Celebrate Heritage! Hidden Retreat The Road ... - The Expat Group

On a good day, Snow makes about US$6
(100,000 Vietnamese dong) – enough to
pay for food and her son’s schooling. “Any
day that I stay home and do not sell, we
have little money to buy food,” she said.
Hardships of Hanoi
Snow’s story is common. There are about
12,000 street vendors in Hanoi, 90% of
which are from impoverished rural areas.
The majority are women, and often the
main breadwinner. They leave young
children behind in the care of relatives,
returning to visit when they can and when
money permits. Nights in Hanoi are spent
crammed into a tiny room with 30 or 40
other women.
Hanoi’s women are no strangers to
hardship. Mothers and grandmothers
fought side by side with men during both
the revolutionary war against repressive
French colonialism and in the Vietnam War.
Snow’s heritage is endurance, perseverance,
hard work, and a determination to survive.
This heritage is recognised and honoured at
The Women’s Museum on Ly Thuong Kiet
Street. Five floors of displays pay
tribute to the role of Vietnamese
women in modern history. You’ll
see many personal artefacts
and possessions, made more
poignant by the inclusion of
photographs and biographies
of the owners. Audiovisual
presentations tell the stories of
female street vendors, while
a large section highlights the
wartime role of women. A
touching photograph shows
young women cheerfully
carrying supplies along the
Ho Chi Minh trail, with the
caption, “Shortly thereafter they
died heroically.” A ponytail in a glass case
belonged to a young woman – she cut it off
as a memento before losing all her hair to
dioxin poisoning.
Scars of War
On Ma May Street, a surly old woman insists
I buy some strawberries from a basket on
the back of her bicycle. She becomes irate
when I start haggling, and I try to imagine
this tiny woman shooting down American
planes with a shoulder-mounted surface-toair
missile launcher.
A visit to the infamous Hoa Lo Prison (or
“Hanoi Hilton”) gives further insight into
the suffering of the Vietnamese during their
decades-long struggle to throw off French
domination. Women, some as young as 14,
were incarcerated along with the men, often
cruelly wrenched from their small children
and placed into desperate conditions within
its damp, dark walls. Many did not survive.
The death row and solitary confinement
cells are testament to the brutality and
inhumanity of the French oppressors.
Vestiges of French colonialism are evident
in the handful of buildings that are
distinctly French in style. They lend an
old-world charm to Hanoi’s streetscapes
and street vendors ply their trade against
the backdrop of their faded façades. The
Grand Opera House, State Bank of Vietnam,
Presidential Palace, Saint Joseph’s Cathedral,
and the Hotel Metropole are the finer
examples. I wonder if the Vietnamese view
these buildings with the same pleasure as
the tourists?
In Their Shoes
How easy our lives must appear as we
casually sip Da Lat wine in cafés along
Hang Dao Street. It’s not hard to understand
why some street vendors aggressively
try to extract cash from tourists. If we
stood in their shoes, would we maintain
a permanent smile and polite demeanour
despite our fatigue, our financial worries,
and our homesickness?
With the Hanoi sky darkening and the
temperature dropping, we head back to
the warmth of our hotel. Snow is there,
still smiling, with her scarf wrapped tightly
against the increasingly chilly air. It can get
cold on Hanoi’s streets – but never too cold
for Snow.
TRAVEL TIPS
Flights
There are no direct flights from
Penang to Hanoi, but flights to KL
are plentiful, from where Air Asia,
Malaysia Airlines and Vietnam Airlines
operate daily flights to Hanoi. Other
regional airlines fly to Vietnam from
KL daily but with a stopover.
Visa
Most visitors need a visa to enter
Vietnam. Citizens of Thailand,
Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and
Laos holding valid ordinary passports
are exempt from visa requirements
and are allowed to stay for up to
30 days, while Philippines passport
holders are allowed to stay up to
21 days.
For those who require tourist visas,
these are issued at Vietnamese
diplomatic offices and consulates, and
are valid for 30 days. Tourists need
to ensure that their passports have at
least six months’ validity.
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