We arrived in North Viet Nam on Chinese New Years. The trip in from the airport was uneventful, but we could tell we had left one country and were in another. The rice fields had been planted and you can see they rice growing.
The architecture had little Chinese influence and owed much to its former status as a French colony. The houses were colorful, had balconies, and were very narrow. The narrow houses reminded me of the houses in Holland--also high and narrow. And the reason was the same--houses were taxed by their frontage area. So if a house was built very thin and tall, the taxes were not so high--only the buildings were "high."
One of the first things that struck us was the wiring for lights and telephones. I have never seen so many wires strung along the streets--dozens of them all hanging from the same poles. It made me nervous, but I guess it is all right, if that's what one is used to.
Still the number of wires and the way they were connected and looped together was amazing. Question--If there is a power outage, how do they know which line has the problem?
Our first excursion was to Halong Bay. Those of us over 50 know it as the Gulf of Tonkin and remember the part it played in the Viet Nam war. However, today it is peaceful with the same kind of limestone cliffs that we saw on the Li River in China. Our boat chugged along among the various rock cliffs, occasionally coming across little water hamlets like this one.
Many of the little boats came out to sell us fruit or souvenirs. The people just climbed on the roof of their boat and sold their produce from there. This boat had a little girl--maybe 2-3 years old--helping her parents. She wandered around on the roof with no safety harness and the parents did not seem concerned about her. She probably caused people to buy her parent's fruit because she was so cute. I think I would have been nervous if one of my grandchildren was out there and been constantly on the alert in case of an accident. I'm rather conservative that way. Maybe it's my age.
The day we visited was cool and overcast but, as you can see, we did get some good pictures of the cliffs. Even in the mist they were spectacular. The cliffs are limestone and are riddled with caves.
This is inside one of the caves. Kevin and his family joined our tour to travel with us in Viet Nam and Cambodia. We surely enjoyed having them with us. The rest of our tour group thought it was great to have children along. They were all missing their own grandchildren. On the other hand the kids loved having 40 grandparents to spoil them!
When we arrived in Viet Nam, everyone was gearing up for the Chinese New Years celebration. There were balloons everywhere. We did go to a water puppet show which was very interesting--no pictures as it was indoors and we sat on the back row. I think if you go to Kevin and Effie's blog, they posted a few pictures. (Kevin has a much better camera than we do and was able to get some pictures.)
A lady had built a fire right on the street. I'm not sure what she was burning, but I guess it is legal to have a fire in the middle of the city.
The next day we made the obligatory stop at Ho Chi Minh's tomb. He is revered in Viet Nam like Mao is in China.
Did get a good picture of the changing of the guard, however. Reminded me of the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the US--very formal and serious.
Also went to the "Hanoi Hilton" where American POW's were held during the Viet Nam War. That part of the buildings has been torn down, but the original buildings, which were a French prison, remain standing. The display shows how bad the French treated the Vietnamese prisoners(believable) and how "good" the Vietnamese treated the American prisoners (unbelievable). It made me mad that nothing was said about the torture, etc. But, as Jim says, "History is written by the victors." I was happy to get out of there and out of North Viet Nam headed to Cambodia.
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