Hanoi was founded 1000 years ago, at the confluence of the Red River and the To Lich River, King Ly Thai To, the founder of the Ly Dynasty, established it as Thang Long (Soaring Dragon).
Its architecture reveals its past history. Faded grey pagodas etched with Chinese charactors dot the city's lakes, reflecting China’s rule over Vietnam for 1,000 years. Tree-lined boulevards pass by ochre-colored colonial buildings erected by the French in the early 20th C.
Hoàn Kiếm Lake
Today’s Hanoi is the capital and second largest city in Vietnam. It is a bastion of Confucian values and Communist doctrines. About 3 million people live in the city and 6.5 million in greater Hanoi. Many people live in houses without plumbing and cook outside their homes.
Life can be civilized and polite, as evinced by all of those doing morning tai chi exercises around Hoan Kiem Lake in the city center. It is also hectic -- the pulsating business district is jammed with hordes of motorbikes—the drivers texting on cellphones in traffic jams—and cutting-edge facades arising in between a cruddy-drab jumble of storefronts, with large clusters of electrical wires hung up outside. Hanoi is still in the ungainly process of becoming—closer to the disheveled chaos of India than to the sterility of Singapore.
Night market
Húc Bridge to Ngoc Son Temple, Hoan Kiem Lake
Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and Museum
Here in Ba Dinh Square on 2 Sept 1945, Ho read the Declaration of Independence, establishing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
All people are created equal; they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights; among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776. In a broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and free.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of the French Revolution made in 1791 also states: All men are born free and with equal rights, and must always remain free and have equal rights. Those are undeniable truths.
Nevertheless, for more than eighty years, the French imperialists, in the name of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, have violated our Fatherland and oppressed our fellow citizens. They have acted contrary to the ideals of humanity and justice.
{Ho Chi Minh lived in the United States in some periods between 1912 and 1918. He repeatedly petitioned President Harry S. Truman for support for Vietnamese independence, but Truman never responded)
"Long live The Socialist Republic of Viet Nam"
Ho Chi Minh's body lies in a glass case with dim lights.
