So here we are on Tuesday, March 18th--our last full day in Hanoi. We had been looking down into the "Hanoi Hilton" from our apartment on the 8th floor of the Somerset Hotel next door all week:
and we finally made it into the place for a tour. A good portion of the prison had been torn down and that is where the Somerset now stands; what remains has been turned into a museum open to the public for touring. This prison was where American POW's were kept by the North Vietnamese during the war, but before that, it was built by the French and used by them to imprison Vietnamese insurgents during the lengthy French occupation of VN during the late 1800's and first half of the 1900's. Most of the museum's exhibits definitely have a "spin", focusing on the mistreatment of the Vietnamese prisoners by their evil French captors. There was only one small part of the museum that told of the Americans (including John McCain) that once were housed there; and if you didn't know any better, you'd swear they were there having a great time--all the pictures showed the American POW's laughing, playing games and ball. Whee! A fine time was had by all!
Here's the entrance--notice the name above the door is in French:
Pictures from inside the prison--here are some original doors:
Inside the prison walls:
This depicts the way Vietnamese prisoners were treated by the French. Female prisoners (some with babies or small children!) were kept in separate blocks of the prison:
Thomas in one of the cells:
Help me.
Squatty potties (use your imagination):
What goes in up there, must come out down here---poop chutes? hee hee:
This guillotine was the actuctal one used by the French to remove the heads of Vietnamese trouble-makers:
View from the side:
In the "American" section, this is supposedly the flight suit John McCain was wearing when he was captured:
The sign says this is a bed used by an American pilot (POW):
The sign says this is a bed used by an American pilot (POW):
After we finished with the prison tour, I dragged the family on a quest to find some good Vietnamese coffee and tea to bring home, and then we went to another restaurant in the old quarter for lunch, Cafe Mocha. It had a huge menu and very reasonable prices. Lily was feeling particularly photogenic:
My dish was some sort of coconut milk and shrimp concoction. Quite tastey!
William re-arranging his sandwich:
Lots of milkshakes and smoothies on the menu, if I recall correctly:
After lunch, we walked around the lake and did a little shopping, and then over to the Water Puppet Theater to get tickets for a show later this evening. We took a taxi back to the hotel to clean up, and then returned to the theater for the show. It's hard to describe, and it was too dark to get any decent pictures of the show with our camera, though we did video tape part of it. It's a very old art form in Vietnam (and China maybe?) where the puppeteers are in a pool of water behind a screen and the puppets are performing on the surface of the water. There are Vietnamese singers and musicians playing traditional music to accompany the show. The music was awesome, and the kids enjoyed the show. This is just a picture of where we were sitting in the theater; I wish I had pictures of the show to post. Oh well.
After the show, we grabbed a taxi in front of the theater to take us to Le Cyclo for dinner. We got the worst taxi driver in Hanoi! I would have sworn we were being taken, except that we had pre-negotiated the price with him, so he had nothing to gain by wasting his time and gas driving all over the place looking for the restaurant. I had a fairly good idea of where this restaurant was located, so when we got to the other end of the lake (by Bobby Chinn's) and he turned left when I knew he should have turned right, I knew we had a problem! Unfortunately, he spoke no English, so we just kept pointing to the name and address of the restaurant on the little card we had, and he kept nodding, and then he pulled over and was asking some people on the sidewalk for directions. He finally turned around and headed in the right direction, but when we found the right street, he STILL couldn't find the place, and so he pulled over and asked somebody for directions AGAIN! I kind of felt sorry for him by this point; it was obviously his first day in Hanoi, let alone as a taxi driver! This was not some obscure restaurant in a far-flung section of Hanoi--it's a VERY popular-with-tourists restaurant in the main tourist area! There was no excuse for him not to even know where this street was. Seriously, I really think I could have driven us there more quickly! So we finally got to Le Cyclo, where most of the seats around the tables are actually from old cyclos. The food was great too, and not *too* expensive.
Anna's going to kill me for posting this horrid picture of her, but that's just the kind of mom I am:
Don said this was one of the best steaks he's ever had. Which was a pleasant surprise, because some of the "beef" we were served in Vietnam was questionable.
I had the daily "special", which was some sort of duck breast dish, served over mashed potatoes. Very good.
Anna and Lily checking out the fish tank:
Our waitress took Lily while we ate:
In front of Le Cyclo, waiting for our taxi to take us back to the hotel:
Luckily, this taxi drive knew where he was going, because I had ALOT of packing to do; we needed to be in the lobby with all our bags by 8:30 am to get our taxi to the airport. I was up VERY late getting everything packed carefully, and trying to fit all of our souvenirs and gifts. Why does the mom always have to do this stuff?
