Northern Viet Nam Day Three: Arie Learns About CensoVIET NAM IT IS GREAT

This is day three of Arie’s trip to northern Viet Nam. You may want to start at day one.

Thursday. I got up early to update this blog, and discovered that it was inaccessible. At first I thought maybe Blogger was broken, but no, it turns out that Viet Nam censors the internet.

The official story is that the government of Viet Nam censors the internet to prevent its citizens from looking at pornography. Unsurprisingly, Amnesty International reports that the government's censorship is directed towards politics, not pornography. They say that virtually no porn sites are blocked, whereas everything relating to political dissent is. I suppose there were too many blogs on Blogger that relate to politics, so they just blocked the whole thing.

Still early, maybe 7am, I walked to the morning market. It hadn't really gotten going yet, I guess this city doesn't get going as early as does Phnom Penh (where most of the city is on the street at sunrise). I walked down to Hoan Kiem Lake again, this time to visit Ngoc Son Temple, which sits on an island at the northern end. The temple, built in the 18th century, is dedicated to three people: La To, the patron saint of physicians; General Tran Hung Dao, who defeated the Mongols in the 13th century, and Van Xuong, a scholar (thanks, Lonely Planet!). Inside the temple is a Buddhist shrine. I'm not sure if it’s acceptable to photograph Buddhist shrines, but I was the first person to arrive at the pagoda that morning, so I did.

Also on the center island is a sort of museum about the giant turtles that live in the lake. This featured the body of a preserved giant turtle, apparently found in 1968. I told the story in yesterday’s entry about the lake, but again, it's basically king saves city with powerful sword, king gives sword to golden turtle, golden turtle takes sword down to the bottom of the lake. The usual.

After the island, I went to the Martyrs' Monument, which honors those who died fighting for independence. For reasons that never became clear to me, many statues of soldiers in Viet Nam portray them as holding large sticks with three prongs on the end—things that look like giant plugs, and I had to try not to imagine the statue as a tribute to those who died trying to plug stuff in. It seems somewhat unfair that America's 58,000 mostly military casualties from the Viet Nam War receive so much attention in the U.S. while Viet Nam's 2,000,000+ mostly civilian casualties have a small statue near the lake. The same is true of the search for the remains of those killed in action; the U.S. spends millions of dollars each year on a project to locate the remains of every American soldier (several hundred are still missing, mostly crews of planes shot down over the jungle), while hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese families will never find their relatives’ remains. I guess it's one of the advantages of wealth.

I walked around the lake. It wasn't far; the entire old quarter is less than half a mile long. People were very friendly, especially because I had my camera out. One guy called me a paparazzi, though apparently to get my attention so he could offer me a moto ride. Just like Phnom Penh, Hanoi is filled with moto drivers hawking their services. Another guy who was just walking around the lake spoke no English, but was very eager to try my camera. I let him look through the zoom lens, and he was very amused. That sort of thing never happens in Manhattan.

After breakfast, we walked to the Memorial House. The House is just a merchant’s house from several centuries ago, but preserved and filled with various examples of artisans in the area (conveniently, all available for purchase). Like many houses of the period, it's built long and thin with a very small front because houses were taxed based on their street-front area. I think the same thing happened in Europe at various times--there are various streets populated entirely by long, thin buildings. The house is only two stories; no buildings were permitted to be taller than the Royal Palace. That rule has since been lifted, but Hanoi has no skyscrapers.

We walked down to a part of the old city where various art galleries were located, but didn't see anything that seemed worthwhile--everything seemed imitative of western styles to the point of being entirely derivative. A short walk took us into the expensive part of the city, where the embassies are located. We stopped into a little restaurant that was mostly filled with lunching office workers and had some excellent spring rolls.

After lunch, I went to the zoo. Hanoi's zoo is an interesting place to visit, but more to look at the people than the animals. They claimed to have various big cats, but their cages were empty. I started at a monkey cage; several Vietnamese kids had climbed the fence around the cage and were giving the monkeys Q-tips.

The zoo also includes a "fun park". I had thought that meant an enjoyable area with plants, but it turns out it meant a hall of mirrors, a ball tank, and various roller coasters. Most of them were shut down, I guess because it was fairly late (maybe 4pm).

The ostrich pen was interesting--I've never been that close to an ostrich. I was pretty sure it was going to try to peck me, but it didn't. There were a lot of other birds around, but I didn’t look too closely. Unlike, say, the Tokyo zoo, the exhibits here aren’t horrific--the animals more or less have enough room to walk around—but it still seems unfair to the birds to put them in tiny cages.

The zoo was arranged around a lake, and at the center of the lake was an island. The island was where most of the monkeys were. I'm not sure if its official name was Monkey Island, but it should have been. Anyway, this is where most of the people were—mostly families with children and groups of teenagers. They were there for one purpose: to harass the monkeys. Apparently this is a major thing—go to the zoo and try to poke the monkeys, or give them food, or try to trick them into eating plastic wrap (?). I was the only non-Vietnamese person at the zoo, so I was a bit of a curiosity too, and many of the locals were very excited for me to photograph them tossing food to monkeys.

There were a few large mammals. The zoo has a couple of elephants, but they’re chained to the floor--it's not a great scene. There was a hippo surrounded by an electric fence (which I almost touched when I hopped the regular fence to retrieve my lens cover). Watched a few more people tease some monkeys, and then I set out for home.

I figured, can't be more than three or four miles. A couple hours maximum, by foot, and it'll give me a good chance to see some non-touristy parts of the city. So I started walking, at first along the river, then down a few major streets. It was around sunset, a very photogenic time for cities. Walking around, I was again a bit of a curiosity--there were no other westerners around, and I guess few tourists make it to that area. Although I'm not sure where exactly it was--I got turned around a bit, and after getting some bad directions and hiking for an hour and a half in the wrong direction, I gave up and got on a moto taxi. Long day.

Continue to day four.