Last night, sitting at my table located in front of the eating emporium, on a very crowded street near my 'Camel City' hotel I was aware of strident martial music of the Soviet ilk, blaring over the roar of the omnipresent mopeds. First, I believed that I was to enjoy a military band march-past
only to be somewhat let down to see the nightly refuse truck patrol rumble slowly past. Evidently, all the street traders know that with the approach of the martial fanfare, it is time to hurl their plastic sacks of garbage into said large & noisy refuse vehicle. A nice touch to remind a visitor that they are in fact in a country still run by a Communist government very much in control. The streets here in Hanoi, while being old and very cracked are generally quite clean and there does seem to be a citizen's consensus to pick up litter. The authorities here like to keep the people looking neat even in their moments of relaxation---walking through the park I watched as a policemen telling people not to lie down on the grass---only sitting positions are permitted!
Today my third full day in Hanoi it was my objective to see a couple of touristic highlights and routed my 5 kilometre walk to include------
1. The Vietnam Military Museum. It has seemed so far that Vietnam is true to it's recent raw & bloody history. The Museum is a collection of scrap guns, tanks and planes collected from foreign armies that have raged across the country these past 150 years or so. The exhibit notations that are included seem very political, but perhaps that is only a
measure of the suffering that the nation has suffered from foreign occupiers. Included as an integral part of the museum are multiple rooms devoted to the health damage to the Vietnamese people as a result of the thousands of tons of 'agent orange' defoliant that was poured on it by American aircraft 1968-1974. Apparently third generation deformed babies are still turning up as a result of grandparents having been sprayed or having had ingested food that was contaminated with AO. Not the most cheerful of places to visit, but well worth it for anyone keen to understand what makes this nation 'tick' in today's world.
2. The French Quarter. The area around the French embassy. A mixture of swish high end imported goods boutiques befitting the diplomatic crowd and commercial streets notable for decaying colonial French architecture and tall shady trees in the French style. Almost certain that in just a few brief years all the colonial remnants will have been torn down and replaced by glass towers. One has a sense that this country is on the move.
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| Scrap yard of captured enemy material... |
Today my third full day in Hanoi it was my objective to see a couple of touristic highlights and routed my 5 kilometre walk to include------
1. The Vietnam Military Museum. It has seemed so far that Vietnam is true to it's recent raw & bloody history. The Museum is a collection of scrap guns, tanks and planes collected from foreign armies that have raged across the country these past 150 years or so. The exhibit notations that are included seem very political, but perhaps that is only a
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| Love is in the air...... |
2. The French Quarter. The area around the French embassy. A mixture of swish high end imported goods boutiques befitting the diplomatic crowd and commercial streets notable for decaying colonial French architecture and tall shady trees in the French style. Almost certain that in just a few brief years all the colonial remnants will have been torn down and replaced by glass towers. One has a sense that this country is on the move.
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