03.09 - Hà Nôi, Vietnam

What a day! It’s hard to decide where to begin.

My first daylight view of Vietnam came when I opened the curtain on my hotel room window and saw an American flag hanging from a pole just outside, above the front door of the hotel.

I suppose that the largest point is that Vietnam today is even less like the image most Americans have of it than Mississippi today is like the image most Americans have of it. Both images are frozen in a past that was set in minds in the 1960s.

The only hint that Vietnam is a “communist” country is the occasional yellow hammer-and-sickle on a red background. Our guide does not hesitate to speak critically of communism and the government.

Virtually everyone in Hanoi is dressed in fashionable western clothing. The level of sexuality on display in this putatively communist society is as startling as the sex-sells billboards that greet an arriving visitor at the Istanbul airport in a Muslim society.

This is not to say that one doesn’t know that he is in another country. Many people on the streets carry goods on quang ganbu—long poles with baskets on each end, balanced on one shoulder. A fair number of people wear the flattened-cone-shaped straw hats for which Vietnam is known. The narrow streets in the city’s old quarter are clogged with motorbikes, pedestrians, and the occasional car. Somehow all manage to negotiate the chaos.

A blend of Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, nationalism, and the remnants of communism constitutes the Vietnamese outlook. People openly worship at temples. We visited a temple in the lake around which the old city (it celebrates its thousandth anniversary next year) is built. The story is that a giant turtle rose out of the lake and provided a sword to the king, who used the sword magically to defeat the Chinese, after which he returned the sword to the turtle and the lake. The main temple is on an island reached by a bridge. Only those who have been good can cross the bridge.

We visited the “Hanoi Hilton” and realized that it, the Hoa Lo Prison, had been used by the French to hold Vietnamese political prisoners long before the North Vietnamese used it to imprison American pilots. We saw the flight suit John McCain wore when he was shot down. He fell into a Hanoi lake, from which he was pulled. We later visited a statue of him as a prisoner on the edge of the lake, at the place where he was captured.

We met Phuc Pham, who heads Vietnam Pathfinder Travel, in person for the first time for lunch. We ate at what appears to be just a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant, but we were in for an amazing surprise. The restaurant is owned by Pham Anh Tuyet, who is Vietnam’s most famous chef. She creates private meals and new dishes for dignitaries, music stars, and other notables. George and I don’t know how Phuc decided that we are VIPs, but Madame Pham served us a seven-course lunch that was one of the best meals I have ever had, and almost certainly the best lunch I have ever had. Each course was more fabulous than the preceding one. She sat at the table with us and showed us how to eat some of the items. It was like having Paul Prudhomme or Alice Watters sit at the table assisting you with their culinary creations. These included the best spring rolls I’ve ever tasted, marvelous shrimp in a sauce that was indescribably delicious, and the best chicken I have ever had. After fried bananas for dessert, Madame Pham washed and massaged our hands in a large bowl of water and herbs! At the end, she served us lotus tea, which is obtained by putting tea inside the opened lotus flower before it closes for the night and then removing it the next morning. She got this for us even though lotuses aren’t normally available in the winter. Madame Pham, whose family has been involved with gourmet cooking for 300 years, is a true artist.

Then it was off to the war museum, one of the highlights of which is a huge outdoor artwork composed of parts of numerous American and French planes that were shot down during the wars.

Now it’s on to dinner, although it’s going to be hard to eat anything after that lunch.

RSM