Hanoi, Viet Nam - January 22, 2018

I have not talked about the smog. The air here looks as if a cloud is resting on the ground; the blue sky cannot be seen. The cloud however is pollution; pollution from burning rice fields, food being cooked on the street, exhausts from thousands and thousands of motor bikes and cars, nearby factory smokestacks and even the many, many sticks of incense that burn and smoke the pagodas, temples and small shrines at peoples' doors. The smog irritates the eyes and nose and creates a thin layer of grit on the skin. Many people wear masks over their nose and mouth. We take for granted our clean air, and in comparison, all cities in America are now clean again. We must, absolutely must preserve our air and water and we must help the world do more to clean-up our planet. I pity these people who must live in this gunk every day.

After such a full day yesterday, today was much less complicated. We did nothing except learn, take photos and eat . . . and eat we did!

Street food is an integral part of the city's culture. Everyone partakes. We had a private street food tour led by Ming, an expert Vietnamese chef who has worked in Indonesia, Germany and of course, here in Hanoi at the Metropole Hotel. After driving to the market, we first walked through streets that house the wholesale markets. Restaurant staffs come here to buy large quantities of beans, seeds, rice, fresh and dried fish, fresh and dried mushrooms, uncut bamboo shoots, garlics and fruits and vegetables of all kinds. We watched tofu being made and saw baskets and reed bowls of cinnamon bark, anise, tamarind and turmeric root. We crushed and sniffed many different kinds of green herbs used for marinating meats. We saw beef, chicken, pork, fish, frogs, shrimp and squid both fresh and dried, snails, eels and even dry silk worms. We saw chickens being plucked and gutted. There were baskets eggs of all varieties. Some eggs were sold fertilized, some not, some were tiny and speckled; others were ordinary just as we know them. We saw fresh meat being sliced into chops or finely minced and made into meatballs or any number of sticky rice/meat concoctions. There were trays of cleaned and prepared pig feet, chicken feet, chicken and pig intestines and coagulated blood for sale. We watched a vendor chop a great carp into pieces for someone's soup. Ming explained what the varieties of items were and how they are used in Vietnamese cooking. Of course, much of the fruit and vegetables were familiar but we saw a number of exotic items I have never seen before, not even in the great International Market in Atlanta.

Then we moved to what might be thought of as the retail area where smaller quantities of the same foods are sold as is fresh or cooked. We sampled sticky rice cakes and rice/pork patties wrapped in sticky rice goo. We tried tiny, mouth-watering spring rolls made of mushroom, minced pork, and bean sprouts. We were given pork that had been minced and then mashed into a paste, seasoned and wrapped in banana leaf and steamed. It was like having a thick slice of processed pork cold cut.

Then we had lunch!!! We had a Vietnamese beer and a bowl of vermicelli, thin, clear noodles made from tapioca, in a broth with vegetables, meat and hot chili sauce. Dessert was a sticky rice cake made with brown sugar, ginger and sesame seeds. To top off, we were given a tiny green banana which is like a Lady Finger banana but more sweet.

Rather than a long detailed story of our day today, the story today will be told in the amazing photos of all we saw.

The day was capped off with a quick tour of the Hanoi HIlton. It's proper name: the Hoa Lo Prison (Maison Central). This prison is most famous in our minds as the holding place for American pilots shot down over North Viet Nam, most notably John McCain. This prison was first built by the French and used to imprison thousands of Vietnamese political prisoners. It became a symbol for French exploitation and the bitter hatred between the Vietnamese and French rulers.

Now a museum, the exhibits portray bravery of the Vietnamese people in the midst of French torture and cruel imprisonment of revolutionist Vietnamese. It also pays particular attention to the capture of American pilots showing how well they were treated during their imprisonment as POWs and how in turn, the young American soldiers came to recognize the errors of their bomb assault on the people of Viet Nam. Photos of smiling prisoners are on the walls, showing them smoking, cooking food, joyously decorating for Christmas and playing basketball and volleyball together with their guards. More photos show some of these soldiers returning to Viet Nam as old-men civilians grinning and hugging the men who shot them down or pulled them from their wreckage in the lake. Propaganda? Could be. Maybe we all season stories to glorify our own favor. I guess it is possible that it is all a matter of perspective.