I never in my life dreamed that I would be here or even seek to be here, but here we are . . . in Hanoi, NORTH VIET NAM, that vile, mysterious city we all we heard about and feared on a daily basis in the late 1960's. I get chills thinking this city was the headquarters of Ho Chi Minh who directed the horrible war that we called the Viet Nam war; what they call the Viet Nam Civil war; and what others here we have just learned call the American War.

I don't even know how to begin. First, this is the busiest, most congested city I have ever seen. I thought India was crowded and dirty and I though Bali held the record for the greatest number of motor scooters on the street but no. Again, I hardly know where to begin.

As we became introduced to the city, my heart began to break. The quality of life here is not good. Let me remind you as we were reminded today, this is a Communist country. . . COMMUNIST!!! Actually, as it was pointed out more clearly, it's is not so much Communist as it is a dictatorship. The people here vote, but the system is corrupt and their votes do not matter. We were told there are a few members of the Party who are in control and seem to pass leadership around among themselves. Some people are educated but only a few fortunate people can afford the university; the rest of the people are constantly schooled/brainwashed in the good of the Party by monks, the government and the schools. Internet is changing things, however, by opening access to goods, thinking, freedom and the world.

Remarkably capitalism is developing. Even though people have no say in how they are governed or how they are taxed, the country has become very capitalistic. Anyone can own property. Anyone can make money and better himself. Still many are hesitant to change. Change is hard; many live as their fathers did before them and their fathers before them.

This is an incredibly poor city, but that's not to say these people managed their lives poorly while we more affluent ones managed ours in a better way. We all were born in the world where we popped out. Not one of us had a choice. We had nothing to do with anything except where our mothers were when we were born. To a large degree, our success and certainly our opportunity is a matter of where our souls emerged on this earth. Lucky, blessed, fortunate are we who were born in America. Could anyone be luckier??? We individually could have been born in Paris, Madrid, London, Oslo . . . not so bad either, but what if our birth place had been to peasant parents in Mexico City, or Hanoi or even Port-au-Prince, Haiti. What if? May we all recall this when we sometimes boast and take pride in ourselves.

Hanoi is crowded and busy with cars and motor bikes everywhere. Pedestrians have little street rights, the rule is everyone for himself here. As you enter a street, you must be aware of cars and motor bikes crossing your path. Whoever has the most courage wins the game. People yield to avoid being struck by motor bikes or cars and cars sometimes yield to avoid touching other cars, people, a motor bike or even a rickshaw. Still everyone and every vehicle moves forward grabbing what advantage they can. There seems to be a pecking order on the street but I have not figured it out yet. Despite the chaos in the streets and sidewalks, we have not seen a crash or even one vehicle touching another but the fear of being squashed right here on the dirty streets of Hanoi is electrifying.

We had a lovely and hearty breakfast at our Silk Path Hotel. We met our guide, Tuyen, and our driver, Khai, for a tour of the city. Today is Sunday; which means while traffic is usually very bad, it is even worse on the weekend as people and families get out of their tiny houses for weekend pleasure. We crept along in our nice air conditioned vehicle to and from city attractions while cars and motor bikes beeped constantly at us, jockeying for positions on the street. Streets are filled with cars, motor bikes and people pushing carts or carrying baskets counter-balanced on poles stretched across shoulders. Sidewalks are not for walking. They, too, are packed with people, parked motor bikes and vendors cooking street food or selling wares. It is mindboggling. First stop for the day was the Temple of Literature, the first Confucian University for the sons of mandarins. Mandarins were scholars and appointed advisors to King Ly, the second King of Vietnam.

We visited several pagodas which are in fact Buddhist temples. They were beautiful, artful and a contradiction to their own doctrine. Buddha asked for nothing. He merely taught men lessons on how they should live their lives in a good way. The pagodas are elaborated decorated in red and gold and have contribution boxes conveniently located everywhere. People donate flowers, food stuffs and money hoping their prayers will be answered. The order of the monks keeps the donated money. None of it goes to the government. Food offerings may be kept and consumed by the monks but it is often donated to charities. It is said that the most important monk here drives an S-class Mercedes and wears ultra-expensive sunglasses. What???

The body of Ho Chi Minh lies here in Hanoi in a crystal casket in his grand marble and granite mausoleum. The mausoleum sits on the grounds of the Presidential Palace, where he never lived. The palace was built by the French between 1900 and 1906 to house the French Governor-General of Indochina (now Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos). When Ho Chi Minh defeated the French and threw them out, instead of moving into the palace, he took the gardener's house for several years, 1954 - 1958. Then he built his own open-air wooden stilt-house, modest in comparison to the Presidential Palace, but lovely still. It overlooks a beautiful botanical garden and a carp-filled pond. This house is where he worked and met with his generals intermittently during the war, from 1958 -1969. The mausoleum and botanical gardens are visited by thousands every day but it you want to view the embalmed body, the mausoleum is open daily except Monday and Friday and remains open only until 11 am each day. We passed on that opportunity. The que was hours long.

We rode rickshaws, or cycloes, which are carriages pushed by bicycle. We traveled this way through Old Quarter with cramped traffic and vendors and shops on each side of the street offering every kind of knock-off item imaginable, silk pajamas and even caskets for the second burial. The cyclo ride took us through the French Quarter with beautiful recognizable Parisian-styled buildings built by the French during their rule here. Today much of the area is called government area and is home to dignitaries of the Communist Party and also home to many foreign embassies. Temples, the central bank and the famous Metropole Hotel was pointed out by our cyclo drivers. They could speak no further English, however, so any questions we had were waived-off. The Hanoi Hilton where John McCain was held POW still stands today and was pointed out to us as well.

We had a traditional Vietnamese lunch at the Wild Rice Restaurant; then walked through streets closed off from weekend traffic so that people can picnic, mingle, play and enjoy stalls and vendors around the lakes. We passed through tiny streets where we could see easily into some of the one-room typical homes of city dwellers. Many are no larger than only 150 square feet but may serve as home to 8, 9 or even 10 people. They have no kitchen facilities which explain why there are so many street-food vendors; everyone must eat food out every day. Speaking of street food, rice is steamed in cookers on the street; vegetables and meats are cleaned, chopped, sliced, minced, pureed, stewed and otherwise prepared in baskets and cooked atop freestanding gas burners or other cookers that look like upside cans with a fire source inside. People order the food, watch it being cooked and consume it sitting on tiny chairs at low tables and eat the food next to cook fire.

In the blocked off streets between West Lake and Truc Bach Lake, we watched young teens and children dancing to raise money for their school; we saw a handful of kids having fun playing jump-rope, jumping together to a long rope being twirled by other kids. We saw a vigorous game of tug of war and we saw a family playing badminton on a court painted on a wide sidewalk. People were friendly everywhere we went, especially kids and they love having us take their picture.

We walked across the Red Bridge to a small island in the lake which is where King Ly used to visit in late afternoon to have his tea. The lakes are in the heart of the city; both are landlocked and totally polluted with their waters fed only by rainfall and street-run-off.

Like many of the pagodas we saw, the bridge is not a relic. The government has torn down and rebuilt many of these iconic buildings. Many are made to look old, but sadly they are not.

By this time, we had walked many miles and were happy to rest our feet a bit at the Water Puppet Show, a uniquely northern Vietnamese art form dating back to the tenth century. The show is presented in a red and gold gilded theater and is a play performed by puppets in and on a stage of water. The play is accompanied by six live Vietnamese musicians playing traditional instruments. The mostly wooden puppets represent farmers, fire-breathing dragons, fish, ducks and foxes. The vignettes tell stories about myth and culture in rural Vietnam. Puppeteers hidden by large screens use bamboo poles and string mechanisms hidden below the water's surface to make the puppets come to life.

Nighttime came and we were happy to finally return to the hotel. We asked hotel staff for walking instructions to the nearest supermarket to buy wine and a few necessities. We were told by Tuyen to expect only a 5-minute walk. We think the hotel had a different supermarket in mind. It was a much longer walk and involved emerging ourselves in the wild mass of humanity on the streets once again.

A glass of wine and an hour or two reviewing photos and starting the day's blog were simply all we could manage.