Rough Guide to Vietnam - Jan Dodd [248]
Ly Thai To and his successors set about creating a city fit for “ten thousand generations of kings”, choosing auspicious locations for their temples and palaces according to the laws of geomancy. They built protective dykes, established a town of artisans and merchants alongside the Imperial City’s eastern wall, and set up the nation’s first university, in the process laying the foundations of modern Hanoi. From 1407, the country was again under Chinese occupation, but this time only briefly before the great hero Le Loi retook the capital in 1428. The Le Dynasty kings drained lakes and marshes to accommodate their new palaces as well as a growing civilian population, and towards the end of the fifteenth century Thang Long was enjoying a golden era under the great reformer, King Le Thanh Thong. Shortly after his death in 1497, however, the country dissolved into anarchy, while the city slowly declined until finally Emperor Gia Long moved the royal court to Hué in 1802.
By the 1830s Thang Long had been relegated to a provincial capital, known merely as Ha Noi, or “City within the River’s Bend”, and in 1882 its reduced defences offered little resistance to attacking French forces, led by Captain Rivière. Initially capital of the French Protectorate of Tonkin, a name derived from Dong Kinh, meaning “Eastern Capital”, after 1887 Hanoi became the centre of government for the entire Union of Indochina. Royal palaces and ancient monuments made way for grand residences, administrative offices, tree-lined boulevards and all the trappings of a colonial city, more European than Asian. However, the Vietnamese community lived a largely separate, often impoverished existence, creating a seedbed of insurrection.
During the 1945 August Revolution, thousands of local nationalist sympathizers spilled onto the streets of Hanoi and later took part in its defence against returning French troops, though they had to wait until 1954 for their city finally to become the capital of an independent Vietnam. Hanoi sustained more serious damage during the air raids of the American War, particularly the infamous Christmas Bombing campaign of 1972 (see "The Christmas Bombing"). The subsequent political isolation together with lack of resources preserved what was essentially the city of the 1950s, somewhat faded, a bit battered and very overcrowded. These characteristics are still in evidence today, even as Hanoi is reinventing itself as a dynamic international capital. New market freedoms combined with an influx of tourists since the early 1990s have led to a huge growth in privately run hotels and restaurants, several of international standard, and in boutiques, craft shops and tour agencies.As ancient – and antiquated – buildings give way to glittering high-rises, and as traffic congestion increases, the big question is how much of this historic and charming city will survive the onslaught of modernization.
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Hanoi and around | Some history |
The Christmas Bombing
In December 1972 President Nixon ordered intensive bombing raids on Hanoi and Haiphong, targeting transport arteries, power stations, factories and military installations, in the hope of influencing the Paris peace negotiations. This controversial “Christmas Bombing” inflicted considerable damage on residential districts, causing an estimated 1300 deaths in Hanoi. The area southwest of the train station was the worst hit. More than two hundred people died in and around Kham Thien Street on December 26, but the most infamous strike was that on Bach Mai hospital in which, miraculously, only eighteen people were killed though seven bombs fell on the cardiology unit alone. Vietnamese forces did manage to wreak some revenge, destroying between fifteen and twenty B-52s. At the time the North Vietnamese feared Hanoi would be wiped off the map and even laid out plans for a new capital; in the event, central Hanoi survived relatively unscathed.
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Hanoi and around |
Arrival and information
Hanoi’s smart international Noi Bai Airport