Steamy, hectic Hanoi is the capital
of Vietnam. Home to over six
million people, the city is pulsing,
prosperous and full of surprises
! Street vendors walk through
the old quarter carrying baskets
balanced on poles, motorbike
engines roar and serene locals
practise t’ai chi on the shores of
Lake Hoàn Kiếm.
Turtles, Swords
and Emperors
The bright green lake, Hoàn Kiêm, sits
in the very centre of Hanoi. It’s a place
of peace in the heart of a hectic city.
According to legend, it was here that
Lê Loi, the Emperor who defeated the
Chinese, returned his sword to the Golden
Turtle God, Kim Qui. Until January 2016,
a rare soft-shelled turtle called Cų Rùa
(Great Grandfather Turtle) could be seen
swimming slowly across Hoàn Kiêm. He
has sadly passed away, and it’s thought
that he was the only one of his kind.
Make a Hog
of Yourself
in Hanoi
Hanoians eat lots of rice,
vegetables and noodles, so
their food is super-fresh and
super-healthy. Bánh bao
are
sweet, steamed buns with
chicken, quail eggs and many
other fillings, while bún cha
is
grilled pork with soup, noodles,
green papaya and herbs! Nuoc
mam
goes into almost every
dish – a sauce made from
small fish that have been
salted and fermented. It tastes
much better than it sounds!
Soaring Dragon City
People have lived on the banks of the Red River for over
5,000 years. There have been so many kingdoms, cultures,
invaders, religions and colonizers come and go during this
time, it’s almost impossible to keep up! Vietnam’s capital was
officially founded in 1010 AD by the Emperor Lý Thái Tô. He
named the city Thăng Long
, or ‘Soaring Dragon’.
WALKING on Water?
It’s hard to believe your eyes at Hanoi’s Thăng Long
puppet theatre – the brightly-coloured wooden
puppets seem to dance, skip and run across the
surface of a pond! The lacquered puppets, which
can weigh up to 15kg (33lb), actually sit on big rods
of bamboo. Skilful puppeteers pull their strings,
staying hidden behind a painted screen. Water
puppetry has been going on in Vietnam for nearly a
thousand years – originally, the performances were
held in flooded rice fields.
Motorbikes and Mayhem
Hundreds of thousands of cars, buses, trucks, pushbikes, horse-drawn
carts and cyclos
(bike taxis) choke Hanoi’s streets, 24 hours a day. The
most popular form of transport is the motorbike – the city has around four
million. Swarms of bikes growl at every intersection, revving, teetering,
blowing smoke and waiting to get going again. It’s not unusual to see
whole families piled up on a single bike, with adults at the front and kids
hanging off on the back. The vehicles are also used to carry pigs, chickens
and ducks, eggs, baskets and even TVs!
France in the Tropics
People visiting Hanoi are often surprised by the number of French
things they come across in the city – there are bakeries selling
croissants and baguettes, cafés serving café au lait
(milky coffee)
and buildings that look like they’ve been plucked straight out of
a Parisian street. This is all because Hanoi was once the capital
of Indochina, a colony ruled by
France from 1887 to 1954.
Long Bien Bridge
One of Hanoi’s most famous sights is Long Bien Bridge, a 2.4km
(1.49mi) structure that arches across the Red River. When it
was first built, in 1902, it was one of the
longest bridges in the world. Despite
being repeatedly bombed by the
Americans in the Vietnam War, Long Bien
stayed up. Although it is a bit battered
and rusty, it still connects Hanoi to the
port of Haiphong.