Once upon a time, roughly July 27th 1048 A.D. at 4:30 in the afternoon, a Golden Buffalo Calf ran wildly in circles and tramped a vast area of ground. You see, the Golden Buffalo Calf (GBC) thought he heard his mother’s call, so he ran south to Vietnam from China where he lived. What the GBC actually heard was the ringing of bronze bell of gargantuantic proportions.
This bell, you see, was made from a mountain of bronze that was given to one Khong Lo, a Vietnamese monk, by the emperor of China in return for some unnamed valiant service. And so, you see, of course, the place where the venerable GBC trampled so energetically naturally gave up the ghost as a trampling place and became a Hồ Tay place, West Lake. This, by the way, is Hồ Tay.
Mid 15th Century, Vietnamese emperor Le Loi wrangled, at a bargain basement price, a magic sword from the heavens and with it he pricked, poked and prodded the Chinese invaders until they left Vietnam. After pricking, poking and prodding for so long he needed a break, so he bought some flowers for his favorite sword and took it for a boat ride on the lake. Suddenly, with loud Shastokovichian music, a giant golden tortoise whizzing by on a jetski reached out and grabbed the sword. The tortoise then won a race with a hare to the bottom of the lake.
Apparently, the bottom of the lake is a geo-political ally of the heavens because the sword was returned to its rightful owners, and the lake is called Hồ Hoan Kiềm, Lake of the Restored Sword.
St. Joseph’s Cathedral – Gothic 1886 style. Right beside a snobby little café with over-priced and over-delicious chocolate brownie with ice cream things.
And, did I mention, you can draw crayon pictures of Gothic brownies on the table covers. The cafe, that is the cafe not the church. How’s that for a conversation starter?
1911 French opera house where, on 16 Aug 1945, the takeover of Hanoi was announced by the Viet Minh, which is known as the August Revolution.
Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum has Bac Ho (except when he is in Russia for a facelift), it has square space, it is surrounded by park-like quiet (green) space and countless old French buildings used for government offices.
You’re in Vietnam, always more green space…All the information and fluff is compliments of some books I have, my Vietnamese History class so long ago, and a highly unstable imagination.
2 comments:
I like the bluewater pic. Did you take it?
I did take that picture at West Lake. A very humid hazy evening with a fairly unimpressive sunset off to the left, but the photo turned out surprisingly well!
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