Rough Guide to Vietnam - Jan Dodd [255]
Hanoi and around | The City |
Hoan Kiem District
The commercial core of Hanoi is Hoan Kiem District, home to the city’s banks, airlines and the GPO, plus most of the hotels, restaurants, shopping streets and markets. But there’s a lot more to the area, not least the lake itself and nearby temples, which date back to the earliest days of the city. Though you’ll want to spend time on these individual sights, it’s the abundant streetlife and architectural wealth that give the area its special allure.
Hanoi and around | The City | Hoan Kiem District |
Hoan Kiem Lake
Early morning sees Hoan Kiem Lake at its best, stirring to life as walkers, joggers and tai chi enthusiasts limber up in the half-light. Space is at a premium in this crowded city, and the lake’s strip of park meets multiple needs, at its busiest when lunch-hour hawkers are out in force, and easing down slowly to evenings of old men playing chess and couples seeking twilight privacy on benches half-hidden among the willows. The lake itself is small – you can walk round it in thirty minutes – and not particularly spectacular, but to Hanoians this is the soul of their city.
A squat, three-tiered pavilion known as the Tortoise Tower ornaments a tiny island in the middle of Ho Hoan Kiem, “Lake of the Restored Sword”. The names refer to a legend of the great Vietnamese hero, Le Loi, who led a successful uprising against the Chinese in the fifteenth century. Tradition has it that Le Loi netted a gleaming sword while out fishing in a sampan and when he returned as King Le Thai To, after ten years of battle, he wanted to thank the spirit of the lake. As he prepared the sacrifice there was a timely peal of thunder and the miraculous sword flew out of its scabbard, into the mouth of a golden turtle (Vietnamese use the same word for turtle and tortoise) sent by the gods to reclaim the weapon. At least one hardy giant turtle still lives in the lake, but the one you’re most likely to see is a heavily varnished specimen captured in 1968. It’s preserved and on view on a second island accessible via the striking The Huc Bridge, an arch of red-lacquered wood poetically labelled the “place where morning sunlight rests”. Beside the bridge stands a nine-metre-high obelisk, the Writing Brush Tower, on which three outsized Chinese characters proclaim “a pen to write on the blue sky”.
Crossing over to the island you find the secluded Den Ngoc Son, “Temple of the Jade Mound” (daily 8.30am–6pm; 3000đ), sheltering among ancient trees. This small temple was founded in the fourteenth century and is dedicated to an eclectic group: national hero General Tran Hung Dao, who defeated the Mongols in 1288, sits on the principal altar; Van Xuong, God of Literature; physician La To; and a martial arts practitioner, Quan Vu. The temple buildings date from the 1800s and are typical of the Nguyen Dynasty; in the antechamber, look out for the dragon heads, carved with bulbous noses and teeth bared in manic grins.
Den Ngoc Son Temple at Hoan Kiem Lake
Hanoi and around | The City | Hoan Kiem District | Hoan Kiem Lake |
Around the lake
A good way to get your bearings in Hanoi is to make a quick circuit of Hoan Kiem Lake, a pleasant walk at any time of year and stunning when the flame trees flower in June and July. In the 1960s these paths, like many others in the city, were studded with hundreds of individual air-raid shelters – concrete-lined holes big enough for one person, topped with a manhole cover. Heading south from the Writing Brush Tower, you can’t miss the stony-faced, grey marble Hanoi People’s Committee building, about halfway down the lake. Just to its south stands an equally imperious