'It's my first day.'



Today the first day in Vietnam where I'm somewhat conscious of what's going on. According to my thermometer we reached 37 degrees today and the much expected  rain never showed up. The sweat is dripping from all of us and all of a sudden it becomes apparent why I haven't seen one local who's overweight.

Hanoi has been nothing short of a pleasant surprise.Pollution and the Concerto for Car and A Trillion Motorcycles ©  aside, this place is a joy to get lost in. It's kind of fun to cross the street and pave your way through an armada of motorcycles, who do slow down when they spot you, so the trick is to walk extremely slow. Fellow backpackers in my hostel seem to be hell bent on getting drunk, are prevalently British or Dutch and tend to complain about everything but seem not to take notice of my presence, which is more than just fine by me.



Not an armada



Today was exploration/museum-day!

In October 1967, then lieutenant commander John McCain was shot down over Hanoi by North Vietnamese troops while attempting to destroy a local power plant. He crashlanded in a lake and was captured and taken to Hoa Lo prison, later to be dubbed the Hanoi Hilton by surviving POW's. He and every other surviving American prisoner was released after the signing of the Paris accords in 1973, ending the Vietnam war.

Today I went to the prison-turned museum and I must say it has had a profound effect on me. Having read McCain's version of the facts and having heard the Vietnamese version, where the prison is depicted as a small paradise for convicts, it's really difficult to have a decent opinion on the subject. It gets even weirder with the figure of Douglas B. Peterson, who was captured and detained in Hoa Lo, only to become the very first US ambassador to Vietnam in 1997.

For those who aren't in the know. John McCain ran for president of the US in 2008 and can't lift one of his arms over his head, a souvenir from his time as a POW.

The prison was built in the first half of the 20th century by the French who then owned the place when Vietnam was a part of French Indochina. The French used it, among other things, to test their guillotine on Vietnamese revolutionaries and the publicly displayed the result in order to affect morale. The guillotine is still there and is on display, next to the death and isolation cells, which are appropriately under lit and are unfortunately accompanied by some sort of ominous soundtrack, which give the whole thing some kind of bad theme-park vibe.

Being a geek and all, I also went to The Temple Of Literature which, depending on who you talk to, is as every bit as amazing as you'd expect. From the 11the century on, it functioned as a kind of university for scholars and it is now a shrine for Confusius and his disciples. The temple ins't just one temple, it has a huge main gate and several courtyards in which you have to attain some level of tranquility in order to enter the main buildings. I was lucky to have arrived early, so I had most of the place to myself, except for a few worshipers who prayed and left offerings (including a cigaret, oddly enough). After an hour or two the Chinese walked in like they owned the place, and it was time to head for the Fine Arts museum.  

A peek inside the Temple of Literature

The Hanoi Museum of Fine Arts was air conditioned and surprisingly beautiful. Most interesting was the very old art, which frequently depicts tortoises, unicorns, dragons and the phoenix, for a reason that was somewhat lost in translation. Most of the contemporary art was Vietnam war-related and mentioned "Uncle Ho", more about him on a later date. The damage for three museums: three dollars.

Edit: Making an awful lot of spelling mistakes, sorry about that.