Hanoi-Hanoi

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8th November 2006

It was still dark when we arrived at Hanoi rail station at 5:00 am. The hotel was a short distance away from the station - I braved a motorbike ride back to hotel - it was incident free except, at one cross road my biker almost took us under a bus - he never anticipated any traffic at that hour - luckily all big vehicles in Vietnam drive very carefully and slowly. Me taking a bike ride with a stranger in a foreign city at morning 5:00 am speak volumes for safe law and order situation in Vietnam. Except for few odd swindle/overcharging type crimes, I have seen no indication of any serious violent crimes.

With my flue still persisting, I just wanted to go to bed again. But bad luck at Camellia 3 Hotel, though I had a pre-booking, the room will not be vacated till 8:00am, they did not expect me so early. Seeing my flu condition they apologised and immediately took me to another of their hotels Camellia-5, just a block away. I got a room in the top floor, otherwise a good room. I straightway went to sleep.

Late afternoon I felt well enough to take a long stroll around the old city - its so live and so colourful with it's infinite variety that one can never get tired of it - originally established by 36 trade guilds of Hanoi around 1200-1300, it's streets still retain that tradition of specialised trade in a much broader sense - there is nothing that is produced or imported in Vietnam that can not be found here. Vietnamese conduct their trade in a very civilised manner - no shouting or jostling - everyone is courteous to others - Vietnamese sense of community is much older than communism - it is rooted in the traditions of rural Vietnam - where most things are shared by village community.

The most visible modern intrusion in the old city are thousands of motorbikes - until a few years back there were only Cyclos (or smaller versions of our Rickshaws driven from behind) - now even these are almost extinct - since the opening up of the Vietnamese economy in 1986 - economic progress was rapid and well distributed - almost the whole population has migrated from being on feet, bicycle or Cyclos to motorbikes - one of our tour guides explained - first there were only Japanese motorbikes costing more than US$ 3,000 - then there were Korean bikes costing around $2000 - then Chinese joined the fray - now the competition is so intense that a Chinese 50cc motorbike cost only US$350, Koreans around US$800-900 and the Japanese ones specially made for Vietnam cost around US$1300-1400. Now almost every working adult member of a family has a motorbike - giving immense mobility to the whole population - walking around the cities give one a fairly good idea on the ingenuity of the Vietnamese in putting their motorbikes to a maximum use - for example, I have seen them pulling a load of more than one ton of scrap steel - carrying three large live pigs.

On the surface it appears that Vietnamese women has taken lead in the economic drive of Vietnam - they appear ahead in every sphere - I have seen idle men on their motor bikes - but not any idle Vietnamese women - tending their rice fields, shops and customers while also running their family - almost every Vietnamese hotel I have seen, are run by the young lady at the reception - she does everything with quiet smiling efficiency, managing few young submissive men to do her errands. However that may not be the whole picture, politics is still dominated by men and probably so are the businesses.

As it is apparent from the streets, millions of motorbikes and a few cars probably reflect the general state of the upwardly mobile Vietnamese society - an evolving two tier society - a mass class and a few emerging rich - it is also apparent along the highways - every few hundred meters there is a shiny brightly coloured new house alongside the rows of traditional Vietnamese houses - making a clear statement for the owner - "He has made It" - I have seen them in Mekong Delta - where many fisherman and farmers have also made it through some hard work and ingenuity.

However, in spite of emergence of classes, egalitarianism remains deeply rooted in the Vietnamese society, its rooted in rural Vietnam and predates communism by many thousand years, where people share many things as community property. My Friend Shamsul also pointed out the same thing other day - every employee from top-to-down take lunch together- socialises together.

9th November 2006

Today I felt lot better and started early - I got to make up a lot today -

First, I took a motorbike ride to the Museum of Ethnology about 10km away from my hotel - the ride cost me about US$2.5. Its a small but very informative museum on 54 ethnic groups that make up Vietnam's 80 million population. However, the overwhelming majority, about 87% of the population are of Vietnamese ethnicity, others like Khmers, Chams, Thais, Chinese and various hill tribes comprise the remainder 13%. There are displays of key minority groups; their houses, dresses and unique ways of life.

Though a bit out of place in a museum of anthology , there is a big section dedicated to the severe hardships that Vietnamese people had to endure between after the victory of 1975 and opening up of the Vietnamese economy in late 1980s. The displays are very candid and frank not only for a communist government but for any government. The endless queues at government rice stores, where people often received moulded rotten rice or no rice after many long hours of waiting - one adult's quota was 7kg of rice per month. It was the dual impact of drastic fall of rice production in south Vietnam after the introduction of Collective Farms and the American/western sanctions. There are candid confessions of Government officials, party officials and police officers and ordinary citizens on direness of the situation and petty corruptions that mushroomed with it.

To some extent, historical mis-timing was also a major cause. After 30 years of struggle with the support of Russians and Chinese, when Vietnam won its war in 1975, communism was beginning to collapse everywhere else - Nixon has already gone to China and it was Brezhnev's dying days in Russia.

The pragmatic leadership of Vietnam reversed the course by mid eighties, probably taking the lead from Deng's reforms in China. Since then Vietnam has not looked back and is on a solid economic growth path. Like China, the mix of firm governance and disciplined introduction of market economy is so far working very well for Vietnam.

From the museum of ethnology I took another motorbike ride back to central Hanoi near the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh. It is my bad luck that every year during October and November Ho Chi Minh's preserved body is sent to Moscow for regular preservation maintenance and all thing associated with Ho Chi Minh; his museum, mausoleum and his cottage were also closed for yearly renovation. I walked around the area - the Mausoleum faces the Vietnam's equivalent of Moscow's Red Square, and is likewise used for huge ceremonial parades - currently being spruced up for the upcoming APEC summit to be held in Hanoi. Though Ho Chi Minh shunned personality cult and wanted his body to be cremated after his death, the Vietnamese government over-ruled his wishes after his death. His body was preserved in this newly built mausoleum. He is so revered by the Vietnamese People - his is the only personality cult in Vietnam - only his statues, photographs and quotations are on display, nobody else's - I even do not know who is the current president, PM or the party secretary general - I have seen no one else's photo anywhere.

One striking element, there is big well maintained bamboo grove left in the corner of Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, facing the parade square - many Vietnamese asked me to take a photograph of that bamboo grove - it is left as a recognition to the importance of Bamboos in Vietnamese life and in Vietnam's struggle against foreign invaders.

Later on I walked down the Dien-Bien-Phu Avenue to the Army museum - Many captured American weaponries including crashed fighter jets, and many other intact helicopters, fighter planes and artillery pieces are on display on the grounds of the museum. There is also a large scale electronic display of the battle of Dien-Bien-Phu - showing day-by-day progress of the battle and the surrender of 10s of thousands of elite French Foreign Legion soldiers. This was the first time in the history an Asian peasant army has defeated a vastly modern and superior western army.

Ho Chi- Minh declared independence in 1945 as soon as the Japanese surrendered. But the glorious French who themselves were till recently occupied by Hitler's Germany, tried to recolonise Vietnam as soon as they themselves were freed. The defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 put an end to that French pipe-dream. They then resorted to so called diplomacy, with the support of the USA and UK - Vietnam was temporarily split along the 17th parallel with the promise that a Vietnam wide election will be held by 1956 and then whole Vietnam would be handed over to the newly elected Government. Fearing a wholesale victory for Ho-Chi-Minh's communists in both North and South Vietnam, the French connived with the puppet South Vietnamese government to thwart the election and it never took place. Initially the French and then the USA tried to prop up various puppet Governments till the fall of Saigon on 30th April 1975.

10th November 2006

I Spent most of the day trying to capture some unique moments of passing life in the old quarters of Hanoi.

In the evening I took the overnight Re-unification express train to Hue, the old Imperial capital of Vietnam -