Week 31: Hanoi, Vietnam

 

The Citadel in Hanoi, March 6, 2024

On March 5, I flew to Hanoi with 16 students in the Model United Nations Club and another advisor (Mr. Kowalski). We were attending the United Nations International School MUN conference at UNIS (a rather large international school near West Lake). I had been planning this trip since November and since it was my first international field trip, I was more than a bit anxious about it. But, it essentially went off without a hitch. The flights were smooth, no one got lost or lost their bags, everyone's visa arrived in time, and the conference was a pretty good success story for our students. I actually enjoyed myself. I would definitely do this one again. 

We arrived in Hanoi in the late afternoon on the 5th and went straight to our hotel, a big Korean one right across the street from the school where the conference was being held. The L7 Westlake is a Lotte Hotel, and it is attached to a big Lotte mall, so the kids were comfortable amid familiar surroundings. It was a very nice hotel. I liked the infinity pool on the 23rd floor (the rooftop pool).   

These are views of the area from my 19th floor balcony. The air quality was not great, but the weather was very nice. The rooftop pool is shown in the photo below. 

We got unpacked and immediately headed out for a street food tour and water puppet theater. The street food ended up being two types of pho, bahn mi, and egg coffee, which was fantastic. Egg coffee is a bit like eating coffee-flavored creme brulee. I really enjoyed it. 

  

I know some of you are noticing that there are peanuts in the pho salad. I have not had to take my allergy meds since my Bali holiday. I ate nuts and all kinds of things fried in peanut oil and I was fine! Wonder of wonders. Maybe my decade of nut allergies is over. 

 

Right after the food tour we went to the water puppet theater and watched an hour of amazing puppetry. The puppets seem to be on wires that extend under the water from behind a curtain at the back of the stage. It was "wholesome entertainment" as the students told me afterwards.  Here are the puppeteers at the end. I particularly enjoyed the live music that accompanied the performance. 

I took a lot of video of this show so my video update for this week has several minutes of water puppet theater. 

It was fun and colorful, and all of this happened in the Old Quarter (or the French Quarter) so it got us out of our hotel and into the heart of the city. 

The next day (March 6th) we headed out for a tour of Ho Chi Minh Museum and the Citadel. This was meant to be a half day tour but it turned into more like a 3/4 of the day tour, followed by a good soak in that lovely infinity pool on the hotel rooftop. 

    

The Ho Chi Minh museum was (predictably) full of stuff about Ho Chi Minh. There is a real cult of personality around this guy. Probably the most stressed idea (by our free tour guide, a student) was that Ho Chi Minh was not a Communist as much as he was a Nationalist who wanted to see a free and independent Vietnam. The museum itself was long on story and short on facts. But we were there with about 500 school children, so story seems to fit the target audience. The photo on the right above is the Viet Cong headquarters on the site of the ancient castle (the Citadel). This is the upstairs version of the Viet Cong headquarters. We also went down into the bunker below it and saw the real one. 

  

Apparently the one in the bunker was where the leaders spent a lot of time. Felt like being in a submarine down there. There are more than 43 ethnic groups that live in Vietnam, and they were unified after the Vietnam war. The school where we attended the conference had a nice little museum of artifacts from about 30 of the ethnic groups. Chinese seems to be the common denominator, although the national language is Vietnamese. I learned two Vietnamese words: Seen chow (which means hello and goodbye, and everyone says this to each other all day long) and Come ahn (which means thank you). Obviously I have written these with English pronunciation. 

After our touring days we got serious about attending the conference. It was a very busy three days (March 7, 8, 9). After the conference was over on the 9th we went out for dinner and shopping in the Old Quarter again. Then we left early Sunday morning (March 10th) to get back to school. Some photos from the last night, and of food from the trip... 

Beef pho in a Lotte Mall restaurant, and lanterns in the Old Quarter (I fell in love with all of the lanterns)

  

  

Rickshaw bicycle in the Old Quarter and our last dinner in Vietnam (really tasty lemongrass curry fish)

A view of the clouds as we flew home on Sunday. I really enjoyed the skies from the airplane on this trip. 

Vietnam is quite colorful and the food was fantastic. I loved the rhythm of Hanoi. There were motorbikes everywhere, so crossing the street was an interesting challenge. I would definitely go back, but if I were choosing a place to visit I think I would pick someplace more southern (maybe Da Nang or Saigon). Anyway, for my first international field trip, it was quite satisfactory. 

Link to the Vietnam video