Draught'd

If I hadn't paid the tab, I wouldn't have believed it. Six draft beers. One dollar. Welcome to Vietnam.

Yesterday we landed in Hanoi, the capital city and old French colonial administrative center. The city is known for a few things that can be seen--architecture, Ho Chi Minh's burial grounds, the old "Hanoi Hilton" prison--but last night we zeroed in on that which can be tasted. Hanoi has a famously prodigious and cheap draft beer culture. So last night we went to its epicenter, an intersection of four identical "bars". In reality they're just shop fronts where locals and tourists alike take a seat in child-sized plastic chairs and get served from a curbside keg. The beer is cold and light. And it's 15 cents per glass.

After a less-than-restful sleep (we're staying at a rather rowdy hostel), Jillian and I took on Hanoi in the daylight. It's an extremely walkable city, so long as your head is on a swivel. Mopeds swarm the streets here like mosquitoes and traffic laws must be gathering dust in a basement somewhere. Our first stop just had to be Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum. The revered leader ("Uncle Ho") of this still-socialist nation died in 1969 and, despite his wishes to be cremated, today lies out in the open in spooky silence inside a giant concrete structure. It was creepy how well-preserved the body is; Jillian remarked it reminded her of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean. She feared he might sit up and start singing at any moment.

At Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum

Former governor's residence for French colony of Indochina

Near Ho's final resting place is the Temple of Literature, an ancient (1076) Confucianist center of learning and just a bit past that is the Hoa Lo prison, typically known in the American lexicon as the "Hanoi Hilton." It was built by the French colonialists in the late nineteenth century as a prison to hold Vietnamese insurgents from the budding revolutionary movement. In typical colonial fashion, punishments at the prison were arbitrary and cruel and, as a result, today the prison stands as a monument to Vietnamese perseverance in the face of French control.

There is little there about the American pilots (such as John McCain) who were held after being shot down during the war, but the few exhibits dedicated to this phase of the prison's history are rife with lies and hypocrisy. The basic story authorities here are pushing: look how cruel the French were to us and look how well we treated the Americans. It's been well-documented how Vietnamese captors routinely violated the Geneva Convention by torturing American prisoners, denying them food, and forcing them to live in unsanitary conditions. Okay, fine, they want to whitewash history a bit, but it unfortunately cheapens the hardships endured by Vietnamese prisoners during the colonial era. When it comes to Hoa Lo prison, Vietnamese authorities can't have it both ways.

Also this: in Vietnam, Facebook is blocked by the government. Internet providers are required to keep users from entering. There are some ways around this, but they are quite a hassle. This highlights the needle Vietnam and China (which also blocks Facebook) are trying to thread in simultaneously pushing a free-market economy and limiting personal freedoms [see also: China vs. Google].

Whew. Who needs a beer? I know a spot where the draft beer is quite cheap...

As always, check out more pictures by clicking on "Our Photos" on the right sidebar.

About to enter the Temple of Literature

Entrance to the Hoa Lo prison