Hanoi, Vietnam 3-14-10

An eleven hour plus tour to Hanoi from Halong Bay was emotional, educational and exhausting. We all needed to get worn slap out in order to get our body clocks set. We are all finally operating like human beings again instead of zombies.
Hanoi has five million people living there. There were about 3 million in the traffic we were in trying to get there. It was a slow bus ride that went through miles and miles of rice fields. People out in those fields working bent over in water up to their knees at times hand picking every grain of rice. The land is not theirs. The governement requires that the people pay a "tax" to farm the land. Then they can grow enough rice to feed their familes and have some left to sell for a profit, they hope. Families. They have a law in Vietnam that limits married couples to having 2 children. If they have more than 2 children, they are "fined". The "fine" may be that if they work in a factory, they will never get a raise or promotion from where they are currently positioned. This was according to our guide.
Factories. Facories were dotted along the way to Hanoi. Coal is mined and burned in Vietnam much like in China. This causes a pollution problem that you will most likely see in the photos we took. There seems to be a layer of dust on most everything that sits still for a while. When we had our bathroom breaks on the bus ride, the bus driver would take the bus to be washed because the windows had gotten so dirty! During our eleven hour tour our bus was washed 3 times!
The reason many people, probably most people visit Hanoi is to see the famous Hanoi Hilton. The horrific prision where many Americans were imprisoned during the Vietnam War, which they call The American War still today. Due to our rigid schedule to visit the oldest University in Vietnam, a pagoda or two, see where Ho Chi Minh is in a mauseleum, see his house, cars, etc..., have lunch and ride back for 3 hours, we only had about 25 minutes to tour the prison. The prison now has been closed off to one very small section of what was HUGE!! The prison building was built by the French when they were running things in Vietnam. The French were in control here for almost 100 years, hence, the romance language letting instead of the Chinese letting in their road signs etc...thank goodness for the French! The prison was built to house political prisoners way before Americans ever were involved in Vietnam. Before you even enter the prison, chill bumps come over you. I would imagine even if you don't remember the Vietnam War and you take this tour, you'd have the same reaction if you are an American. That is probably true for any war torn area that American fought and were held captive or died. This was, for our family, worth the very LONG day to get there. John McCain. An American hero. For almost 7 years he lived in this GOD AWFUL place. How that man managed to stay alive never mind make it home to continue to serve his/our country is beyond comprehension. No photos we could take can explain the conditions.