Northern Vietnam in a Nutshell

Once again (and for the last time on this trip) I am having to sacrifice writing anything interesting in order to get something posted before I get home.

So here’s an overview of the post-trip extension of my OAT tour to southeast Asia. There were just five of us out of the sixteen who were on the main trip. We flew from Saigon to Hanoi. After three nights here, we drove up to the very north of Vietnam, to Lao Cai province. We peeked over the border to China and spent two nights in Sapa. Then we returned to Hanoi, and three of us took an additional daytrip to Halong Bay.

Now I’m about a half hour away from being picked up to head to the airport and begin the trip home. But by the time I finish, I will probably be somewhere else. I’m going to try my best to post this before I get home.

Here’s a rundown of the last whirlwind week.

Photo albums

In case you don’t want to do all the reading, here are my photo albums from my time in northern Vietnam:

• Hanoi
• Lao Cai
• Halong Bay

Hanoi

Hanoi has taken its place among my favorite cities in the world (and definitely my favorite of this trip). It has so much charm, lovely shops, a bit of French influence in the architecture, crazy traffic with all the motorcycles and scooters you could dream of, friendly people, and great food. Unlike Saigon or Bangkok or Phnom Penh, it has not been taken over by modern skyscrapers seem to have supplanted any east-Asian charm they once had. And though it has 8.5 million residents, it feels intimate somehow.

Crossing the street in Hanoi is an exercise in restraint. I had the urge to dash across when there was a gap in traffic, but there’s almost never a gap in traffic. What is required is a slow and steady pace. Make sure they cars and cycles see you, and walk. If you maintain your pace, the cycles will know how to avoid you. 

January 1

We arrived at the airport and met Phil, our trip leader for this portion of the trip. As we rode in the van, he was so full of life and energy and humor, it really set the tone for the rest of the trip.

Right away he suggested that before we go to the hotel, we visit the “Hanoi Hilton,” the famous prison where American POWs were held during the war. And he suggested that on our last free day we take an excursion to Halong Bay.

Hỏa Lò Prison has been mostly torn down and replaced with high-rise apartments, but the section that remains is now a museum. The French colonists built the prison in the 19th century to hold Vietnamese criminals, mostly political prisoners, but North Vietnam used it in the 1960s and 70s to hold mostly bomber pilots shot down in enemy territory. The most famous “resident” was John McCain.

That evening we had a welcome dinner, where we met Tranh, a trip leader in training who joined us for the remainder of the trip and took copious notes.

January 2

Museum of Ethnology

Our first stop today was the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology. For a country of under a hundred million people, Vietnam has an extraordinarily diverse population. The government recognizes 54 different ethnic groups, and there are probably far more than that. The museum gave us a nice overview. Most interesting was the outdoor area with houses from various communities around the country. And this took on a special meaning later in the trip, as we visited a Red Dao village and had a chance to see a home, much like the ones at the museum, where people still live today. Although there was no Dao house at the museum, many of the other houses there were similar.

I had a few minutes to check an exhibit called “The Art of Decorative Patterns of the Tai in Nghe An.” When we were in the north later in the week, we had a chance to see a lot of textile art produced by Hmong women, and this exhibit provided a good context, even though the work here was from a different region and a different people.

Ba Đình Square

Next stop: Ba Đình Square. This is the location where Ho Chi Minh read the Proclamation of the Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on September 2, 1945. When Ho died in 1969, his mausoleum was built here. We only got to visit it from outside, and we got to watch the changing of the guard.

Kinh-Thien Palace Relic

After lunch we headed to this former imperial palace. There’s a joke that OAT stands for “Oh, Another Temple.” But in that case, it should be OAB: “Oh, Another Bunker.” Learning about the Vietnam War from the perspective of the Vietnamese people was an important part of what I was looking forward to. But by this point, I was “warred out.” Seeing locations where the war was planned and where combat happened is different from, and for me, less interesting than, gaining an understanding of how the war affected, and still affects, the people of Vietnam.

Anyway, there is an underground bunker at this site.

But I was more interested in the museum of porcelain and ceramic items found during excavation here.

B52

While we were visiting the bunker, Phil mentioned a B52 bomber that crashed into a lake in Hanoi and is still there. One of the members of our group asked if we could go see it, so we did. It was actually pretty cool, though my favorite part was walking through the neighborhood, past all the markets.

Haircut

I asked Phil if he could recommend a place to get a haircut near our hotel. He ended up taking me to his friend’s barber shop on the back of his motorcycle.

January 3

The next day we headed outside the city to some nearby villages.

Đan Phượng

Our first stop was this small village, where we first visited a temple. Here in Vietnam people practice not just Buddhism, but other faiths, if that’s the right word. And many of their practicies and rituals and worship are based on tradition and superstition and animism. The man who is responsible for the upkeep of this temple showed us around.

We also visited a mother and daughter who make bean sprout, which is apparently the main economic driver of Đan Phượng. We learned about the process of turning a couple of pounds of dried mung beans into thirty pounds of sprouts in a matter of days. (Hint: it takes a lot of water.)

Sơn Tây

This village was our next stop. We passed by a shop where they sell paper items for temple offerings. We saw some of this at the temple in Đan Phượng. All of this stuff is destined to be burned.

Our main destination in Sơn Tây was a house owned by a woman named Mrs. Lan. She is a widow who inherited a 300-year-old house from her husband, and she lives there with her four sisters-in-law and runs a shelter and provides services for elderly women and those who are victims of dometic abuse. We had a chance to talk with her about the work she does, and then we helped make Vietnamese spring rolls and had a great lunch.

Chùa Khai Nguyên

On the way back to the city we stopped at this Buddhist monastery. Though it dates from the 16th century, it was almost completely in ruins until 2005. Since then it has been rebuilt, and we got to go inside the giant Buddha.

Motorcycle tour

It was a long day, but it wasn’t over. That evening we enjoyed a motorcycle tour to some interesting places:

• An island just outside the city where there is a floating village

• A cafe where egg coffee was invented and where we got to enjoy this surprisingly delectable treat

• The humble but immaculate home of a delightful, spunky 85-year-old woman named Mrs. Tinh

• A narrow street where trains come speeding through several times a day (including twice while we were there)

• A restaurant where we enjoyed bún chả, the same thing Barack Obama ate at this restaurant in 2016

January 4

Ceramic Mosaic Road

The next two days were our excursion to Sapa. On the way out of Hanoi, though, we stopped to take some photos of the Ceramic Mosaic Road. We’d been passing it frequently on our previous expeditions, and we asked Phil if we could stop. It’s 6 kilometers long, so we only got a tiny segment of it. The elephant at the top of the page is an example.

Lao Cai and Sapa

Lao Cai is a province at the far north of Vietnam. It is also the name of the city that is the capital of the province. We drove to the city and then on to Sapa, a popular tourist destination.

January 4

Cinnamon

On our way, we stopped at a cinnamon farm. We met the owner, who told us all about how cinnamon is grown and harvested.

Lao Cai city

We stopped for lunch in Lao Cai city, and then we visited “Oh, another temple.” 

From there it was on to Sapa, where we checked into our hotel, had dinner, and called it a night.

January 5

Our mission today was to hike to the village of Lao Chai, a community of the Black Hmong people. (They are called Black Hmong because they traditionally dress in black, although our experience was more colorful.) It was an easy hike, because we rode the van to the top of a hill and then walked downhill the entire way into the valley where the village is located.

Hmong women

As soon as we got off the van, a group of Hmong women descended upon us. They accompanied us on the entire three-hour walk to their village. They’d been up since the crack of dawn to walk up from the village to meet us (or whichever tourists they might meet). Their objective in walking with us is to talk with us in order to learn English. And their objective in learning English is to be able to sell their textiles to us once we arrived in their village.

Bride kidnapping

At one point we stopped for tea at a roadside café, and Phil and Mae Linh invited the women to join us so we could learn about their lives. In particular, they shared their stories of how their husbands-to-be kidnapped them. “Bride kidnapping” is a custom among the Hmong people in Vietnam, and it is either a horrendous sex crime or a lovely tradition, depending on who you ask.

One of the women described her kidnapping. She spent three days with the family, staying in her own room. Her family didn’t know where she was, but they probably had a good idea. After three days, her abductor sent word to her family. She, or they, could have refused the marriage, but he offered a nice dowry consisting of money, farm animals, and whiskey. She was fifteen years old, the typical age for marriage in the community. Today she is 38.

Fine custom?

According to the People’s Army Newspaper, which claims to be “the voice of the armed forces and people” of Vietnam, it is “a fine custom”:

After choosing the right girl, a Hmong boy carries out a “bride kidnapping” plan with his friends. When seeing the girl going to the fair or festival, the boy runs towards her and pulls her hand with the help of his friends.

The girl pretends to resist and shows fear and reluctance, sometimes even cries and asks for help from her family-members and friends, while the boy with his friends’ help tries his best to pull the girl by the hand. That whole act shows the virtues of the Hmong women.

When the girl’s family join the fight, the boy’s friends just help pulling, not fighting back. After the girl is brought to the boy’s home, she is looked after by a younger sister in the family. Half a day later, the boy’s family comes to the girl’s house with a pair of chickens and a large bottle of liquor as presents for the marriage proposal.

If the proposal is turned down, there will be no wedding. If otherwise, the two families will proceed with marriage procedures and choose a good day for the wedding in line with the tradition of the Hmong people.

According to Vang Quang Dieu, a Hmong and an official in charge of cultural affairs of Tan Duong commune, Bao Yen district, Lao Cai province, “Bride kidnapping  is a traditional beauty of the Hmong  people in the Northwestern region which needs to be properly understood to see its humane values.”

Or sexual abuse?

But for many Hmong girls, this custom is the beginning of a life of servitude, abuse, and motherhood at a young age:

Dani (*pseudonym for protection) grew up in a Hmong family from Hà Giang, Vietnam. During her childhood, she was happy to study and learn in school and explore the things around her. When she was 12, she met a boy at a New Year celebration event, thinking that love was just around the corner. For several months afterwards, they chatted on social media and Dani started falling in love. However, all fancy was destroyed when they met again one day in August. While Dani was out shopping with friends, she was happy as she saw the boy but his next move scared her. The boy suddenly grabbed her mobile phone and dragged her onto his motorbike, taking Dani to his home and forcing her to become his wife. Dani was petrified knowing her future was doomed.

Realising that her parents had agreed and received the bride price, Dani was devastated. She had not heard of bride-kidnapping before, and now all she could do was to accept her fate and stay in the boy’s home. During the next four months, not only did she wake up at 4 am every day for chores and farm work, but she also had to endure verbal and physical abuse from her husband and his family. In those painful days and nights, Dani missed her friends and school so much that she decided to escape and go back to her parents. Yet, what welcomed her were criticism and ridicule as running away brought shame to her family!

Plan International

But the women we talked to did not describe their lives as bleak and unhappy. They are living the life that is expected for them, the life that they expected for themselves. Most of them were not kidnapped by their husbands, but all of them were married around the age of fifteen and mothers by sixteen. (One, a twenty-year-old, has three children.)

As travelers, we often encounter things that trouble us or upset us or anger us. What do we owe these women? Even if we find this custom to be abhorrent, who are we to interfere, or even to express our feelings? All we can do — all we should do — is listen and try to understand.

When we got to their village, I bought a wall hanging from one of them. She had stitched it by hand. It cost me $20. I hope it was some help to her.

The hike

The scenery we enjoyed during the hike was beautiful. Unfortunately, fog and haze hid a lot of it , but as we walked, the fog lifted, and toward the end we got some magnificent views of the terraced rice paddies on the hills.

Market

Back in Sapa, we had lunch and then visited the market. Even though I’ve seen a lot of markets on this trip, the one is Sapa had some things I didn’t see anywhere else.

January 6

The next morning, before heading back to Hanoi, we visited Mae Linh’s village, Tả Phìn, where we met her parents and her grandfather and had tea in her childhood home. Tả Phìn is a Red Dao village. These are Mae Linh’s people. She wears the traditional red scarf of the Red Dao.

Mae Linh had her own story, which she shared the previous day. Even more tragic than bride kidnapping among the local ethnic groups is sex trafficking, and she was very nearly a victim. As a teenager she and her friend met a couple who befriended them and then began to offer them an opportunity for a better life, career, and economic independence. They were all set to go with them, but her grandfather interceded and saved them just before they boarded the train to China. Mae Linh knows of other girls who weren’t so lucky. Her cousin was in China for five years, working as a prostitute while just a teenager. Only when she aged out did she have the opportunity to leave and return to the village, but she was no longer a virgin, and so not a desirable bride. Another girl from the village has gone missing, and her family is unable to locate her.

Mae Linh was supposed to marry a local boy, but she left the village and married someone from another ethnic group. She wanted to be a kindergarten teacher, but she had to give up that dream. She learned English and became a tour guide. There’s still some distance between her and her parents because of the decisions she made. But to me and my fellow travelers, she was an inspiration. Hers is a story with a happy ending.

Halong Bay

Halong Bay was not part of our original trip itinerary. But when Phil suggested it, we were thrilled. I’d heard it’s the most beautiful part of northern Vietnam. And it did not disappoint.

Two of our five had already made plans to visit Halong Bay on their own, so they didn’t join us. So Phil and I and just two other travelers had a boat big enough for 24 people all to ourselves. We got an early start, so we were able to enjoy the vistas without a lot of other boats around.

The story goes that a dragon spit out a mouthful of pearls that formed the 1,969 islands in Halong Bay. I’m willing to believe it.