----- Forwarded Message ----
From: inna bakker <innabakker@gmail.com>
Sent: July , 2007 11:54:57 AM
Subject: # 5 Northern Viet Nam - capital Ha Noi .
Dear family and friends
we are in Ha Noi
for 3 days, it is a city of millions people, millions
motobikes, a lot of lakes, parks, interesting museums, old and new
French and Asian charms,
we visited Ho Chi Min's Masoleum, saw long, long lines of locals, many
soldiers around, a lot of rules and regulations, he is a
real cult here as a country unifier and a founder of a Comunist Party,
it was a bitter reminder of my past life in the Soviet Union,
in a very good Museum of Ethnography they show how comunist
economy of 1975 - 1986 with it's idea of collective rice
paddys, rationing coupons and government subsidies made
population very poor and hungry, so in 1986 they changed to
free enterprise, trying to promote investments and so
far economy is much better but it is still one party country,
very busy and commercial Old Quater is at the same place over 1000 years,
i went to a unique Women's Museum where they honor
Vietnamese Mothers who work very hard to give their children education
and children in turn study very hard to earn
respect of their parents [ notice the language ] and dedicated to
taking care of parents, i was so moved, i cryed, i thought--
at least these mothers did not do emigration and did not
have to study very hard themselves,
we had a boat ride to spectacular Ha Long Bay few hours north of Hanoi
where are a lot of mountains coming out of ocean, it reminded me area North of Oakland in New Zealand
, truly spectacular, we saw Water P uppets
performance which is typicaly Vietnamese, we went to Temple
of Literature which is a first University opened in 11 th century to
worship Confucio and to educate sons of Mandarins,
i took a photo of a Monument to McCain as a paratrooper coming down, we
had a tour of aPOW' prison which Americans called
- Hilton. in the center of the city is
a magnificent 500 seats Opera House built by French
and modeled after Paris Opera, people are very
pleasant with mild asian manners, love tourists and seems
country is doing well,
next i am taking an overnight train North West of Hanoi to Sapa--look at the map.
love to all.