VIETNAM - 3/3 OUR ARRIVAL IN HANOI

We stayed overnight in kind of a dumpy hotel at the airport - Airport Inn as opposed to the first place we arrive by taxi - Airport Hotel.  They struggled to find our reservation on Agoda.  We all finally figured out there was an Airport Inn - another taxi ride back aways towards the airport. For the $20 price it was okay. And we were able to walk to the terminal the next morning after breakfast. UNFORTUNATELY it was the domestic terminal where we had arrived from Mandalay. And we were flying INTERNATIONAL to Vietnam!! There was a shuttle bus we took to the right terminal.

Emirates Airways was a great flight to Hanoi! They even gave us lunch!! And I had a row to myself so it was a very comfortable flight. I watched LaLaLand and saw most of it (it was only about an hour and a half flight over part of Thailand, Laos and then the hills of Vietnam. 

It’s about an hour taxi ride to our hotel in the old section of Hanoi (where Doug had recommended I stay). VERY nice hotel!! Long, a 20 something young man seemed to be the greeter and sat us down with tea/coffee and showed us things on a map - especially food places! Food is a big deal here - as it has been in ALL of Asia!! They eat constantly!! And the Vietnamese are no exception. 

After settling in our room, I was anxious to see if I had heard from Doug’s nun friend who was traveling the same day from Plum Village to Hanoi to visit family for a few days and then on to Bangkok. Thay is in Bangkok and the ordination ceremony was going to be there - maybe she’s going for that! Anyway, he had asked her to contact me and maybe put me in touch with some sangha members here! So for the first couple of days I kept pretty close to the hotel and checked email frequently. Finally heard from her on Sunday. We had already booked a two day/one night sail on HaLong Bay among the karsts. So we’ll catch up on Tuesday evening or Weds. 

Outside our hotel around the corner starting on Friday evening and through the weekend is the Night Market. We walked through that to look at the offerings. Maybe about 8 blocks from our hotel is Hoan Kiem Lake - Lake of the Restored Sword. It seems the center of activities in Old Town. The next morning we walked it around 6 a.m. and everywhere people were out exercising, just like they do in the early morning in China. Badminton, tai chi, all kinds of exercise groups and singles doing their own thing! Even a group doing the Macarena! On Sunday the roads are blocked off from traffic and people were out with their kids, riding bikes, hover boards, roller blades, groups playing hackensack with a feather object and weight, all kinds of fun things! 

It was our first meal in Hanoi so we went to a restaurant that Long recommended where you could get a variety of dishes rather than one specialty. We sat at a table with a Chinese couple from Malaysia and their tour guide. We soon were sharing food, grandchildren pictures and taking group pictures! It was Betty’s birthday so they helped celebrate with us. The next day Long showed up in our room midday with a small chocolate cake with a candle for her! We all shared it! It was a special treat!! What a host he is!! Very good at his job!!

Saturday Betty went off to the “Hanoi Hilton” - what’s left of a prison where John McCain was the most famous guest. I looked up later and there is a monument where he crash landed into a lake west of here, was dragged, with a broken leg and two broken arms out of the lake, when he almost drowned, and then beaten by angry N. Vietnamese who had been bombing targets. He then was held in the prison for 5+ years! I passed on this visit! Later we both went to the Vietnamese Women’s Museum - in an old French building. The French lost this colony in 1954 at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu - and France withdrew from Indo China. American advisers had gotten involved even back then trying to help the French. Americans were worried about the influence of Russia and China, both Communist, taking over here. So this must have been back in Truman’s time (during Korean War) and then on into Eisenhower years. This fiasco was passed on to Kennedy and then cost poor Johnson a second term. The whole thing seemed such a disaster. Having visited in 2005 in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) the Cu Chi tunnels, I came to the conclusion that we NEVER could have won this war!! What a waste of young men! And Vietnamese north and south! And so many civilians! and the country napalmed, bombed, strafed! By 1973 223,748 S. Vietnamese soldiers were killed in action, N. Vietnamese and VC fatalities are estimated at one million, about 4 million civilians (10% of the Vietnamese population were injured or killed and 58,183 American soldiers including two of my Ames classmates, Jamie Merrick and Larry Black!! Such a waste! And for what!!? Got a list of movies and books about all this to read when I get home! 

Now Hanoi is thriving! They are such a resilient people! Back many centuries their leaders defeated the Chinese many times! They pushed back the Khmer and Cham from Cambodia/Laos areas! They will resist!!

Now they are on an economic upturn. In 1994 US lifted its embargo and diplomatic relations resumed. Trade and tourism are booming! We haven’t met so many Americans here but many Germans and other Europeans traveling around! Lots of trekking opportunities. 

More later!