Driving into Hanoi, our bus stops at the lake into which now Senator John McCain parachuted when his plane was shot down. In the foreground the event is memorialized.
More recently, McCain has returned and viewed the plaque, which has his name spelled wrong. Another former POW was Pete Peterson, the first American post-war ambassador to Vietnam. Peterson made a big impression when upon his arrival as ambassador, he asked if he could meet the farmers who had captured him and made him prisoner. He gave them a big handshake and invited them to be his guests at the embassy.
We check into the Chain First Eden Hotel for our first night in Hanoi. Prices are higher in Hanoi, though still below US standards. We have dinner in a more western type cafe, then a couple of us got out walking to find an internet cafe. We walk through a fairly unlikely neighborhood and then I spot "Youth Hotel" whose lobby contains a row of computers. Viola! The ads in the lobby are about trekking travel, Inc. and for those who don't trek, there is "romantic sleep on boat", leisurely cruise, lots of swimming, snorkeling and kayaking. A very different Vietnam!
Street in front of hotel illustrates the predominance of scooter traffic.
Across the street from our hotel is a park that comes to life in the cool of the early morning at 5:30 AM. Kids in black outfits learn martial arts. Old folks do Tai Chi. Women's groups -- the red fan ladies and the purple fan ladies -- do choreographed rituals.
Our first stop today is the the Hoa Lo Prison, also called the "Hanoi Hilton." Long before the Vietnamese used it to house American prisoners, the French used it to house Vietnamese prisoners. The Prison is no longer in service; much of it has been torn down to create space for modern office buildings; what remains is a museum primarily devoted to the torturous practices of the French.
These included stocks.
And the guillotine.
A mural portrays the suffering of the Vietnamese under the French.
A plaque describes the good treatment given to American pilots. One imagines the pilots might have a different story!
The museum has pictures of American pilots when they were prisoners of war.
Later we visit the Temple of Literature. The Temple has a small shrine on the street corner for those who don't wish to enter.
Entrance to the Temple of Literature.
Under the Vietnamese kings, the Temple of Literature was the site not only of teaching but of examinations; and the scholars who passed and became mandarins were memorialized each with a stone plaque on a stone turtle.
Other scholars assumed the status of gods to be worshipped.
Here in one of the Temple's more modern classrooms we assembled for a lecture.
Our teacher was the reknowned Dr. Huu Ngoc, of of the most accomplished scholars of Vietnamese culture.
Later we attended the show of water puppets. The puppets emerge from the water to perform their roles. The water is deliberately a little murky in order to hide the apparatus by which they are controlled.
Friday
On Friday we travelled toward Ha Long Bay. On the way we stopped at a center where 300 disabled children and adults learn and support themselves with handicrafts. Many of the disabilities are from birth defects resulting from Agent Orange. Some of those at the center sew and embroider.
Some of the embroidery is quite vivid.
At Ha Long Bay junks await their passengers. The larger junks are well prepared for an excursion that includes a formal Vietnamese dinner on white tablecloths.
The junks have dining rooms sporting white tablecloths.
Underway, we passed a sampan. A counselor of Vietnam veterans once shared with me an account of an atrocity committed to thosse on a sampan in Danang bay during the war, and read to the group the poem I had written when I heard: Requiem for a Vietnamese Sampan Girl
The Bay is beautiful. The junk went to a secluded area where several of us jumped into the water and swam.
The group's leaders, Dr. Steven Leibo and Dr. Ed Tick.
Saturday.
On Saturday, we visited the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum where Ho Chi Minh lies in state. Beth Marie Murphy, because of her serious auto accident a couple of months before the trip, was in her wheelchair. When one goes to visit the mausoleum, one cannot carry cameras, bags, anything. We were told that Beth Marie could not use her own wheelchair, she would need to use one of theirs. So we waited until a substitute wheel chair was brought. Then to our surprise a young man in Vietnamese Army uniform escorted our group to the head of the long long line. Wheelchairs get VIP treatment.
Then we discovered there was to be even more. We approached the base of the steps leading up to the entrance. One's route is marked by a red carpet, and soldiers in dress whites stand at attention at regular intervals along the way. As the wheelchair approached the steps, four of these young men in white broke away in sharp military precision, proceeded in formation to the wheelchair, and each grabbed a handle back and front. They then proceeded up the stairs in precise military fashion, four Vietnamese in dress whites with white caps with the tell tale red hat band of the Vietnam Peoples' Army carrying a former U.S. Army nurse in her wheel chair up the steps to see Ho Chi Minh.
We followed, somewhat stunned, very impressed, and wishing we had our cameras with us.
View of the Mausoleum from the exit area (where our cameras were restored to us). The soldier in dress whites was actually standing guard at the nearby house where Ho Chi Minh worked while President. Four such young men carried Beth Marie's wheelchair through the Mausoleum.
On Sunday, three of us discovered there was an English language Mass at a nearby Catholic church (not the Cathedral of St. Joseph) so we attended. The offertory hymn was one I used with troops on mountantops of the Central Highlands 35 years ago, and the final hymn was a praise song I last sang at the annual Gideons banquet in Hampstead, Maryland a month ago.
Monday
In the park Monday morning, the day of our departure, an older Vietnamese gentleman greeted me, first in French and then in English.
"Where are you from?" he asked.
"America," I answered
"I am so sorry for you -- about Iraq", he responded.
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