By Steve Rudd
It was the start of a new week, yet Lady Luck had given me the slip. I didn’t ask for much; I desired little more than to be granted entrance into a clutch of Hanoi museums. Frustratingly, each museum I approached bore similar signs stating that they were shut on a Monday. Having just traipsed a few kilometres to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum (closed), I hoped that the Women’s Museum might have its front doors flung wide open. But no. That was closed, too. Undeterred, I sought Hoa Lo Prison Museum, aiming to step inside the type of horror-tainted building which would best reflect my progressively darkening mood. Dubbed the ‘Hanoi Hilton’ by American POWs during the controversial conflict that tore Vietnam apart during the sixties and early seventies, the intact interior of the building focuses on the country’s struggle for independence from France. Not that I got to witness any of the exhibitions: like the gates of the establishments I’d tried and failed to violate earlier in the day, the prison gates were shut, thereby preventing me from seeing one of the French guillotines inside the former prison which had at one time been employed to behead Vietnamese revolutionaries.
Bearing such bloodshed in mind, I resigned myself to yet another afternoon of aimless wandering, my mental image of blood provoking me to strike out for ‘Song Hong’: The Red River. Not to be confused with The Red River in North America, southeast Asia’s namesake is northern Vietnam’s principal waterway, yet its headwaters spring up in southwestern China. Interested to see how red the river really was, I eventually spied an overpass which looked as though it might soar high above the distant river. On closer inspection, it didn’t, so I kept on walking until Long Bien Bridge inspired a second wind of confidence to course through my air pollution-clogged veins. Scanning what I could of the horizon to try and locate the point at which the beastly structure made contact with ground-level traffic, I soon realised that the bridge wasn’t really geared up to accommodate sightseeing pedestrians. Traffic, as always, took the priority on the bridge. There and then, I knew that any attempt I made to reach the river on foot might be the death of me, hence why I decided to cast my curiosity aside. I would just have to catch up with the river at some other point in the not-too-distant future.
I’d heard truth-riddled rumours that the levels of traffic afflicting Saigon in the south of Vietnam were even worse than those which had to be confronted in Hanoi. If all went to plan, I would reach Saigon by Thursday, in spite of the huge distance separating the two largest cities in the country.
In the meantime, I had historic Hanoi at my feet. If only I’d known in which direction to turn. As I considered how long it might take to walk over to The Temple of Literature, a couple of kilometres west of Hoan Kiem Lake, a car mounted the pavement beside me. I didn’t recognise its driver, but he seemed to know me. ‘Where you go?’ he yelped through the partially lowered window. ‘To see a man about some books,’ I replied, stalling his speech.
Thankfully, when I started walking away, he decided that it would be pointless for him to pursue me in a bid to try and persuade me to hop inside his unmarked taxi. Striding west, I skirted the bulk of the Old Quarter’s market hall, outside of which a crack team of motorbike-straddling guys literally ignited their engines and surged forth in stunningly choreographed unison. ‘You want motorbike?’ came the call. ‘No? OK. You want marijuana?’ A swift double-headshake was in order. ‘Some opium instead?’ Striding on, I wondered where the guys outside the market got off. Having heard innumerable tales dispensed by fellow travellers about the crass extent to which they had been constantly hassled to the point of insanity, I now knew what it felt like. On the face of things, the men weren’t doing any harm by asking if I needed a ride or if I deigned to get high. Otherwise unemployed, they needed to somehow scrape a living together like everybody else. However, when you’re on the blunt receiving end of literally thousands upon thousands of good-natured offers of ’service,’ it does inevitably become tiresome.
