Hanoi (2), Bat Trang, Quan Ho Music and Fighting Cocks: Vietnam North to South Part 2

Arts and Crafts in the Villages around Hanoi

Vietnam

Next morning we set off with Joe to visit Bat Trang, Dong Ho, Tam Tao and several other ‘craft villages’ that lie north east of Hanoi in the Red River delta.

The Long Bien Bridge and a Traffic Violation

Crossing the river on Chuong Dong Bridge gave us a good view of Long Bien, the city’s oldest bridge built by the French in 1902. Hanoi adopted its present name in 1850, but it had been founded in 1010 under the name  Thanh Long (Rising Dragon). The superstructure of Long Bien once represented a rising dragon but American bombing removed great chunks of the bridge and it was rebuilt without the original ironwork.

Long Bien Bridge, Hanoi

We drove through the outer suburbs, our car a big fish surrounded by a shoal of darting motorcycles. Suddenly a policeman appeared in front of us waving a red stick. Our driver pulled over and got out. The policeman first saluted with a humble ‘servant of the people’ attitude, then instantly changed his body language to ‘swaggering bully’. Apparently we had crossed an amber light. How the policeman picked this marginal transgression out from the swirling mob of unruly traffic was beyond me, but a fine had to be paid before we could continue.

We passed an airstrip which has been largely unused since Noi Bai International airport opened in 1978. Of considerable importance during the war, it is now looks rather neglected. It is surrounded by fishponds, generously excavated by the Americans in their efforts to close the airstrip.

Bat Trang, Ceramics

I had not been optimistic about our trip to Bat Trang. I expected to be shown round a huge show room with a thousand other tourists while in the corner half a dozen locals demonstrated some of the relevant processes. I could not have been more wrong.

Painting ceramics, Bat Trang, Hanoi

We walked along the narrow streets of Bat Trang, opening doors almost at random and wandering in to workshops where girls were hand painting ceramics. These were genuine cottage industries and we wondered if Stoke-on-Trent would have been like this a hundred and fifty years ago. At least the air in Bat Trang was breathable as there were no pot banks belching out smoke. We saw fuel for the kilns being prepared - coal mixed with dung and then slapped onto a convenient wall to dry - but we were not aware that any of the kilns were actually in operation.

Mix it all up......

...and slap it on a wall to dry

We saw no pots being made either, but the skill on show from the painters made the trip worthwhile.

Pots and kilns, Bat Trang, Hanoi

The village centre contained several shops but there was no pressure to go in or to buy, and, even better, there were no other tourists in town.

Deliveryman, Bat Trang

Bonsai Tree Village

We drove on to another village where the business was bonsai trees. 'Bonsai trees are very expensive,' Joe observed, pointing at the prosperous-looking houses. Larger than the Japanese variety, Vietnamese bonsai are very popular - no forecourt or foyer is complete without one - and business was clearly good.

Bonsai Banyan tree

Dong Ho, Block Printing and Funerary Objects

The Red River delta is extremely fertile providing two rice crops a year with a planting of soy beans or potatoes in between. The roads run on dykes, with the paddy fields below. Agriculture is intense, but there is also a large population, the next village being always visible across the fields

The next village is always visible across the fields

Dong Ho was billed as the artist’s village, but only one family is still involved in traditional block printing. Most of Dong Ho is now given over to the manufacture of paper funerary objects. After death a person must be provided for in the afterlife and this is achieved by burning paper replicas of the goods they owned – or coveted – while alive. Paper shoes, clocks, washing machines and motorcycles are common.

Paper Hondas stacked on shelves, Dong Ho

For men who die young – and the real motorcycles take their toll – a paper bride can be incinerated to ensure all their needs are met.

Paper brides await their husbands, Dong Ho

Tam Tao, Lunch and Quan Ho Music

We moved on to Tam Tao where we had been promised lunch in a village house followed by a performance of Quan Ho music. I expected to be taken to a large house with a lot of other foreigners and then, after a bland set meal, we would all move on to an auditorium. For the second time that day I seriously underestimated Haivenu Travel.

We parked beside the wall of the village Taoist temple, walked across a small bridge and were shown into the yard of an ordinary house. In the open front room the only table had been laid for two. We sat down and the woman of the house brought us a fish, some chicken, spring rolls and vegetables. We ate a genuine Vietnamese home cooked lunch, and very good it was too.

Lunch in a village house, Tam Tao, Hanoi

After lunch four singers,...

Quan Ho singers, Tam Tao

accompanied by two musicians....

Quan Ho Musicians, Tam Tao

...gave us a private performance in a pavilion in the courtyard of the temple. We enjoyed the show; Quan Ho is a form of folk singing which is not too exotic for the western ear and is far preferable to the insipid Sinopop that blares out from the shops of Hanoi. It was not quite a private performance as several local youths gathered around the pavilion to listen. They were welcome.

Pavilion, Taiost Temple, Tam Tao, Hanoi

Fighting Cocks - a Little Training

The rest of the local youth were gathered across a stream watching two fighting cocks. Cock fighting is legal, Joe told us, but betting on it is not. I have no idea how they police that. Persuading two birds to fight to the death to amuse human beings is barbaric, and I will make no attempt to defend it, however, on this occasion they were merely practising, no spurs were involved and no blood was spilled. The birds, lean, muscular and incredibly aggressive, even seemed to enjoy it.

Fighting Cocks - no blood was spilled, Tam Tao, Hanoi

Back in Hanoi: St Joseph's Cathedral

Back in Hanoi in the late afternoon we walked up to the cathedral. The French built Hanoi a neo-Gothic Catholic cathedral in the 1880s. Dedicated to St Joseph its interior is elegant and relatively plain, as Catholic cathedrals go. It also contains the relics – more precisely the skull - of the Vietnamese martyr St André Dung Lac, executed in 1839 by the emperor Minh Mang for being a Christian.

St Joseph's Cathedral, Hanoi

Thus ended our first stay in Hanoi. The next day (Sunday 25th) we would head for Ha Long Bay, returning on Monday afternoon for an hour or two before catching the night train to Lao Cai. We returned again on Saturday the 31st for another day in Hanoi and a visit to the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh.

Vietnam North to South

Prelude: Raybans in Heathrow and Saigon

Part 1: Hanoi (1) Ethnic Minorities, The Old City and Water Puppets

Part 2: Hanoi (2) Bat Trang, Quan Ho Music and Fighting Cocks

Part 3: Ha Long Bay

Part 4: Lao Cai, Coc Ly Market and Sa Pa

Part 5:Trekking from Sa Pa (1), Sa Pa to Ta Van

Part 6: Trekking from Sa Pa (2) Ta Van to Ban Den

Part 7: Trekking from Sa Pa (3), Around Ban Den then back to Hanoi

Part 8: Hanoi (3), The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and the Temple of Literature

Part 9: Hue (1), The Citadel, The Battle of Hue 1968 and Some New Things to Eat

Part 10: Hue (2), A self-Immolating Monk, an Impotent Emperor and Imperial Dinner

Part 11: Da Nang

Part 12: Hoi An and My Son

Part 13:Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

Part 14: The Mekong Delta (1), Can Bei and a Cornucopia of Fruit

Part 15: The Mekong Delta (2), To Vinh Long and Can Tho

Part 16: The Mekong Delta (3): Cai Rang and My Tho

Part 17: The Cu Chi Tunnels and the Cao Dai Gret Temple

THE END

Hanoi (1), Ethnic Minorities, The Old City and The Water Puppets: Vietnam North to South Part 1

Our Introduction to the Vietnamese Capital

Hanoi and its Traffic

Vietnam

Hanoi is some 250km south of the Tropic of Cancer. Descending the aircraft steps beneath a leaden sky with drizzle blowing in the distinctly cool breeze, we found ourselves reassessing our concept of ‘tropical’.

We were met by Truong (‘call me Joe’) and his driver who took us into Hanoi. There were few private cars on the road, but Vietnam is a land of motorcycles - some 60 million of them - and they swarmed about us like angry bees. Fuel costs over £1 a litre and with a typical middle class income being less than £100 a month, saving for a car is pointless when it takes half a month’s salary to fill the tank. The road system struggles to cope with the existing traffic, so perhaps this is no bad thing.

Hanoi, once the capital of North Vietnam is now the capital of the united country
Thanks to Vietnam Paradise Travel

Traffic backed up as we approached the bridge over the Red River. With both southbound lanes congested first motorcycles, then commercial vehicles and cars started to invade the northbound outside lane, and then both northbound lanes. It took twenty minutes to reach the centre of the bridge where we encountered the northbound traffic invading the southbound lanes. In the middle of it all was a policeman, twisting and waving his arms like an inept swimmer desperately trying to keep his head above water.

Beyond the bridge it was easier going and we soon reached the Museum of Ethnic Minorities. After our drive and a two hour flight from Ho Chi Minh it was now lunchtime, so we headed for the museum’s café.

An Introduction to Pho

It seemed time to make our acquaintance with pho the universal Vietnamese breakfast and light lunch sold at every restaurant and at countless roadside stalls. Flat rice noodles are submerged in well-flavoured stock, a few bean sprouts are added, maybe a spring onion, some herbs - usually coriander, sometimes basil or mint - and a spoonful of nuoc mam, the ubiquitous fish sauce (which, like its distant cousin Worcestershire Sauce, does not taste fishy). A couple of slices of fiery bird’s-eye chilli might be included or they might be served separately with a slice of lime. Finally several slices of bo (beef) or ga chicken are popped on top. We ate the solids with our chopsticks and slurped the rest from the bowl Chinese style. The Vietnamese, we later observed, eat pho with chopsticks in their right hands and a spoon in their left. As the Chinese have yet to invent the spoon (except for their impractical ceramic version) they do not have this option. We enjoyed our first encounter with pho, which was fortunate as there were many more to come.

Hanoi Museum of Ethnology

One of the large ethnic buildings, Hanoi Museum of Ethnic Minorities

The Museum of Ethnology is vast. 86% of Vietnam’s population are ethnic Vietnamese, the Kinh, while the rest is made up of 54 different minorities (a suspiciously similar number of minorities share China with the Han Chinese.) These groups, whose size varies from a few thousand to several million, live mainly in the northern and central highlands, some had even been uncontacted prior to the Vietnam War (or American War as we learned to call it) . Each has its own distinctive customs, clothing and buildings and the museum was comprehensive enough to be bewildering. One of the biggest northern groups is the Hmong whom we had met in China (here and in the two following posts) and would meet again soon. The Chinese Hmong refer to themselves as Miao, but as this means ‘barbarian’ the Vietnamese Hmong regard it as offensive. Hmong means ‘free people’, though we failed to observe that they were any freer than anyone else – though they were often poorer.

One of the longer ethnic buildings, Hanoi Museum of Ethnic Minorities

In the grounds of the museum were reconstructions of some of the more exotic ethnic buildings and funerary carvings.

Lewd figures cavorting round the coffin remind the dead of what they are missing, Hanoi Museum of Ethnic Minorities

A Walk Round Hanoi's Old City

Struggling with more knowledge than we could usefully digest, we drove into the centre of town, the car dropping us just north of the old city. We walked the last kilometre through the grid of narrow streets, each one dedicated to one sort of shop or trade. In one street they sold food, in the next ceramics, in another religious accessories. In the metalworkers' street, welders in sandals and sun-glasses showered the pavement with sparks, unconcerned for their own safety or that of passers-by.

Chillis, garlic, ginger and much more, Street of food sellers, Hanoi

When we reached our hotel the driver had already delivered our cases. ‘He couldn’t get a decent price for them in the market,’ Joe explained.

Interesting wiring, Street of religious artefact sellers, Hanoi

The Water Puppets of Hanoi

In the early evening we walked to the water puppet theatre beside Hoan Kiem Lake. Several such theatres exits in Vietnam, but this is the original and the best and it is the duty of every visitor to Hanoi to pay them a visit.

The band at the Water Puppet Theatre, Hoan Kiem, Hanoi

A packed house, almost entirely foreigners, listened to the excellent band for a while before the puppets made their entrance. Operated from behind a screen by puppeteers standing waist deep in water, they could be persuaded to do remarkable things. The action was accompanied by music and words, though ignorance of Vietnamese could not disguise the ‘that’s the way to do it’ nature of the dialogue. Allegedly, water puppetry was invented by local farmers with nothing else to do during the periodic floods - clearly the devil finds work for idle hands. At 45 minutes, the performance was just the right length; they could show off all their tricks – some more than once – before the audience becoming restless.

Water Puppets, Hanoi

Dinner at the Ly Club, Hanoi

Afterwards our driver delivered us to the Ly Club, one of Hanoi’s best restaurants, where we were to have dinner with a representative of Haivenu Travel. The extraordinarily charming Le Thi Thuy Nhu has worked for Haivenu since gaining a degree in tourism at Hanoi University.

Lynne and Nhu at the Ly Club

Nhu (given names come last in Vietnamese) was excellent company, and the food was very good, too. I will let the menu speak for itself.

Ly Club Menu

After we said goodbye, we knew that Nhu would spend the next hour riding her motorcycle to the village outside Hanoi where she lived. We merely had to walk through the door, step into the waiting car and be back at our hotel within minutes. I know we were paying to be pampered, but sometimes it does not seem entirely fair.

Vietnam North to South

Prelude: Raybans in Heathrow and Saigon

Part 1: Hanoi (1) Ethnic Minorities, The Old City and Water Puppets

Part 2: Hanoi (2) Bat Trang, Quan Ho Music and Fighting Cocks

Part 3: Ha Long Bay

Part 4: Lao Cai, Coc Ly Market and Sa Pa

Part 5:Trekking from Sa Pa (1), Sa Pa to Ta Van

Part 6: Trekking from Sa Pa (2) Ta Van to Ban Den

Part 7: Trekking from Sa Pa (3), Around Ban Den then back to Hanoi

Part 8: Hanoi (3), The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and the Temple of Literature

Part 9: Hue (1), The Citadel, The Battle of Hue 1968 and Some New Things to Eat

Part 10: Hue (2), A self-Immolating Monk, an Impotent Emperor and Imperial Dinner

Part 11: Da Nang

Part 12: Hoi An and My Son

Part 13:Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

Part 14: The Mekong Delta (1), Can Bei and a Cornucopia of Fruit

Part 15: The Mekong Delta (2), To Vinh Long and Can Tho

Part 16: The Mekong Delta (3): Cai Rang and My Tho

Part 17: The Cu Chi Tunnels and the Cao Dai Gret Temple

THE END

Ray Bans in London and Saigon: A Prelude to Vietnam North to South

What is the Value of a (Genuine) Signature?

We arrived in Vietnam, more specifically in Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon on Thursday morning and spent the day stumbling around in the mental and physical limbo that is jet lag before flying onto Hanoi on Friday. I will write about Saigon when we return in a couple of weeks - except for the following .....

Not Buying Sunglasses in Heathrow Airport

Before leaving home, I realised that although I owned several pairs of sunglasses, none of them were in a usable condition. I wandered into Sunglass Hut (an expansion of the pizza franchise?) in Heathrow airport and picked up the nearest pair. They were Ray-Bans priced at £230. My sunglasses have a life expectancy of two or three months before I sit on them or leave them in a pub, so this did not seem a sensible price [update at end]. Actually, it did not seem a sensible price under any conditions. We all know that there are a tribe of people - Hugo Boss, Donna Karin and old Raymondo Ban among them - whose signature on a perfectly ordinary pair of sunglasses is deemed to increase their value severalfold. We all know it, but I suspect I am not the only one fails to understand it. All I wanted was a pair of cheap, serviceable sunglasses and they had nothing even close to that description.

I later found a pair in the airport pharmacy for £17, still slightly on the expensive side, I thought, but worse, they made me look like a child molester.

Making a Purchase in Ho Chi Minh City

Twenty not entirely enjoyable hours later Lynne and I were sitting outside a street cafe in Ho Chi Minh City attempting to rehydrate ourselves with a bottle or two of light, fizzy Saigon Beer. We had seen off a stream of street sellers offering us dodgy DVDs, bracelets and books and declined a shoe shine from a lad who was insistent he could do something with my trainers, when a man hove into view bearing a board covered with sunglasses.

I selected a likely looking pair, they had a sticker saying 'genuine Ray Bans' on one lens. His asking price was 150,000 Dong (about £5) - the Vietnamese Dong is not one of the world's larger currency units, indeed we became multi-millionaires at our first trip to the ATM. I was tired and did not have my bargaining head on and anyway it is inappropriate for the mega-rich* to haggle too hard with the dirt poor, so I made a token effort and eventually let him charge me £4. Now that is a proper price to pay for a pair of 'genuine' Ray Bans.

Looking cool in 4 pounds-worth of 'genuine' Ray Bans

I was unaware that two weeks would pass before I would need to use them.

* Those who know me and were not aware that I was one of the mega-rich are probably unaware that they are mega-rich too.

[update: For the next incident in the life of these sunglasses, and another good reason for not paying £200+ see The Cowpat Walks 4: Biddulph, The Cloud & Rushton Spencer]

Vietnam North to South

Prelude: Raybans in Heathrow and Saigon

Part 1: Hanoi (1) Ethnic Minorities, The Old City and Water Puppets

Part 2: Hanoi (2) Bat Trang, Quan Ho Music and Fighting Cocks

Part 3: Ha Long Bay

Part 4: Lao Cai, Coc Ly Market and Sa Pa

Part 5:Trekking from Sa Pa (1), Sa Pa to Ta Van

Part 6: Trekking from Sa Pa (2) Ta Van to Ban Den

Part 7: Trekking from Sa Pa (3), Around Ban Den then back to Hanoi

Part 8: Hanoi (3), The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and the Temple of Literature

Part 9: Hue (1), The Citadel, The Battle of Hue 1968 and Some New Things to Eat

Part 10: Hue (2), A self-Immolating Monk, an Impotent Emperor and Imperial Dinner

Part 11: Da Nang

Part 12: Hoi An and My Son

Part 13:Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

Part 14: The Mekong Delta (1), Can Bei and a Cornucopia of Fruit

Part 15: The Mekong Delta (2), To Vinh Long and Can Tho

Part 16: The Mekong Delta (3): Cai Rang and My Tho

Part 17: The Cu Chi Tunnels and the Cao Dai Great Temple

THE END