Outside, chickens scratched for grubs by the trees along the sidewalk, women street sellers wearing traditional pointed straw hats carried their wares in bamboo baskets at the end of long poles balanced effortlessly on their shoulders and a million bicycles and scooters seems to pass in a explosion of noise. Inside, the old French colonial house had been transformed into a chic interior decorator boutique that would not be out of place in New York's Greenwich village or the Left bank in Paris, excerpt that this was Hanoi and the prices were 20 to 50 times cheaper. Intricately carved stone boxes, beautifully lacquered trays of Zen-like simplicity, exquisitely painted porcelain lamps, embroidered cushions and curtains in vibrant colors. The shop is just one of hundreds in the Vietnamese capital.
Hanoi does not correspond to any preconceptions. Vietnam is supposed to be communist, dull, utilitarian, regimented -- and bombed. Communist it remains as far as the government goes, but that is where the preconceptions end. Like China, the authorities have embraced the free market, putting their anti-capitalist confiscation campaigns of just 25 years ago firmly in the garbage bin of history. The result is an explosion in tourists, in investment and a shopper's paradise. The capital is booming. It is fast becoming a major tourist destination -- so fast that two weeks ago, it was hard to find a hotel room in Hanoi, even though there are probably more four- and five-star hotels in the city than there are in Jeddah or Riyadh (and with better service and more smiles), and with new ones opening all the time. "Well, you see, people put off coming earlier in the year because of SARS. They have all come now. And now we have the games," explained the receptionist at the Daewoo Hotel where only suites were left. Fortunately bargaining is as much a part of life in Vietnam as it is in Saudi Arabia -- not that prices in Vietnam are expensive. Far cheaper than India or Thailand.
The banners were all over the city. ൞nd SEA GAMES Dec. 5-13 " -- with a smiling humanized bull in sports gear as the logo. Interesting, I thought. Obviously sailing would be one of them, but what else? Probably water polo. Possibly volleyball on the beach. But why all the publicity for what could hardly be a major event? Why so many visitors? After all, Hanoi is nowhere near the sea. And why the cartoon bull which features in the key rings, coffee mugs, baseball caps and other trinkets in Hanoi's many souvenir and handicrafts shops? A minotaur? Not inappropriate. It was about five days before I realized that "SEA GAMES" should have been "SEA Games". SEA meant South East Asia. I was not the only one not thinking straight; other tourists had been heard asking about the sea sports.
The tourists come from every corner of the globe -- Germany, Japan, the UK, India, Italy -- everywhere but the Middle East. Three groups predominate: French, Australian and American. The latter are back in Vietnam in droves -- and welcome. Outside the art gallery a fleet of tricycle taxis drives past, bearing Texan accents and clicking cameras.
For most people, Vietnam means one thing -- war. The name conjures up images of villages under fire, of woman and children fleeing napalm attacks, of GIs ambushed, of B52 bombers raining death and destruction from on high, of helicopter gunships shot at, and row upon row of whitened tombstones in US military cemeteries.
That is not the Vietnam of today. In the past ten years it has changed so dramatically that is hard to imagine for almost half a century it knew nothing else but war -- the Japanese occupation, the war with the French, the Americans and then in 1979 with the Chinese. Peace in Vietnam is only 24 years old.
Hanoi is a shopaholic's paradise. Every space is an emporium. Hallways, stairwells, staircases, balconies -- the streets themselves. And there are streets dedicated to particular crafts - tin boxes makers, straw-hat makers, fan makers, herb sellers, antiques, blacksmiths, and leather goods. Business is booming. Riyadh and Jeddah could not even begin to compete, not even the souqs. The high-octane energy of people making, buying, selling, delivering, electrifies the air. Not just Hanoi. Every town, every village, is crammed with shops. Village after village along the road to Halong Bay is packed with shops, their wares tumbling onto the streets -- vegetables, live chickens, suits, shirts, tires, rolls of copper coil, bags of colored dye, plastic chairs, cigarettes, meter-and-a-half-high porcelain vases. The three-hour drive could have taken all week if one were in a buying mood.
Halong Bay is a must. Its 3,000 old limestone islands rising dramatically out of the water make it one of the natural wonders of the world. It will be familiar to some as the location of several action movies. A two-day trip around the islands aboard a traditional junk is an unforgettable experience. The only downside was too much food to eat.
One of the first preconceptions to go is that Hanoi was bombed. The French colonial city center remains almost wholly intact. The opera house is still there, and functioning; a billboard advertised Mozart's "Magic Flute". So too the palatial administrative buildings, the churches and old pagodas, the Napoleon III-style villas and the innumerable streets of smaller houses. Only the railway station and railway bridge across the city's Song Hong River (Red River) were hit. That and four decades of communist incompetence and mismanagement were Hanoi's salvation. It survived. Today, instead of pulling down the colonial buildings to make way for modern monstrosities (there are some -- the Sofitel Plaza takes the prize despite its lakeside location), the Vietnamese are doing them up turning them into boutiques, commercial art galleries, restaurants, cafes -- and with a flair for contemporary design and decoration that no other nation in the Far East quite matches. Hanoi's French legacy is what helps make it one of the most remarkable cities in the Far East -- oriental yet European, cosmopolitan yet mysterious, immediately familiar yet strange. It is not a case of East meets West. It is where the two merge, producing a vibrant, colorful, immediately appealing new culture, one which is wholly Vietnamese.
It is not just the colonial architecture that is being rescued. Other traditions have made their way back, notably the elegant traditional women's "ao dai" costume, silk trousers underneath the long flowing silk blouse, slit up the sides. During Ho Chi Minh's time, and as recently as 1985, they were politically unacceptable. The fashion was for military uniforms. Now they are high fashion, particularly among the young. Ho Chi Minh must be turning in his mausoleum, but then not many young Vietnamese are remotely interested in the immediate past.
Another misconception about the Vietnamese is that they are regimented. Far from it. If their flair for art and design does not sufficiently demonstrate their great sense of individualism, their driving certainly does. Every driver seems to think he owns the road. They weave in and out of traffic; overtake on crests of hills, going around bends, on narrow bridges, when trucks are hurtling towards them. It is even more chaotic than in Saudi Arabia. The only 'plus' is that there are relatively few private cars in Hanoi, unlike Ho Chi Minh City (which most people still call Saigon, or when they do use the new name call it Ho Chi Minh Ville); they are too expensive. Most use bicycles, scooters and motorbikes. The other 'plus' is that there are so many bikes and scooters that speed is impossible, other than in the countryside. But that will not remain the case for long. Fifteen new highways are about to be built in expectation of a car boom.
They will come, and soon, because Vietnam is set to become a tiger economy. Investment is pouring into the country, Saudi investment as well. One of the first things you see on arriving at Hanoi airport as the plane taxis towards the terminal are the words "Zamil Steel Buildings Co. Ltd.' on a hanger on the industrial estate next to the airport. Last year foreign direct investment in Vietnam was $1bn, the lion's share from Taiwan. Some Taiwanese businessmen have even moved production from China because of cheaper labor costs in Vietnam. "We make shoes there," a Taiwanese businessmen said on the flight from Taipei to Hanoi. "We sell them to Italy. They have 'Made in Italy' on them and are sold on from there," he confided. The Vietnamese hardly care.
Everyone is busy at work -- making, buying, selling, farming, and building. There is none of the poverty or the squalor that one sees in certain areas of some Saudi cities. The local English language paper is full of adverts for jobs. Meanwhile the money continues to pour into the country. It enjoys levels of investment that Saudi Arabia dreams about.
Back in Hanoi, there are the lakes. Hanoi is a city of lakes and in the center of the Old Quarter is Hoan Kiem (Lake of the Restored Sword). There, according to legend, an emperor in the 15th century who had a magical sword which he had used to drive the Chinese out of Vietnam was one day boating on the lake. Suddenly a giant golden tortoise appeared, grabbed the sword and then disappeared.
The day before leaving, I visited the island pagoda near the edge of the northern end of the lake with a guide. In one of the buildings attached was an exhibition about the tortoises. There was a two-meter long dead tortoise in a display cabinet and around the walls recent photos of equally enormous ones in the lake, their heads up out of the water looking just like the ET movie character, their shells just raised above the surface. I was not convinced. The beast in the display cabinet was probably a fake; the photos a hoax as well. This was Vietnam's answer to the Loch Ness Monster. How could there be such fabulous creatures in these less than pristine waters surrounded on all sides by roads and buildings?
Leaving the pagoda we walked back around to the north side of the lake Suddenly I noticed a crowd of people gathering at the water's edge, pointing to something in the water. Astonished, I saw an ET head raised up on its long neck. After a few seconds, it disappeared amid ripples of water. Then a minute later, it reappeared closer to the shore, this time its shell visible. Then it disappeared. Like everyone else, I waited and watched for about ten more minutes. The show was over. But it had been fascinating.
Sitting a little later in one of the old-fashioned caf?s near the cathedral in Hanoi's Old Quarter, I reflected that Hanoi was fascinating. At that moment it would have been quite easy to imagine such 1930s French writers as Andr? Malraux or Antoine de St Exup?ry, or such English novelists as Graham Greene wandering in. The city has managed to retain its grace and character despite all it has been through. Greene considered Hanoi the most civilized city in the Far East. It is well on it way recapturing the title.
