Karma: quote of the day
We then tried egg coffee in Café Giảng which has been there since 1946 and which was the original egg coffee business. A local came up with the idea when using egg as a milk substitute. It proved so popular that he was able to open his own business here and it remains to this day. It is like whisked tiramisu! (now there’s an idea!)
We passed the luxury shopping part of Hanoi, with much less chaotic roads and less traffic. This was followed by beautiful old French colonial buildings en route to our next stop, The Temple of Literature. This location used to be the university for the whole country, initially only for boys. The Khue Van Pavilion(Constellation of Literature Pavilion), pictured below, features on the green 100,000 Dong note.
The marble monument with the turtle has a list of names of the mandarins who trained here. If somebody from a village qualified as a mandarin then the whole village was let off their taxes, so it was a very prestigious event! There was a very strong Chinese influence in the customs and the architecture here at that time. One example of this were the Chinese roof tiles sculpted like shells. The lions on the entrances to temples keep the bad spirits out, so you will often see lion statues as you enter a temple.
The next stop was a long queue for the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum. Ho Chi Minh (colloquially known as Uncle Ho) was born in a village near Hanoi, son of a mandarin. He travelled the world before returning to Vietnam in 1941. He founded the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945, which was commonly known as North Vietnam after 1954. The support he got from China and Russia resulted in the West fearing the spread of communism. He was president until he died in 1969 after the Tet offensive. This was both a major escalation and one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War. Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh in 1976 after the war (known as The American War , or the 2nd Indo China war inside Vietnam).
The house on stilts pictured below and built for him was his preference after living abroad – he did not want to live in the presidential palace as he saw it as a symbol of foreign rule due to its French colonial style. It had been built by the French colonial government in 1900 – 1906. He preferred a simple, traditional stilt house to remain close to the people and his ideals of egalitarianism.
We then went to see the one pillar pagoda built in 1049 by Emperor Ly Thai Tong. ( it was subsequently largely destroyed during The French War in 1954 and then reconstructed in 1955) It is designed to resemble a lotus flower rising from the water.
He had the pagoda built to thank the female spirit for promising him a baby boy. It is topped by a shrine with a golden lotus blossom and golden statue of female Buddha, goddess of mercy. It is seen as a place of fertility where people also pray for health, good luck and prosperity.
The area around the pagoda was very picturesque, with Japanese style hanging lanterns (long ones whereas Chinese lanterns are round and Hanoian lanterns often shaped like a teardrop or hexagon). There was also an interesting wall display giving details of the laws of karma.
From there we had a 35 minute drive to the 700 year old Bat Trang pottery village to have lunch with a local family. En route we passe lychee and guava plantations and a flower village on the other side of the river – a very fertile area for growing crops. The Red River is the second largest river in Vietnam. In 2019 the pottery village was designated as a national intangible cultural heritage attraction.
For lunch we had the following:
Lotus seeds, broccoli, cauliflower, mushroom and steamed pork. Battered giant prawns. Noodles, Vegetable platter with giant radish, pineapple, courgette and carved carrots, Meat patties,.Chicken and vegetables in broth.
For dessert: Sweet soup with beans flavoured with jasmine and lotus seeds.
We were then able to have a look around the house. It was 147 years old and had an ornate shrine with photos of their ancestors. In the other rooms there was beautiful woodwork, ceramics, decorated ceilings, many family photos on the walls and traditional paintings. The grandson of the pottery family had designed a lamp for Obama’s visit to the village and we saw a replica of his design.
The next part of our coach trip was much longer and several of us took the opportunity to doze until we stopped off at an embroidery enterprise with Buddhist sculptures. This was a social enterprise which started small but now employs 570 people. We were able to see embroideresses busy at work embroidering with lotus silk. This is made from the fibres inside lotus flower stems. Many of the pieces took months to create and were real works of art. We drove past Hai Phong . Vietnam’s 3rd largest city and past pearl oyster farms. Later on we got our first exciting views of the stunning Halong Bay in the distance.
We got settled in our hotel and then headed off with the coach to the restaurant for the evening, stopping en route for a cashpoint. Unfortunately, the problems with the cash points continued and nobody was able to get any cash out. To top it all the machine gobbled up Dave‘s Revolut card.
We had a fantastic meal at the restaurant. It was a seafood hot pot – a typical meal for family celebrations. The broth had been cooking for some time with vegetables in it and there were a range of ingredients which were cooked on the table as we waited. We started with squid and King prawns on skewers. This was followed by herbs, tofu, clams, seabass and finally sliced beef, all of which were flavoured with fresh lime, salt and chilli. It was rounded off with noodles and broth. We then had watermelon for dessert. We headed back to the hotel. Thin acted as our cashpoint so we were able to sit in the bar and have a couple of beers with the others until just before midnight. All in all a great first day of the tour.
Good to see that you’re getting good use from your new phone camera, Dave!!
A great read. We look forward to your reports!