Thursday 7.9.23

We flew from Hoi An to Hanoi on, we had comtemplated the sleeper bus, read too many scary reviews about bugs crawling at night, the mad drivers and beeping the horn all time, then we thought about the train - an thought nah! We don't need to experience that either, so we flew - good choice I think.

We have a hotel in the "old Quarter" which is a popular tourist place - very busy and vibrant. They shut the streets off to vehicles on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, so it makes a small area a little easier to walk around. On the whole most of the foot paths are full of parked cars and scooters so you often have to walk on the road.

St Joseph Catholic Cathedral - Walking around the city we had a visit to the Catholic St. Joseph's Cathedral, it is a late 19th-century Neo-Gothic style church that serves as the cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hanoi. The cathedral is named after Joseph, the patron saint of Vietnam.

Construction began in 1884, with an architectural style resembling the Notre Dame de Paris. The church was one of the first structures built by the French colonial government in French Indochina when it opened in December 1886. It is the oldest church in Hanoi.

The exterior is built with granite stone slabs and brick with concrete facing, the façade consisting of two towers, rise to a height of 103 ft (31 m), with each tower fitted with five bells. The twin bell towers have often drawn comparisons to the ones at Notre Dame de Paris. Over the years, the cathedral's exterior has become severely worn down due to heavy pollution and underwent major renovation works between July 2020 and May 2022, restoring its external appearance and structural integrity

The inside has windows fitted with tall stained glass that were produced in France and transported to Vietnam and have pointed arches. The ceiling is rib-vaulted like those seen in medieval Europe. A pipe organ designed by the Belgian craftsman Guido Schumacher was installed in the cathedral on 23 November 2022 as part of a cultural exchange project between Itami in Japan and Hasselt in Belgium; the instrument has 1,850 pipes.

Hanoi Prison - Or Hỏa Lò Prison was a prison in Hanoi originally used by the French colonists in Indochina for political prisoners, and 1964 by North Vietnam for U.S. prisoners of war during the Vietnam War. During this later period, it was known to American POWs as the "Hanoi Hilton". Following Operation Homecoming, the prison was used to incarcerate Vietnamese dissidents and other political prisoners, including the poet Nguyễn Chí Thiện. The prison was demolished during the 1990s, although its gatehouse remains a museum. The name Hỏa Lò, commonly translated as "fiery furnace" or even "Hell's hole", also means "stove". The name originated from the street name phố Hỏa Lò, due to the concentration of stores selling wood stoves and coal-fire stoves along the street in pre-colonial times.

The prison was built in Hanoi by the French, in dates ranging from 1886 to 1889[1] to 1898[2] to 1901, when Vietnam was still part of French Indochina. The French called the prison Maison Centrale,] 'Central House', which is still the designation of prisons for dangerous or long sentence detainees in France. It was located near Hanoi's French Quarter. It was intended to hold Vietnamese political prisoners agitating for independence who were often subject to torture and execution. A 1913 renovation expanded its capacity from 460 inmates to 600. It was nevertheless often overcrowded, holding some 730 prisoners on a given day in 1916, a figure which rose to 895 in 1922 and 1,430 in 1933.] By 1954 it held more than 2000 people; with its inmates held in subhuman conditions, it had become a symbol of colonialist exploitation and of the bitterness of the Vietnamese towards the French.

Such a sad and tragic place to visit to see such human suffering, and to think there is human torture still happening in the world today

Saturday 9.9.23 we booked a Viator tour to Ninh Binh province to see a couple of places.

Bái Đính Temple is a complex of Buddhist temples. The compound consists of the original old temple and a newly created larger temple. It is considered the largest complex of Buddhist temples in Vietnam and has become a popular site for Buddhist pilgrimages from across Vietnam.[1]

It has 502 large Buddha statues surrounding the complex - 2 vietnamese and 500 Chinese. There also 10 000 small gold covered brass Buddha in glass cupboards in the walls!

The temple has the largest Buddha (90 tons) in Vietnam, and also the largest Lady Buddha with 1000 hands and eyes!.

After lunch we had a pleasant boat tour of Trang An river, which has the nickname of Halong on land. To see the impressive landscape of Trang An we took a 2hr canoe boat trip, with a rowing boat you going along the river, past the towering limestone mountains, through caves and past a number of temples. Even though there was what felt like a million boats is was very peaceful and extremely beautiful.

Our last stop was Mau Caves. The only reason to visit Mau Cave is to climb the mountain (500 steps) took about 30 minutes to get up with a few rest stops! The views once you get up there are AMAZING. There is a dragon on the top that the young and fit climb along - but it's a little dangerous so we touched his head!

Came across some pre wedding photos - how they climb up the steps in the dress I do not know!!

Sunday 10.9.23 -- we walked to see the President Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum serves as the resting place of Vietnamese revolutionary leader and President Ho Chi Minh, after his death in 1969 building started Sept 2 1973 and was completed in Aug 29 1975.

THe embalmed body of President Ho Chi Minh is preserved in the cooler, central hall of the mausoleum, which is protected by a military honour guard. The body lies in a glass case with dim lights. Crowds gather and it took an 30min for 100's of viewers to file through the building to see Ho Chi Minh's wax like body lying in the tomb. We were lucky as the complex only opened a few weeks earlier after renovations.

There are no photos allow and you actually have your camera taken off you, given a number tag to collect on the other side, a little apprehensive!

Monday 11.9.23 - We took a "Vietnam backstreet tour" seeing how the local people live in Hanoi in a 1963 GAZ69 Russian Jeep. Our tour guide "Nam" took us to see where the locals live, in behind the streets, seeing the narrow corridors that run like a maze behind the shops was incredible. So many families in a small area, compounds of 8 or 9 one room apartments that would hold a family of 10. And a shared kitchen and ablution area. Most houses these days do have their own kitchen. Many of the houses are about 6 foot wide and 3 storeys high - kitchen on the bottom floor, living in the middle, and bedroom and bathroom on the top floor.

He took us through the local fruit, vegetable and wet markets. We had a nice local Vietnamese lunch, and finally finished the day with an "egg coffee" made in the original café where it was created in 1946. The son of the café's founder Nguyen Giang, who now owns the cafe told us his father developed the recipe for the drink when milk was scarce in Vietnam in the late 1940s, replacing milk with egg yolk whipped with condensed milk & sugar. The cup is served inside a bowl of hot water to retain its temperature, it was very yummy. Rob was talking to the owner and he proudly showed him photo's on the wall of him as a small child.

Our next adventure is a couple of days of Ha Long Bay