From the Modern to the Ancient Capital

A Day Trip to Hanoi

Tiem, our first guide, had to abandonus, because a relative of his died, and he had to bring his fatherback to his home village, so another young man, Ha, replaced us. Tiem seemed to feel genuine affection for us, and we were sorry topart with him. We met at eight and drove south through intnse,congested traffic until we reached the main national highway, whichsoon turned into a rough, half-constructed road.

This was our first venture out of thehistorical center of Hanoi, and our impression of the city was of akind of uniformity – the way physicists assume that the universe ispretty much the same everywhere. The city remained intenselycrowded, full of small businesses, with hundreds of motorcycles andmotor-scooters, bicycles, pedestrians, cars, buses, and trucks alltrying to make their way down the same inadequate roads. Our driver,a phlegmatic older man, made left turns into oncoming traffic withoutflinching.

Hanoi is an unpredictable mixture ofcharming residential streets (rare), visible from the main road,surrounded by industrial and commercial buildings, and the mainstreets are lined with extremely narrow five story buildings. Haexplained that the government used to levy a real estate tax based onthe width of a building's facade. Now, he said, people built narrowhouses because land is very expensive. He also explained that manyof the buildings are inhabited by several generations of the samepatrilineal family. The urban landscape seems unplanned, chaotic,messy, and extremely vital.

After a while the city gives way torice paddies, huge stretches of flooded fields, shallow, muddy water. In this season the farmers are preparing the paddies for planting,and some plots are already planted. Behind the fields were villages,with urban-style buildings jumbled together. As we proceededsouthward on the rough road, we passed by towns, extended along thehighway, and they were depressingly unfinished, rough, ugly. Thecloudy weather didn't improve the impression made by the towns.

Many of the tall, narrow buildingsproudly bore dates: 2003, 2007, 2009. Clearly a burst of prosperityenabled a few people to build houses for themselves, but theprosperity didn't extend to the community.

After a while, nearly obscured by fog,we began to see jagged hills piercing the flat paddy land. Fortunately, as we proceeded, the fog began to lift, and we got aclearer view of the jagged hills. I would love a geologicalexplanation of what we saw: sharp peaks jutting out of very flatfields. Ha reported that the villagers graze goats on those steeplimestone hills, and that goat meat was a local delicacy. We passedup that opportunity.

I would also love to know more aboutthe cultivation of rice. However, our hotel's Internet connection iscapricious, so I'll have to wait – and chances are by then I'llhave become curious about something else.

We were headed for Hoa Lu, the firstcapital of Vietnam, established about a thousand years ago, when onewarlord emerged victorious over eleven rivals, and built a citadeland forbidden city there. Not too much is left, but the landscape isunusual. The site gave Ha an opportunity to present his version, theofficial version, taught at the university in the tourism program, ofVietnamese history, constant pressure from China ultimately overcome,the gradual spread of the Viet people (he called Kinh, something elseI want to clear up) from the north southward until they became themajority ethnic group in all of Vietnam.

There are still temples on the site,dedicated to those early rulers, but not much of the ancient splendoris left.

After lunch in an almost eleganttourist restaurant, we took a two hour boat ride down a river at TamCoc, through three caves. Our boat was rowed by a slight young womanin her twenties, probably. A lot of the rowers were young women,some were young men, and there were also a couple of rather elderlypeople propelling tourists down the stream. Many of them rowed withtheir feet, a technique I'd never seen. I found myself wonderingwhether the rowers were permanently employed, whether this was aseasonal, pickup job, or what. Most of them seemed pretty happy,bantering with other oarspeople, not laboring like galley slaves. Iassume that some of the old people behind the oars have been doing itall their lives, although, since there was little or no tourism inVietnam before 1995, the whole business probably didn't exist.

So many puzzles.

The scenery was radically unfamiliar:untamed, steep, jagged hills jutting out of rice fields that probablyhave been cultivated for a couple of thousand years.