It's 05h30 and we have just boarded the train at
Hanoi station. There is no coffee in sight. As we pass along the railway lines
on the way out of Hanoi there are places where the buildings come so close to
the track that you can touch them on both sides as you pass through. We skirt
Reunification Park which is busier today than yesterday, with joggers, walkers
and aerobics classes. Then past pavements of badminton players, bonsai art,
restaurants, my stomach is grumbling for breakfast.....
Pavements turn to vegetable gardens and eventually farms. The crimson sunrise
through the morning haze is quite spectacular. We move through fields of rice
and ancestors, past duck ponds full of the happiest looking free range food I
have ever seen, and villages of tall skinny houses clustered around meeting
halls. A service trolley appears in the aisle. Coffee!! Typical Vietnamese
coffee. It is short, black, cold and so strong it puts hair on your teeth; but
it is caffeine! The lady adds a dollop of condensed milk to soften the blow, but
the punch is hard.
Just outside Ninh Binh our train hits a man at a crossing, causing great
consternation and a huge traffic jam. He is still alive, only bleeding from his
head and leg, and is bundled into a taxi as we set off again. After Ninh Binh
the sculpted limestone karsts begin to appear on the horizon, like dragons'
backs snaking across the countryside. The village and farm houses become
shorter, with more spaces between, but they maintain their concrete Chinesey
decorativeness. The scenes rolling by the window become more and more pastoral.
The rice paddies are low and green, ladies in conical hats tending their
patches. A water buffalo trundles by, and a man thigh deep in a pond covered in
lotus flowers is fishing with a bamboo fishing pole. It's like a dreamscape. The
tranquility is palpable. Sadly, its impossible to photograph through the dirty
tinted windows as we rock by.
The family in the seats in front of us have made themselves at home. The young
couple have reclined their seats right onto our laps and after much wriggling
and giggling, have fallen asleep. The old mother has tried every seat in the
carriage and is finally back in her own seat which is reclined all the way back
even though her head is on the tray table in front of her. The old man has
spread out and put his feet up - one onto his tray table and the other on the
back of the seat in front of him by the ear of the man in front. They are not a
pretty sight, but he is not perturbed as he shouts down his mobile phone. The TV
is showing Vietnamese soaps and a speaker at the back of the car is playing
music at top volume. It is a cacophony of note. Once again, thank Apple for
iPods! Norah Jones drowns out the pandemonium and my attention returns to the
world outside the window.
We have just spent two days in Hanoi. Slowly wandering around, with no urgency
to see anything in particular. We have been there before, in 2009, for a week so
we have done the tourist stuff and this visit is all about noting the changes.
And how things have changed!
Hanoi celebrated its millennium in 2010 and much was done to clean it up and
give it a face lift for the big event. It certainly is cleaner than I remember
it, and the traffic, though still fierce and chaotic, is not as bad as it was
back then. There are even some traffic lights and pedestrian crossings in place
- though not enforced. The ladies with overloaded bicycles and bamboo pole
baskets are fewer, and the motorbikes now compete with electric stretch golf
carts carrying tourists around. Cyclo tours are the new trend and tricycle after
tricycle loaded with westerners wheels through the old town. New hotels have
sprung up everywhere, many with an attempt at character and atmosphere, despite
the energy efficient fluorescent lighting. The roadside dog barbecues are being
replaced by snake restaurants, and everyone can suddenly speak at least a little
English.
But, there are things which have remained, though in much improved forms. The
juice shop we frequented 4 years ago, was just a hole in the wall before, but
now it has wallpaper, paint, proper tables and chairs, and can turn out more
than one drink at a time. The hairdresser across the street has expanded and
offers all manner of beauty treatments, besides the standard wash and cut. The
pavement restaurant making Vietnamese rice paper wrapped spring rolls remains,
but has gained stainless steel tray table tops, and a much expanded menu, now
also including shrimp dumplings. It is good to see people doing well, and making
the most of the hoards of tourists who have besieged this previously vacationist
neglected city.
It is also a little sad, for us, that Hanoi has been truly discovered. Another
great city which will become more westernised, more expensive, more aggressive,
and loose at least some of its fantastic restrained character.
One thing we did do on this visit, which we missed on our last trip, was visit
the Hanoi Hilton or Maison Centrale or Hoa Lo - that notorious political prison
which the French built to incarcerate and torture any Vietnamese political
dissidents way back in the 1800s. The Americans have adopted it as their own
now. Some famous POWs like John McCain spent some time here during the American
war, and Americans come to see his flight suit and parachute which are on
display; and tell each other some rather interesting and dreadfully biased
versions of the stories of Hoa Lo. We had a giggle listening to some young
people talking. It's fascinating how history can be distorted so much depending
on which side you are on and how much you are willing to question.
There is much muttering about how American POWs could have been treated so badly
by the Vietnamese, despite all the conventions in place to protect prisoners.
But suddenly Guantanamo springs to mind, and I am afraid I cannot be overly
sympathetic.
When John McCain was campaigning as a big war hero, did he mention what he was
doing in Vietnam in the first place? Carpet bombing villages of women and
children indiscriminately, not to mention the bombing raids on Laos which was a
neutral country and turned out to be the most bombed country in the world!!
One of the original French guillotines is also on display, and watching the
grimaces of disbelief on faces as they face this beast is heartening. Hopefully
this will never happen again? Hmmmm..... Maybe not the guilotine, but how about
a little water boarding? Surely that's okay?!
Anyway, back on the train. We are going to take this train all the way to
Sai
Gon
eventually. We are doing it in shifts, preferably day time shifts, so that we
can see a bit of countryside. This first leg is supposed to be 10 hours long ,
but will be 11 due to the accident delay, and will take us to Dong Hoi, the hop
off point for the UNESCO recognised cave system which includes Phong Nha Cave,
as well as the largest cave so far to be discovered in the world, Son Doong.