I have recently returned from a trip for work (and pleasure) to Vietnam and Cambodia. I have been to South East Asia before but this was my first time in these two countries.
I shall write this time about Vietnam, where I spent eight days.
I was working in the capital, Hanoi and apart from there visited only one other place, the ravishingly beautiful natural site of Halong Bay. As I did not have too much free time, it was a deliberate decision of mine to concentrate on only these two places. As I get older I prefer to dawdle and soak up impressions rather than to rush around: quality rather than quantity. My visit fell into three parts: a pure tourist visiting one of the most popular locations in the country for three days; a visiting teacher training young Vietnamese interpreters and in turn being their guest for three days; and a visiting official come to interpret at a high level international meeting for two days.
In such a short time I wouldn’t claim to have won any deep insights into the country, but would like to share with you some initial impressions.
Halong Bay is quite simply one of the great natural wonders of the world. Hundreds of Karst limestone small islands jut up out of the calm waters of the bay, covered in lush vegetation, worn away into strange shapes, providing constantly changing scenery as you cruise among them, in all their myriad colours of grey, sometimes black stained rock, the many shades of the greenery creeping over them, the turquoise sea, the never ending receeding fading green-blue silhouettes of distant islets, while In amongst small fishing boats are rowed by locals in conical hats. You couldn’t devise anything more picturesque.
As this is what everyone wants to see, the tourist industry has geared up to meet the demand so there are numerous boats, some quite luxurious, to take the punters cruising; and let’s face it, it’s the only way you’re going to get to see something. When I was there it was low season so many boats were moored up, but I could imagine it getting very busy. I opted for an up-market “junk” with twenty-eight berths, though not all full, operated by Indochina Sails and I found myself in good company and well looked after by a very pleasant and efficient crew. The whole operation ran like clockwork without seeming rushed.
On the middle day, as I had chosen the longer two nights aboard option, just three of us transfered to a smaller boat from which we were later able to do some kayaking. This was for me the highlight as we slipped away from the chugging of the engines and were able to paddle through caves into hidden lagoons, over which echoed birdsong and shrieks of monkeys. It was quite majestic. There are also plenty of caves with stalactite formations, though the smaller ones you explore with a torch in hand squeezing through narrow passages are more exciting. than the larger floodlit ones.
Quite a few fishing families live in the bay, not on the islands but in floating villages, one of which we visited as locals rowed up offering us sea-shells for sale. Our guide was keen to show us a floating school, to demonstrate that the villagers were being well treated by the government. Ho Chi Minh smiled out from over the blackboard.
With all the tourists and boats there are some parts of the bay where the water has washed floating rubbish together in an unseemly reminder that man has the capacity to mar any earthly paradise. The Vietnamese need to be careful that over-exploitation doesn’t spoil this world heritage site. One of my students in Hanoi also remarked that twenty years ago it was much quieter and the water was much cleaner. I didn’t go in the sea to swim nearly as much as I would elsewhere - there were also some mean looking small jellyfish. So instead I sat on the deck admiring and painting the scenery.
It’s a three hour white-knuckle minibus ride back to Hanoi from Halong Bay. I’m not surprised that it’s illegal for foreigners to rent a car in Vietnam: I certainly couldn’t cope. On the two lane main road, there are push-bikes and motor-bikes everywhere on both sides in both directions and slow moving lorries are overtaken in the face of oncoming traffic in a game of brinkmanship . It’s better to look out of the side window at the passing paddy fields worked by hand, with Asian cows and buffalo standing around.
And so I returned to Hanoi which I had left early in the morning three days before for the peace of Halong Bay, jet-lagged and without really having seen it on arrival. The capital of Vietnam has officially 3.4 million inhabitants but probably anything up to nearly twice that. It’s a big sprawling bustling modern Asian city.
I had chosen to treat myself to the old French colonial grandeur of the Hotel Metropole which is conveniently located near the central Hoan Kiem lake.
I checked in and then sauntered out, crossing a square pausing to watch some men playing a version of badminton where the shuttlecock is kicked, teenagers practising dance moves to a ghetto-blaster and children playing while their parents chatted on benches. I then wanted to cross over the road to the lakeside.
As a Westerner the first thing that strikes you about Hanoi is the sheer profusion of motorbikes. There are not many private cars, but most people have graduated from push bikes, so that what you have is a sea of countless small motorbikes carrying anything from one to four people and loads of all shapes and sizes. They come in a constant stream; it’s pointless waiting for a break in the traffic: you just have to take your courage in your hands and set off undaunted across the street at a steady predictable pace. Miraculously they see you and avoid you, though it’s a little unnerving at first. In fact the amazing thing in this fluid anarchy is that there appear to be no accidents and no one loses their temper. We in the West could all learn a thing or two from the Vietnamese about how to keep cool in traffic.
After this initial excitement a contemplative sit at the Ngoc Son temple on an island in the lake seemed appropriate, acquainting myself with the omnipresent fragrant “frangipanier” tree which the French brought from the West Indies and watching old men playing Chinese chequers.
Hanoi is actually quite a pleasant city once you get used to the motorbike traffic. There are lots of trees, lakes and parks, with people strolling about, though shops and eateries spilling out onto the pavements sometimes make it difficult to get by.
The old town is quite fascinating. I was initially disappointed at its tattiness and lack of interesting historic architecture, but it more than makes up for that in its liveliness. Every street has its own particular trade and once you get beyond those catering for tourists hunting for souvenirs and cheap clothes, you stumble into a genuine oriental world of thriving enterprise and craftsmanship. I particularly liked the street of lamps at night and by day the street of bamboo canes and ladders, of metal workers with fancy bird-cages aloft, of florists, of dried food shops, to mention but a few as any merchandise you can think of seems to have a dedicated street. This is also the case further out where more modern shops vie with each other selling the same wares side by side all displayed outside - fans, sinks, televisions, shop-window dummies etc.
In the evening I took in the entertaining show at the national water puppet theatre. The beautifully made wooden puppets appear to glide across the surface of a water “stage” and are in fact operated by long underwater poles moved by the puppeteers who stand behind the curtain in the water. A series of short vignettes accompanied by live traditional music illustrate everyday scenes of rural life and legends.
Then in the morning it was time for work. First though I had breakfast across the street as it wasn’t included at the hotel. This took the form of “pho”. “Pho”, or noodle soup, is the national dish and it comes mainly in beef or chicken versions. The taste is in the stock of course and you can put in extra fresh flavourings such as coriander, lemon grass and spring onion. Pho is simple, tasty and nourishing giving you plenty of liquid which you need in the heat: it makes for a great breakfast.
The other ubiquitous dish is “nem” or spring rolls, both fried and fresh with a variety of fillings and sauces to dip in. In Brussels, especially in my neighbourhood, there are a lot of Vietnamese restaurants, but as always once you’re in the country the food is not quite the same. Most of the food I had in Vietnam was simple and enjoyable, but for gourmet treats it was necessary to move up market to more fancy restaurants, which I guess is the same in most countries.
A driver then picked me up to take me to the Vietnamese Diplomatic Academy which is where the new interpreting course is run. The SCIC has in the past trained Vietnamese interpreters in Brussels, but now they have people who have been trained they are running their own course in Hanoi. Since I was going to be working in a meeting in Hanoi and I do quite a bit of teaching in European schools of interpreting, I had been asked to visit the school in Hanoi for two days.
There are eight students on the course, seven women and one man, who has since married one of the women! The students are all civil servants in their twenties who work in various ministries and government offices and are released a few half days a week to attend the course. They then have to do their regular job on top of that. I had at first been taken aback at having to work on the Saturday, but it was the only way they could fit in the extra hours while I was there.
In the end it was a hugely positive experience as they were all hard-working and enthusiastic. It was interesting for me to have to adapt my speech material to make sure it wasn’t too euro-centric and accessible to people from a significantly different cultural background. Of course, I don’t know any Vietnamese, so we mainly worked by sending one student out during the original speech by me in English, who would then come back in to listen to the Vietnamese consecutive interpretation and then put that back into English for my benefit. We could then analyse together with some amusement how far we had come from the original by the second version and what the causes of deviation were. It’s a surprisingly effective way of teaching.
For lunch we walked along to a buffet at a nearby hotel (I declined a ride postillion on the teacher’s motorbike) after which I was in serious need of a coffee.
One thing I hadn’t expected about Vietnam is that you can get a really good cup of coffee there. Vietnam is in fact the world’s second biggest coffee producer after Brazil, though most of it is robusta not arabica. It is served in dinky little aluminium filters over your cup and you wait for it to drip through. The result is a very strong espresso which has a full earthy taste and a kick like a mule.
As for Vietnamese tea, I found it too strong unless drunk iced diluted and unsweetened - when it is very refreshing. The Vietnamese also drink plenty of beer, spelled “bia”, some of which is bottled and some a light draught ale from small breweries called “bia hoi”. It’s made from rice but you wouldn’t know from the taste.
It was after several beers by the lake next to the academy after our final class on the second day, that four of my students decided what they would do with my Sunday.
First I was taken by Trang to the Temple of Literature which is not only Hanoi’s prettiest old monument but actually also a place where locals go of a Sunday. As its name suggests it was not only a temple but as it were Hanoi’s first university from the 11th century where would-be mandarins were schooled in Confucianism. So today it is a place where students go to pray for good luck in their exams and classes of schoolchildren come for end of year ceremonies. It was very busy and there were many activities going on including Chinese caligraphy on red good luck scrolls and demonstrations of traditional music. I was quite fascinated by one instrument, the single string monochord which is played with one hand plucking with a plectrum and the other operating a lever which is like the whammy-bar on a Fender electric guitar varying the tension on the string. The resulting eerie wailing is not dissimilar.
We then met up with Duc who had brought along her six year old son who was interested in many things and especially the big ceremonial bell you could stand inside.
We progressed to near the immaculately kept Ho Chi Minh mausoleum which we merely observed from afar sipping fresh sugar cane juice, and thence at my request to the One Pillar Pagoda, another popular shrine with locals.
We were joined by Vinh and Phuong, the married couple, for fast pho and a welcome cool sit inside.
In the afternoon we went to a silk village some way out of the centre where we looked at some silk-worms and looms before browsing the shops. I was the only foreigner here among Vietnamese shopping for clothes.
It was a lovely day out doing the kinds of things those who live in Hanoi might do on a weekend. It was nice to have the little boy along too; he gave the proceedings a family outing kind of feel. I felt there had been an exchange between us which gave my visit a much deeper human dimension than that of the mere tourist buying a service. By teaching them for two days I had given them something and in return they had shown me something of their city and way of life. Everywhere around us people seemed friendly, relaxed, talkative and to be enjoying the simple pleasures of life on a sunny Sunday.
That evening it was back into official work mode. First I had to transfer out of the centre to the more anonymous Intercontinetal hotel. My three colleagues and I learned at a late evening briefing the good news that we would not have to work until the next afternoon and the bad news that we would be taken early in the morning to sort out our tickets for the onward government charter flight to Phnom Penh, which we discovered we now had to pay for by ourselves. This involved being taken to the Viet Com Bank (!) to make a transfer and on to the Vietnam Airlines office in the centre. At least once that was done I was free to resume strolling around the lake and into the old town, for once during the hours of daylight when the central market was also open.
We were duly ferried in the afternoon to the National Convention Centre along streets lined with police, for once disciplining the unruly motorbikes, so that official motorcades could pass unimpeded. The NCC is a vast recent modern building which due to its size had to be built miles from anywhere. Its scale can only be described as pharaonic, though it is not unattractive. The government here is seeking in classic state socialist mode to impress the visiting foreigner. It certainly is impressive, but also quite impersonal. There was no chance here of getting a good Vietnamese bar coffee. The air-conditioning in the well appointed but windowless office we had been given was positively icy.
This was the stuff of big international meetings: men in suits delivered to enormous out of town AC conference centres in AC limousines from AC 5 star hotels; barely coming into contact with the local weather, let alone the local people. It's all very polite and efficient but as I say quite impersonal.
There was one nice moment when one of the students, Anh, who works for the Foreign Ministry sought me out and we had our picture taken in our smart clothes in the main meeting room standing in front of the 46 flags and the grand inscription "ASEM 9th Foreign Ministers Meeting".
The Asia Europe Meeting brings together the EU countries and all the major Asian countries.
The meeting itself was quite fun as these things go, what with North Korea having tested a nuclear weapon that very morning and Burma having put on trial Aung San Suu Kyi to the general embarrassment of its neighbours.
When it was all over at the press conference on the second day, I was struck by the total absence of any prying questions from the media – a far cry from what we're used to in Europe.
For all its economic vibrancy and contented population, Vietnam remains a single party state. I guess in many ways it is not unlike its huge neighbour China in granting much economic but little political freedom to its people.
The country is clearly dynamic and going places. The Vietnamese seem busy and purposeful, but not aggressive. Things work and run on time, there are no apparent shortages of anything. There are already 84 million Vietnamese and the population is young and growing fast. Vietnam is definitely a member of the South East Asian tigers club and on the way up.
People ask if I noticed any sign of the war. The answer is no: that's all a long time ago, most people were born well after it. You get the impression that it's a peaceful, hard-working country where people are quietly proud of their recent history: they threw out two colonial powers, France and the USA, beating their superior forces by their patience, ingenuity and resorcefulness. The Vietnamese have a certain can-do, stand-alone dignity, glad to help if asked, but not there to beg.
So from this brief visit to the capital and one of their places of great natural beauty, I am left keen to return to Vietnam.
Above all, I am glad to have met and spent time with my young Vietnamese colleagues.
