by I’m in a modern art gallery by a lake. A chic gallery owner is showing me the work of a young contemporary artist: earth squares, found objects and giant paintings made of thumbtacks. The title of the exhibition is what Google Translate calls “Been-Continued”. It is all rather mystifying. Then the artist herself, Lâm Na, is seen pushing into my hand a coin she dug out of the ground. This feels significant, because I understand the work to be done about the past within the present, what is sown and what is reaped, but in reality I have little idea where I am. It could be Mayfair. Indeed it is Hanoi.
This is my first day in Vietnam, in a ritzy part of the city where many expats choose to live, near Hoan Kiem lake. There are taco places and cocktail bars. Whatever I expected, this was not. To introduce me to the charming Nguyen Anh Tuan, an artist and curator tells me that I am lucky. We shared a relationship with Leonard Cohen and now he takes me to Gia Lam’s huge train factory. It was taken over by artists from the Hanoi Creative Design Festival. The theme is “flow” – and I’m going with it.
By taking over this old industrial space, artists are connecting their heritage to the contemporary world. There is so much work to see here: Cornelia Parker-style dismantled cars on strings, large hanging ribbons of fabric, tunnels of small photographs that you need a candle to see. I am overloaded.
The truth is that if your first day in Hanoi doesn’t overwhelm you, you won’t have a blast. It is one of the most exciting cities I have ever visited, traffic jams, markets, lights, street food, colonial architecture and huge monuments. I squeeze through scooters and heavy crosswalk traffic to get around, determined not to end up like a friend of mine who was trapped in her hotel for two days before she dared to leave.
When I meet my guide, he offers to teach me how to cross the road and is surprised that I have already done it. The explanation is not bravery but jetlag. You must not hesitate and not look at the traffic, he says. Just go for it and don’t stop. My guide is wearing a sweater with “Barmy” written on it and asks me what it means as we sample the street food. Barmy means “nuts but in a nice way,” I tell him.
You may have had Vietnamese food at home but there is nothing like sitting on little plastic stools next to girls wearing fake Gucci and eating what is called the “Obama Combo” (after the meal Barack Obama ate with (the late Anthony Bourdain. here, back in 2016). Grilled pork, noodles, bundles of herbs, dipping sauce. Bun Cha and two beers.
The martial arts guys ripped it slurp down nearby; Queue the backpacks for their Banh Mi. Later, at a stunning rooftop bar, fashionable young Vietnamese couples arrive with flowers for countless selfies while the DJ remixes the Pet Shop Boys and the moon rises over the lake.
First thing in the morning, large groups exercise near the Lenin statue, and the queues for the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum begin to form. Here you may see the embalmed body of “Uncle Ho”. (He didn’t want this; he asked for cremation but instead got the full Soviet treatment.) There are communist flags and slogans everywhere.
Vietnam is a one-party state, although the official reality is that it is a “market economy with a socialist orientation”. Ordinary people pay for health care and education and driving out of Hanoi, the economic boom can be felt. Luxury developments are everywhere. I understand that the hard times referred to in the conversation are not just the “American War”, but the famine that occurred between the end of the war in 1975 and the lifting of the trade embargo in the mid-1990s.
There are definitely war tourists here practicing theirs Apocalypse Now speeches but the hostility I hear most openly expressed is from the French, rather than the Americans. One man tells me that his father’s eyes were put out by the country’s former colonial masters.
A few hours drive southwest of Hanoi, mountains rise up: vertical black jags of limestone jutting out of the earth, like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I am staying at the Pu Luong Retreat between two such mountains overlooking rice terraces. The view is amazing, although the steep inclines to get to the room are not that attractive. This is no country for an old generation. Thank God there is a pool and spa and a great restaurant.
It’s the kind of place that attracts trekkers, but my guide clearly understands that I’m heavier. We go down to the valley where houses are raised on stilts and it is impossible for village girls to take selfies with us.
I can’t help but think of Graham Greene Pacific American where Fowler describes Phuong, his master, as “so small and so broken” but in no way an ornament. These villages are ethnically White Thai, and have their own language and style of dress. They are still using a scythe in the fields.
We see papayas, starfruit, guava, cassava growing and the Muscovy ducks that I have only seen hanging in markets. At a betel nut tree I hear about the Vietnamese custom of women making their teeth completely black – mind-blowing – which was once considered beautiful.
I fly south to take a cruise along the Mekong. It’s hot and rainy, with a different vibe altogether. There are fish in the river that eat dogs, says the boatman, as we scoff at coconuts. But I only see mudskippers. At night in my resort you can sit by the river and watch the junks go up and down. I don’t stay long, because I’m going to Can Tho, to catch a small propeller plane to Con Son island.
In the airport I cheer for a child and I feel that everyone is uncomfortable. Children must be ignored, I am told later, because one does not want to make the spirit jealous and the child sick. Every day in Vietnam, I realize that the spirits are always present: ancestor worship prevails; death sits alongside life and is celebrated everywhere. The dead must be kept happy with votive money, gifts and food at the family shrines. I even see expensive pairs of trainers left as offers.
Con Son is a tiny island in the Con Dau archipelago. It is heavenly, filled with pristine beaches, jungle, black squirrels and macaques. Brad, Angelina and their troops stayed here back in 2011 at the extremely luxurious Six Senses, but I really don’t think anywhere could be nicer than the Poulo Condor resort, where I will be staying.
My room is a sage green villa with two balconies. There are outdoor showers and lotus ponds everywhere. You can take a trip down to the empty beach or have a massage. There are kayaks to paddle around. It is completely lush, with a pool above which rises the mountain Chau. The staff are lovely, WhatApping to ask if you want breakfast brought to you. These islands are surrounded by the best diving waters in Vietnam and still undeveloped.
However, this unattainable paradise has a heart of darkness. This was a prison island. In the town there is the museum, and the old prisons and cemeteries are dotted around. More than 20,000 political prisoners died here. The French built the prisons in 1863 to house those they considered dangerous. The Americans then used them until the 70s. It is here that you find the famous “tiger cages”, where they were shackled and lime poured over them.
A few hours were enough for me to visit these places. It was clear that many of the Vietnamese were visiting relatives who died there, so this is a place of pilgrimage. When I went back to the hotel, I found out that the museum had been set up by the son of a political prisoner and this was a way of saying thank you to the island.
This is modern Vietnam, with parallel life and death. Ghosts are always hungry but there is beauty and wealth to be created here right now. And always another selfie to take. It is dizzying. I learned during a cooking lesson how to tie summer rolls using steamed spring onions as tiny ribbons. I saw girls on Vespas applying make-up while moving in heavy traffic. I saw the ultra-modern city of Ho Chi Minh City and talked to octogenarians working in the paddy fields.
It all pulls you in, one way or another. You can feel the future booming, but what sinks into your heart is the amazing, unbreakable soul of the place.
Fundamentals
InsideAsia (0117 244 3380; InsideAsiaTours.com) has a 12-night Vietnam Landscapes cultural adventure that goes from Hanoi to Pu Luong, Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta and costs £2,275pp including accommodation, some meals, cross-country transport, private guidance and a range of cultural experiences, but not including international flights. Vietnam Airlines (vietnamairlines.com) operates daily services between London and Vietnam from £754 return.
