History and culture in Hanoi

We got the chance to educate ourselves a little about Vietnam during our time in Hanoi. On our wanderings through the city, we made our way to the Imperial Citadel - the old administrative centre of the city - which is quite close to the site of the current People's Assembly. It required skirting the Ministry of  Defence complex, and along the way we discovered that you can't walk along the street out the front of the 3 metre, barbed wire-topped wall, being unceremoniously ordered to cross the (busy, 4 lane) road by two guards at the entrance. There is little left of the original complex, as after the French took over, they repurposed the area as a barracks and administrative centre of their own. However, there is a bunch of restoration works in progress, and the display of a huge number of artefacts uncovered during archeological excavations, including pottery and decorative pieces that were 1000 years old and more. Only two of the old city gates remain, one of which still has damage from French cannonballs - left there to intimidate the population once the French took over.

Across the road is the ancient Forbidden City, which is a huge archeological dig, and the source of many of the treasures on display at the Citadel complex. It was fascinating to walk through, with nice interpretation of the finds and some attempts to show the size and complexity of the architecture that existed. It put James in mind of his visit, some years ago, to the Terracotta Warrior site in Xi'an, China, although it is not really quite on the same scale - and there aren't rows of fired clay soldiers to be found there. But the chance to walk through a "live" archeological dig feels pretty special, especially when it is has such significance for the people of Vietnam.

The Ethnology Museum was high on Gillian's list of places to visit, and required some research on how to navigate the bus system in Hanoi. We were the only foreigners on the bus we caught, and the conductor was not best pleased when we only had big banknotes to pay for the very cheap fare. That ended up in a free ride, which made us feel bad... The museum itself was fascinating, highlighting the diverse cultural and ethnic groups across the country, with detailed descriptions of origins, culture and the areas in which they are found. The government recognises 54 separate groups and (naturally, given the location) they come from a wide array of origins. There were a bunch of displays showing craftwork, tools and clothing, as well as several buildings built in the different styles of various ethnic groups. The differences were all fascinating. It was particularly interesting (and funny, in a juvenile sort of way) to see a traditional burial site surrounded by fertility symbology and carvings. Plus there was a pretty nice restaurant there for a late lunch once we were done...

During our stay in Hanoi, we also got to experience various different public music performances, especially through the Old Quarter as we wandered around in the evenings. These ranges from traditional opera (James was not impressed), to traditional music, to more modern music performed on a mix of traditional and other (think electric guitar) instruments. We even struck a public parade of police marching bands from countries around the region. It was interesting to note the sign announcing the "Campuchea" band - a name we hadn't heard for many years, but perhaps less uncommon in Vietnam than you would expect. 

And finally, we were able to see yet another difference in the practice of religion. Religion appears less prominent in everyday life in Vietnam, with (we guess) Buddhist temples tending to be smaller and more hidden to casual observation. The main sign of them on the street is the presence of shops selling ornaments and prayer sheets, often accompanied by a small (hot) fire, burning the prayers on the street (a common element of Buddhist practice). There are some exceptions - two we visited were the Confucian temple we visited in the lake on the edge of the Old Quarter (which was, until recently,  home to a unique species of turtle), and the Temple of Literature (also Confucian), which preserves the names (and grades!) of all the scholars passing the public service exams from 1076 to 1779. 

Our introduction to Hanoi

First of all, apologies for the slow post here. We've been a bit distracted. A teaser below, but more on that later...

Arrival into Hanoi was in the evening, and we had prearranged a car to take us into our hotel in the city. This turned out to be an adventure all on its own. We had our hotel booked in the old quarter, which has very narrow roads and is quite busy late into the night. It turns out, we were in "beer street", which is pretty much totally insane. The driver wasn't super impressed, the roads were clogged with people and restaurant tables and chairs and the whole thing was like a claustrophobia nightmare playing out in real life. We were dropped off with one big scratch left on the car from a table, and checked in after a few issues with finding the booking. The picture below was the typical night scene outside our hotel, we still don't know how we made it there in a car. It was an interesting introduction to Vietnam!

We ventured out early the next morning to find a totally different scene awaiting us. The old town during the day is less crazy and the opportunity to walk the back streets and watching everyday life unfolding is just fascinating. Watching newly arrived tourist trying to navigate the waves of people, traffic and heat also added to the fascination. It is hard not to wonder what the locals think of all the tourists, we suspect they also enjoy the people watching over their morning coffees. 

Hanoi is an interesting place, and the first really noticeable feature (at least in the centre part of the city) is the traffic. Crazy traffic is nothing new in Asian cities, with a whole bunch of motor scooters flying everywhere, of course. However, in the narrow streets of the old town a new element is added, especially when mixed with a variety of other traffic, including cars, buses, small tourist buses and jeeps, as well as bicycles and rickshaws ("cyclos"). There are vehicles moving in every direction, no quarter is given (and very little space) and crossing the road turns into an exercise in raw courage. We got the hang of it, more or less, and had at least a couple of breaks in coffee shops overlooking the road just to watch the traffic. The worst accident we saw was the scrape down the side of our car when we came in from the airport, and this is clearly due to a sophisticated sonar-based traffic flow management scheme. Everyone is constantly hitting the horn on their vehicle, not so much in anger as for position locating, and they then proceed to dive and duck around each other with unrealistic efficiency. Traffic signals mostly are just vague guidelines, and there are few lane markings (again, only guidelines). Somehow it all just works, although even after 3 days it still induced a lot of head shaking.

We spent most of our time moving around on foot, trying to get an "on the ground" feel for the place. The city is a fascinating place, with a clear European (French) influence with the buildings. There are many grand buildings, including the Presidential residence and the Opera House, but that influence is still clear on the ordinary residential buildings as well - although the do seem to be very narrow, which was perhaps just a function of the part of the city that we were staying in. Further out from the Old and French quarters, the city has a more modern feel, although the traffic remains mostly the same (just slightly less crowded!). 

And of course, Gillian insisted on getting a picture outside the National Assembly building. Unfortunately plans for a tour were derailed due to the impending celebration of the 80th anniversary of the "Successful August Revolution". Which had the Assembly building (and Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum) closed during our stay.

Naturally, having arrived in a new country, we took full advantage of the new food (and drinks) on offer. Coffee in Vietnam is a different thing from anywhere else we have been. Even a straight black coffee has a distinctive taste, which is partly due to the fact that they use predominantly robusta beans, and then roast them with ingredients like sugar and butter. It gives a chocolatey/caramel flavour which is quite distinctive - and that James approves of. They also have new variations on the coffee preparation, including salt coffee (topped with whipped salted cream) and egg coffee (topped with beaten eggs, sugar and condensed milk). Both of these would be easy to dismiss, but they're actually really tasty, and the egg coffee could almost be treated as breakfast in a glass. 

We couldn't resist doing a guided food tour, which was a very worthwhile experience. Our guide, "Rik", introduced us to a variety of street food around the Old Quarter, from long established businesses, often run by multiple generations of the same family who live and work together. It was great to explore some places we never would have thought to visit, and see some of the traditional food on offer. as well as chat about daily life in Vietnam. The rest of our meals were a mix of street food and restaurants, with two meals a day being the default - if you're not counting the afternoon ice cream/iced tea combos. Of course, we tried the staples of banh mi and pho, but also a huge variety of other new and excellent food, trying to stick with traditional Vietnamese tastes as much as possible. 

Taiwan impressions

There were a whole host of fascinating little things that we have experienced throughout our time in Taiwan. Number one has to be the pedestrian traffic lights, which are unique in our experience. The little green man has a hat and is animated (walking) when you can cross. The last 10 seconds of the allowed time see him speeding up to a jog. It's very amusing, although with some of the very wide streets, careful judgement is called for when you see him on the move. 

Rubbish collection is a complex issue, especially in the little laneways throughout the cities (and towns). It turns out that they have rubbish trucks that play tunes, like ice cream vans in Australia. And yes, including Greensleeves. This is the signal to bring out your rubbish to the truck, and it is still hard to get used to - especially if you're at street level when the Pavlovian reaction to the music is not matched by the wafting smell accompanying the truck. 

An amusing part of the stay came from our tendency to be prepared to walk in to any place we deem "interesting". Google translate is a wonder, but it was fun to watch the panic play out across people's faces as we walked into some of the less touristy venues. This was universally followed by someone running off to drag the best English speaker in the store/restaurant away from whatever they were doing to come and serve us. For all that, everyone was extremely accommodating of our almost complete lack of any Chinese language skills, and we always managed to make ourselves understood - and even have a few google-mediated conversations along the way. 

Taiwan is a place of street markets and night markets, with a staggering variety of foods available. At every single night markets we went to (and there were a lot!), we found new dishes that we hadn't seen before. We tasted a glorious number of new dishes, with highlights including stuffed chicken wings, scallion pancakes (with various fillings), and the traditional Thao food we found at Sun Moon Lake. 

Each of the cities we visited were quite different from each other - Taipei has a combination of history and busyness you'd expect from the capital, Tainan felt more historical (befitting the old capital, Taichung was not really touristy at all, and Kaohsiung felt the most modern of all. For all that, it was when we moved out of the cities into the less inhabited areas that provided the most amazing experiences. Getting up into the hills was just glorious with lush greenery and less crowds. The chance to walk along wooded paths and stone steps to have another new view open up in front of us, kept reminding us why we love traveling and exploring so much. 

All-in-all Taiwan proved to be a really interesting and fun experience, and we would be happy to recommend a visit to anyone.   

Tainan and Kaohsiung

Tainan is the old capital of Taiwan, and was a last minute addition to our itinerary as we decided that it was a better prospect than returning to Taichung after leaving the mountains. Of course, the weather was much better on our last day in Sun Moon Lake, and we were able to take a walk around the lakeshore and take a cable car ride that turned out to be a lot longer than expected - this resulted in us missing the intended bus by 10 minutes and then being delayed by another hour... We also resolved that we would stop drinking, at least for a few days - not that we had been having a lot, but we wanted to avoid the habit of "one or two" every night. 

The end result was that by the time we got to Tainan and settled in to the hotel, it was about time to go in search of dinner. We had been told that Tainan had the "most authentic" Taiwanese street food and went to the biggest night market - Dadong markets - in search of some. This turned out to be a major disappointment, probably due to the fact we were there on a Monday night. There were very few stalls, with nothing much that appealed to us, so we decided to walk the 2km back to the hotel and look for somewhere to eat along the way. James' need to move in the shortest possible straight line took us into some dark, deserted back streets, causing Gillian a few anxious moments. In the dingiest looking part of the walk, she spotted a sign for a bar, that on closer inspection turned out to be quite a fancy cocktail bar. New resolutions were tossed aside, as the finding of a back-alley hipster bar in the middle of the old capital of Taiwan just couldn't be ignored. There was a fun array of unique cocktails on offer, Gillian had one called a "doner kebab" (it tasted like meat, and was better than you'd think), and James had one with fermented bee pollen. There were a couple more as well, but at least they also had some food to offset the drinks, and make up for the earlier failure. It was the sort of find that we hope for as we randomly wander the streets of any new place. If you ever find yourself in Tainan, look up Bar Alter - it was really great.

The next day we did some wandering through the city, visiting a Confucian temple, which proved to be extremely interesting. There is a strong academic theme to the worship of Confucius, which James could appreciate. There was a lot of information in English explaining everything, that was very enlightening, with some interactive displays that kept us amused. We moved on to visit the Hayashi department store, a cute building on Gillian's wish list, which still shows signs of damage from American air raids in WWII. We wandered through some more market areas, to Shennong street - the oldest street in Tainan, although most of the stores/stalls were closed for the day. We did find some relief from the heat in a tucked away tea store, and walked from there to some of the major temples in Tainan, including the Sacrificial Rites Martial Temple - which is a large complex and pretty famous throughout Taiwan (and well attended).

Kaohsiung was our final destination in Taiwan, and included treating ourselves to a moderately fancy hotel. The city is different again to the others we visited, feeling a lot more modern. This is probably due to a lot of recent development as a result of the expansion of the port activities, which were really kicked off during the Japanese occupation, meaning it is a relatively young city, overall (thanks Kaohsiung History Museum!). There were again a lot of interesting options for food, and we went through the gamut, with a western style coffee shop (with remarkable latte art!), night markets (the best of the trip for food), a street corner restaurant lunch which provided remarkable taste and value, and having a final dinner of dumplings in the hotel restaurant - which were really excellent. 

Along the way we explored the port area, had fun wandering the city and also went to the lotus lake and Old Fongshan City area, learning a reasonable amount about the history of the city as a Dutch outpost, then development of irrigation and the port area during the Japanese era, becoming the most significant port in Taiwan in the modern day. After scratching the surface, we found it's an interesting place to visit in its own right, with a fair bit of its own history and charm.

Taichung and Sun Moon Lake - Wet, wet, wet

Well, it had to happen, with wet weather setting in as we moved from Taipei to Taichung. After dropping our bags at the hotel, we took off to see what Taichung had to offer, with an eye on the sky as there were periodic torrential downpours throughout the day. First stop was the Miyahara ice cream/dessert shop, which provided us with a nourishing lunch. 

After that we were off exploring, which involved wandering through some markets, and along the Taichung river walk, stopping along the way at the cartoon character alley. We were lucky that the rain stayed away until we were under cover, at which point a huge dump of rain saw us scurrying into a tiny little backstreet market, complete with its own Buddhist temple(shrine?). It was fascinating to see, and has been a feature of the various markets we have visited so far. 

An afternoon of wandering in sticky heat found us heading back to the hotel, with the impression that there was not really a lot for tourists to see in the city. We decided to find a local place for dinner, which well and truly made up for our disappointment to that point. We have been trying not to make this all about food, but the restaurant we tried ticked all the boxes for our ambitions in taking this sort of trip. We walked in with no one there that spoke English, armed with google translate. On the way to our table, we saw a fantastic looking fish dish on one of the occupied tables, and with educated guesswork we were able to order it ("pepper fish" was the google translation). It was fantastic and fitted our aspirations to the rewards that can come from diving in to an unknown situation. 

 

After Taichung, it was on to Sun Moon Lake, a popular tourist destination up in the mountains - with locals as well as international visitors. We got off the bus at the tourist centre which was the last stop, and after arming oursleves with the information we needed for our visit decided the virtuous thing would be to walk the 3km along the lakeside path to catch the local bus to our accommodation. By the time we got there, the rain had set in properly and we were pretty wet on arrival at our bed and breakfast. After settling ourselves in, we went for a wander around the (what else) street food market of the local village, Ita Thao. Happily, it provided us with a whole new range of treats we hadn't yet tried, including steamed rice and millet wrapped in chicken skin and deep fried. Awesome!

Waking up the next day, it was clear that our plans for a cycle around the lake would have to be revised, with torrential rain in the morning. A total reliance on public transport and shank's pony meant that James was particularly reluctant to get outside, but by midday the rain had slowed down to a drizzle and we headed out for an explore. It became clear that the weather had given us only a temporary reprieve, but once in motion we decided to get on the ferry and head across the lake to one of the other towns. Umbrellas from the B&B were invaluable. With a touch of irony, we stopped at a local cafe with a view to escape the rain and have some lunch - it turned out to be ordinary, at best. A disappointing plate of fried treats that looked like a kids meal at a country pub in Australia. Undeterred, we went for a wet wander, exploring the local area before heading back to the ferry to visit one of the local temples on the other side of the lake. By this stage, the weather had come back with a vengeance and all views were severely curtailed, although we had hints from the previous day of what it could look like. We decided against the 1km walk up to the top of the peninsula to see the big pagoda (allegedly, we couldn't see it through the clouds!), and ended up back on the ferry towards our own home for the night. 

By the evening, the rain had finally stopped and we headed to a little restaurant that we had spotted the previous day, which had an indigenous menu - from the local Thau people. Talk about fantastic! It was a properly fancy meal (complete with dry ice decoration), and featured wild boar and a local fish soup. Once finished, we were tempted to order the whole thing over again. It certainly helped make up for the rain-shortened tourism for the day. Back at the B&B, a couple of drinks from the local convenience store finished off the day.

       

Taipei history and culture

We have visited a range of the cultural institutions in Taipei, which have provided their own interesting perspective on Taiwan and its place in the world. The first was the Chiang Kai-shek memorial, a truly impressive complex with massive buildings in a huge park in the centre of the city. Of course, this includes a larger than life statue of the man himself, at the top of a huge building (more stairs!). The scale of it was pretty awe-inspiring, prompting attempts to take pictures to make sense of the scale. It's not clear that worked so well. 

The building has been turned into a democracy museum, which is interesting given Chiang Kai-shek's rule over China, and then Taiwan, lasted for 47 years without an election. Not to mention the relatively recent nature of Taiwan's democracy at all. Despite the revisionist tendencies, there is still a somewhat realistic overview of the rule of the Kuomintang in Taiwan, along with stories of the Japanese occupation. There is a lot of memorabilia in there, as well as an impressive array of original documents. Not to mention every award presented to CKS from countries across the world - there's a serious array of medals!

Further out of town is the National Palace Museum, featuring a collection of museum treasures from the Song dynasty palaces (the last emperors before the revolutions in China). We arrived after lunch, with only about 2 hours to have a look around, which might have been a bit of a mistake. We could easily have spent the whole day there. As it was, we focused on the exhibits that we most wanted to see, with incredible collections of artifacts dating back to the Stone Age, and moving all the way through to the start of the 1900s. The collection includes a fantastic display of pottery that goes through the ages, with magnificent Ming dynasty pieces and explanations of how the development and production was overseen by the Chinese rulers. There were collections of imperial furniture, jewelry and an array of weapons, again charting the development from the Stone Age right through to more modern times. It was an incredible place to visit.

Naturally, once we found out the Presidential Office building was just around the corner and had tours that don't require booking, that was also on the list. It was again interesting to see a Taiwanese perspective (story?) being presented about their place in the world and their role as a bastion of democracy. It's clear enough why that would be important at this point in time in particular, and probably ties in with all the directions to air raid shelters that appear throughout Taipei. The tour was interesting, charting the development of Taiwan's government and civil society. It included a section on indigenous rights - a succession of Dutch, Japanese and Chinese colonisations displaced the original inhabitants who have their own culture and languages. They make up 2% or so of the population today, and the situation has strong parallels with Australia. This is a topic for some future research... Taiwan was also the first Asian country to legalise same-sex marriage, not so long after Australia finally managed it.

In addition to these institutions, we visited a range of temples, which have quite a different feel to those we encountered in Mongolia. Our guess is that this is partly due to the practice of a different strain of Buddhism, but also due to the lack of destruction that comes with the absence of a Communist history. Many temples are located in the middle of night markets, big and small. The most impressive we saw was the Lungshan Temple, one of the most significant in the country. It has an array of beautiful buildings, decorations and statues, and is clearly much more than a tourist attraction, with a wide range of people there to worship. Trying to be respectful while attempting to keep our jaws off the floor and taking some pictures remains a constant challenge. 

Taipei and surrounds exploration

After boarding another new airline (t'way) we found ourselves in Taipei and ready to start exploring Taiwan.

We stepped off the plane and were greeted with a very warm and humid afternoon, although we decided it was more comfortable than the 38 degrees in Seoul the previous day. James managed to navigate the subway system and we arrived at our hotel, stashed our bags and headed out on our first foray into the streets of Taipei, keen to get our first taste of anything. As far as we can tell, Taipei is a collection of "old streets" and night markets. Our first stop was Dihua Street, the city's biggest and oldest "old street", with a new world of things to look at and smell. Light meals in the lead up to the afternoon meant it was a tantalising prospect. We explored a selected few shops, mainly featuring teapots and tea, lamenting all the while that we could not buy anything as our compact luggage left no room to carry anything else. The amount of dried mushrooms on this street was just amazing - how many mushroom shops can be sustained in such a small area anyway? And no we didn't stop to sample anything but a few jokes were made. 

Each old street seems to have it's own atmosphere and specialties, and they have been fun to explore, whether intentional or coming across them by accident. They have included restored historic areas, like the Bopiliao Historical Block, restored to give a sense of how things were in previous times, as well as more mundane areas with a wide range of shops, usually centred around particular themes. It's the sort of arrangement that acts like catnip for us, providing endless opportunity to play "what's around the corner?" - the answer is almost always interesting.    

Our explorations included stumbling on the river and the Dadocheng Wharf Container Market, were we stopped to enjoy the amazing view and to partake of a well deserved cold beverage. We watched the fish jumping and the instagrammers, yet again, try to get that perfect shot. As Gillian enjoys people watching and making up back stories this provided a certain amount of entertainment. Wandering off in search of our first night market to sample the local street foods, we encountered a couple of impromptu outdoor karaoke groups, but much as Gillian tried to encourage James to stop and join in the festivities he could just not be persuaded. Despite the theory of "when in Taipei"...

The night markets are lively places with a wide variety of tempting (and otherwise) street foods. Ximending night market provided pork pepper buns, stinky tofu (actually pretty tasty once you get bast the "distinctive" smell!) and radish cakes. We were well and truly sold on the concept, despite at least one burnt mouth from over enthusiasm. Shilin night markets were different again, located around a large Buddhist temple and including a massive "sideshow alley" arrangement, with a whole new range of food including our first dumplings (not our last), duck pancakes and peanut brittle ice creams. Clearly the objective was to sample as big a variety of the local cuisine as possible. Which is only reasonable give the foodie reputation of Taiwan. 

Our stay in Taipei included a day trip up into the hills via the Pingxi railway, originally built by the Japanese as a mining railway. Today it is a big tourist attraction for locals and foreigners alike. The most popular stopping point is Shifen, with its own old street (and the most awesome stuffed chicken wings!), and the widest waterfall in Taiwan - "Taiwan's Niagara" as it was described by one sign. This was something of an oversell, but it was very pretty and the walk along the river is very scenic. The area is famous for sending up sky lanterns at festivals twice a year, and tourists buys lanterns to send off when they get up there. It turns out this is not a great environmental practice, as the walk along the river is littered with spent sky lanterns, on the riverbanks, in the water and stuck up trees. Needless to say we didn't partake. 

The other striking feature of the town is the railway line going right down the street with no barriers. People are shooed off the tracks as each train approaches, and crowd the edge of the line taking photos. It's nervewracking to watch!

We also headed up to Pingxi, further along the line, which was a lot quieter. There is a short hiking loop that we had decided to try, which takes in a couple of the local mountain peaks. This turned out to be a little more than we had bargained for, with very steep steps (at least as many as in Seoul), followed by some rope assisted ascending at the end to get to the top. Climbs go along razor edged rock ridges, providing a serious intimidation factor. After climbing the first peak (Mt Xiaozi), discretion overrode valour and we headed back down the hill to catch the train home. It was interesting to see the couple of Buddha shrines on the way down to town, presumably where you give thanks for not falling off the edge of the climbs!