Old Saigon Building of the Week: 86 Vo Van Tan

The courtyard of Fernand Nadal’s old mansion at 86 Võ Văn Tần, now a restaurant

This article was published previously in Saigoneer.

The ornate mansion on the corner of the Bà Huyện Thanh Quan and Võ Văn Tần junction was once the private residence of celebrated photographer Fernand Nadal, whose old sepia postcard images of the city are now collectors’ items.

The Photo Nadal Studio at 150 rue Catinat (Đồng Khởi) in the mid 1920s

A native of Algeria, Nadal arrived in Indochina in the early 1920s, and by 1922 he had opened the Photo Nadal Studio at 150 rue Catinat (Đồng Khởi), close to the junction with rue d’Espagne (Lê Thánh Tôn). A few years later, he relocated his business to 118-120 rue Catinat, part of the block now occupied by the Sheraton Hotel complex.

Nadal employed a European and six Vietnamese staff, and his promotional materials advertised a photographic salon and sale of photographic articles and products, including his famous sepia postcards and a number of printed photographic albums.

One of Nadal’s famous sepia postcards – Rue de Canton, Cholon, Album Nadal 1926

He was commissioned to do various photographic projects for both government and private clients, and between 1929 and 1931 a selection of his photographs was published inLe Monde colonial illustré. By the 1930s, he also had a branch studio in Phnom Penh and was the proprietor of rubber plantations in Biên Hoà and Thủ Dầu Một provinces.

The mansion at 86 rue Testard (now Võ Văn Tần) was built for Nadal in the late 1920s and it remained his home for at least 10 years. In recent years the building has been modified, but much of the original architecture remains intact. It serves currently as both a residence and a restaurant.

In recent years the building has been modified

The main entrance to 86 Võ Văn Tần on the Võ Văn Tần and Bà Huyện Thanh Quan junction

Tim Doling is the author of the walking tour book Exploring Hồ Chí Minh City (Nhà Xuất Bản Thế Giới, Hà Nội, 2014) and also conducts Heritage Tours of Saigon and Chợ Lớn.

The King of Cyclos

 – In a rapidly developing modern city, the cyclo acts as a unique reminder of the past.

Van Nguyen talks to the King of Cyclos, Do Anh Thu, to discover more about his quintessentially Vietnamese occupation.

Walking me through his cyclo parking lot in Tran Quang Khai Sreet, 65-year-old Do Anh Thu tells of how, during the 1990s, cyclos were used mainly for transporting firewood, coal, or stone.

These days however, cyclos have become a fun means of transportation for tourists on a sightseeing trip around Hanoi.

“They cannot walk on foot all day and the taxi fee is too costly, that’s why an affordable and unique cyclo is their top choice,” Thu says before introducing me to some of his colleagues.

“Nobody wants to be a cyclo driver and neither did I,” the ‘king’ shares. “But I think as long as we aren’t doing anything illegal, even the most trivial jobs deserve respect.”

“I usually suggest to tourists that when they want to go somewhere, whether it is a historical site, a street restaurant, or a bar or club, they should ask a cyclo driver because they know everything!” Thu laughs.

The switch

Graduating in the early 1970s from Hanoi Pedagogical University, one of the best universities in Vietnam at that time, Thu received a diploma in history and was eager to become a teacher.

His profile was sent to the Ministry of Education, which is responsible for assigning teachers to schools around the country. After three years, he had not received a single job offer.

Thu tutored history students to get by, but in those days, literature and mathematics were the sought-after subjects, whilst there was little demand for history tutors. “It was a very difficult time for me and my family because the money from teaching was not sufficient,” Thu recalls.

Though he faced strong opposition from the elders of his family who were all professors, doctors or engineers, Thu decided to buy a cyclo after first persuading his wife.

“At that time, a cyclo cost two gold units-about VND7 million (US$321) at the current rate. We could only afford half of it and had to borrow the rest from friends. I only intended to drive a cyclo to earn some money while waiting for a job offer. I thought that once I found a job, I would sell the cyclo immediately.”

After making this bold decision, Thu’s family’s life rapidly improved. “Just by taking a few customers, I could earn enough to give my wife money to buy food and sometimes just the tips from foreign tourists would give me enough to feed my family for a week,” he says.

Sanc Souci

After many years of working the streets, Thu earned the trust of his customers. “My clients always recommend me to their family and friends when they visit Vietnam because I know a little English and French. I often spend weeks driving a customer around, so even though I receive many calls from hotels, I am often too busy to take the work they offer,” Thu says.

In the past, when he was too busy, Thu would pass jobs to his friends. “They were very happy and often I had a group of ten-fifteen other drivers following me, so that if I had any offers of work, I could call upon them immediately,” he says.

“Cyclo riders are usually poor but honest and hardworking farmers. We treat each other like family and it was my honour to give them chances to earn more money,” he adds.

The name Sans Souci, which means ‘no worries’, was created in a group meeting on Hanoi’s busy pavements. “I remember when we parked by Hoan Kiem lake, there were many unnamed cyclos. Ours stood out, with our name painted brightly. Many tourists wanted to take pictures, tipping each driver US$1 for the privilege.”

Thu explains that the name Sans Souci originates from the fact he would often comfort worried customers by saying ‘sans souci’, meaning ‘no worries’. “The name is essentially our promise to give tourists a safe journey,” he explains.

Unfortunately for Thu and his fellow drivers, the Vietnamese Government officially banned cyclo activity as part of Decision 12/2001/QD-UB. This new law gravely affected many cyclo drivers, whose families were reliant upon their incomes.

“After reading through the Decision thoroughly, I found that every cyclo was banned with the exception of touring ones. As a result, I came up with the idea of founding a cyclo tourism company so that our jobs would be legalised,” Thu says with pride.

Thus, in 2002, the Sans Souci cyclo touring company was founded. “Upon holding the license in my hands, I felt like the savior of my fellow cyclo drivers,” Thu recalls with obvious joy.

“Many of them burst into tears when I gave them the papers. It gave them the freedom to pedal around their capital city without any concerns for the law,” Thu says.

These days, Hanoi has about 265 cyclos, of which 95 belong to Sans Souci and the remainder run under the banner of companies like Huy Phong, Lam Anh and Van Hoa.

Improving service

For Thu, the language barrier is usually the biggest problem tourists face. However, with Sans Souci cyclo drivers, this is not an issue. “I am lucky that I know a little French and English, which helps me to communicate with tourists,” says Thu.

“I have printed out some basic sentences such as ‘Hello, where do you want to go?’ and numbers in English and French and given them to my drivers to study so that they can hold simple but useful conversations with visitors.”

Thu has also designed various kinds of tours, including 30-minute, 60-minute, half-day and full-day tours. “The tour that I am most proud of sadly can not be taken anymore. I used to drive visitors on cyclos to the other side of Duong river and then transfer them to cow carts. They really loved sightseeing on this rustic transportation.”

He says that in order to be a good cyclo driver, you must be healthy, friendly, and humble. In the company’s regulations there is a clause stating that if a driver begs visitors for money in any way he will be fired immediately. “If you enjoy begging, you can quit this job and become a beggar,” Thu states firmly.

However, a friendly, funny and knowledgeable cyclo driver will always be tipped-in fact, Thu recalls one occasion when a driver in his company was tipped US$100.

-Time Out    

The versatile calabash

No 3, Vol.9 , August  - September 2015 For generations, dry calabashes (gourds) have become a part of the material and spiritual life of the Ma people. Unlike the sweet ones, old bitter calabash husks are thick, tough and nicely shaped. Some have a slender waist in the middle with two naturally round, connected compartments above and beneath it. Some look like a bottle and are very convenient for making utensils. So Ma people grow a lot of bitter calabash. They leave the fruits to grow hard on the fields, then collect them, cut the stalk and shake the seeds out. The husks are soaked in a creek for a week or two for the inside to decompose. Then, they clean the inside and hang the husks over the kitchen to let them harden more and gain a yellow-brown colour. In Ma families, everybody has their own water gourd. Women and girls take care not to let the gourds go empty. Calabash gourds are very convenient to carry through steep mountain passes to get water home. The largest ones, with a round tummy and more or less flat base, are used for storage. The round, middle-sized ones can be cut to make bowls for meals. Dry gourds can also be used to store corn, beans, and calabash and pumpkin seeds. Like many other ethnicities, The Ma also use husks to make blow pipes, a musical instrument. It’s a multi-part pipe, consisting of six bamboo tubes of different lengths, arranged into two rows (four at the top, two at the bottom), that are driven through the husk, which serves as the sound amplifier. To have a beautiful blow pipe, the Ma select a nice round-shaped husk with a long neck, a little bent near the stalk, which is where they blow. They cut holes on the husk’s tummy to drive the tubes in, and then seal the holes with bees’ wax to make them air tight. Blow pipes can accompany songs or be part of an orchestra to perform in festive occasions. They are also a very common means for young men to show their affection for the lady of their heart. The husk gourds are present in all Ma spiritual ceremonies, too. They are used to hold wine and animal blood offered to the gods. Husks that are used for this purpose are usually small and shiningly black-lacquered with a kind of forest leaf.n

Text and photos by Thanh Binh

Pop culture on a stick

No 3, Vol.9 , August  - September 2015 - Sourse: Vietnam Heritage Magazine Tò he. Photo: Bui Xuan Thuy Artisan Nguyen Van Thanh, chairman of the trade association of Xuan La, has made a lot of contributions to the development of the Xuan La trade village, the only village of Vietnam with the tò he trade. Born in Xuan La Village, Phuong Truc Commune, Phu Xuyen District, Hanoi, where traditionally everybody made tò he, Mr Thanh learnt to make basic figures from coloured starch when he was three. Seven-year-old Mr Thanh already made colourful animals for his parents to sell. He knows how to cook the starch to make the colour mix most glistening, to produce the most eye-catching tò he. So, tò he followed him to his university’s auditoriums. With a tool box containing starch, a small knife, some bamboo sticks, some wax, a comb and a spongy box, Mr Thanh goes to make and sell tò he every Saturday. His magic fingers transform coloured starch into lively figurines, fascinating children and adults alike. Artist Nguyen Van Thanh receiving a certificate of contribution to development of Xuan La trade village in 2014. Photo: www.tohexuanla.vn After graduation, Mr Thanh took a job in his home town and continued preserving his ancestral trade. A dynamic individual, he quickly found the tastes of different clienteles. Old people love the cakes he kneads, farmers ask him to make buffaloes, soil picks, ploughs, theatrical figures and national heroes such as the Trung Sisters, Lady Trieu, Le Loi and Quang Trung. Young people want roses, teddy bears, zodiac animals and cartoon characters such as Tom and Jerry, Superman and the Monkey King. And so he has been making tò he for the past 21 years of his life. In 2009, Mr Thanh and other artisans like him established a cultural heritage association and traditional trade club of Xuan La Village with 54 members and him as the chairman. Now the membership includes 119 people. On 27 October, 2011, Mr Thanh won one of the three highest prizes in tò he-making competition during the first festival of traditional trade villages of Phu Xuyen District. He made King Ly Thai To and Phoenix on a Lotus in only about 30 minutes. In 2012, Mr Thanh launched tohexuanla.vn website to promote his own tò he figurines and Xuan La’s traditional trade to tourists near and far. In 2014, he was invited by the Vietnam Centre of Culture and Arts of the Ministry of Culture to participate in cultural exchanges of the peoples of ASEAN in Thailand and China. His cute and lively tò he have become unique gifts, a typical symbol of the charming Vietnamese culture for the ASEAN delegations. Mr Thanh is often invited to lecture, show and teach the art of tò he making in restaurants and schools. He is also a regular presenter, showing how to make tò he in the Creative Corner program on TV. Mr Thanh said, ‘Tò he kneading is very educational. It helps kids develop creativity, mind fluidity and links the abstract and the concrete.’ All children love the tò he, not only Vietnamese. His deepest concern is that his members still can’t earn a living by the trade. Each of them only makes 2,5 – 3 millions a month and has to sell other toys too. Xuan La villagers only make tò he in festive occasions during Spring, and do other things for the rest of the year. Many families only do it for fun and for the sake of preservation of ancestral values.n

By Ha Ngan

Small fish, big dreams

No 3, Vol.9 , August  - September 2015 (Vietnam Heritage) It’s quite a fuss at 7 a.m. on Hon Ro harbour in Nha Trang. Mr Dinh Van Bay’s boat has just come back after six hours of pulling his net at sea. Mr Bay urges his men to shake the anchovies from the net to give them to the dry-fish export businesses. They hang the net and used cloth-wrapped bats to beat the fish stuck on it down into big bamboo baskets and then take them ashore. Unlike seasonal fishes, you can fish for anchovy the whole year round, Mr Bay said. Yet the best time to do it is from February to August. On a lucky night, he can catch nearly a ton of anchovy. In bad weather, he may get only 50 kg. The fish and the trucks of processing facilities came to shore at the same time. Following Mr Bay’s instructions, I came to Mr Mai Thanh Quyen’s fish-steaming shop at Cua Be fish bazaar in Vinh Truong Commune. It smelled fishy all around. In the shop, about 40 workers were busy cleaning and steaming the fish. Tons of fresh fish are always coming and they have to be processed right away to retain freshness and sweet taste. According to Ms Dao Thi Phuong, to have good quality, the fish has to be very fresh, cleaned carefully, steamed moderately, dried quickly, and kept in good storage. As it arrives, they put a single layer of fish on a gridiron, dip into water and shake it softly to avoid crushing the fish. Then the gridirons are put in an autoclave for three to five minutes to steam. Then the gridirons are loaded on a wheelbarrow to be transported out to ‘tan’. By the afternoon, the fish is already crispy dry. Mr Mai Thanh Quyen said his family has been doing this for nearly 20 years. Before that, his family was in fish sauce business, like most others in Vinh Truong. Realizing that steam fish business could bring extra income and create jobs for others, he invested boldly and made new connections. Now his Hanh Quyen steamed-anchovy-for-export business is a robust name, known near and far. ‘Actually this business is not much more profitable than fish sauce-making, but it creates many more jobs for the locals. Beside this one, our family has five other facilities, each gives job to about 30 workers with an income of over VND100,000/day/person.’ ‘Nowadays the steam fish facilities pay VND25,000 - VND30,000/kg for anchovy, much higher than the fish sauce businesses. Just catch 500 kg a time, you get over 10 million. But sometimes the export is stalled, and you can only bring the fish to the bazaar or to the fish sauce-making shops. Sometimes the loss is too great and I prefer to stay home, not going out to the sea,’ Mr Dinh Van Bay said. Dried steamed anchovy is exported mostly to Taiwan and China, but the price is not stable. ‘Low yield, high price, high yield, low price, fish business has this dilemma too. The usual price for our finished product is $7/kg, but sometimes they press it down to just $2/kg,’ Mr Mai Thanh Quyen said. Stable output is a dream of the steamed fish shop owners.

Text by Vinh Thanh and photos by Tran Hai Binh

The Artists’ Village

I tried to find the artists' village a few years ago and failed miserably. When I was new to Saigon, a durable expat had told me about a place he had once been taken to, where a group of artists lived in traditional wooden houses.

My research to find this exciting-sounding place started with an online search. With no keywords and scant information to feed into the computer, the search engine yielded very little. But persistence and the algorithms on that day blessed me. My fortune came in the form of an obscure post on a traveller’s personal blog. I got an address. That led to a phone number. That led to an invitation, from a person who said she was the artist’s daughter, to visit on Sunday at 2pm.

My Ho Chi Minh City map wasn’t big enough to cover the southern part of District 2, so I drew my own map to take with me. After an hour of hunting down street names, going up and down the same road repeatedly and reading the blank faces of the people we asked for directions, I called the number to ask the painter’s daughter for help. No answer. Landline? No answer. I kept trying. We’d made an appointment confirming the time, so why was no one at home? No answer.

I gave up after another unsuccessful hour. I went home disappointed, but didn’t think much about the place ever again. Maybe once a year it would come up in conversation, and some other expat would have heard about it. I would usually shoot them down.

In Steps Fate

One day, editor Nick and I got to talking about the mythical village. Nick had seen it and remembered the road it was on. The algorithms that live in the net blessed him with a location about 3km from the one I had looked for. And his was empirically tested and proven in analogue, on a bike.

Armed with this new information, I found Ham Long village. It’s not really a village, but it might be one day, if the artists that live in these neighbouring houses lapped by the Saigon River get a business plan together. And maybe an online presence.

At the moment, one artist, Ly Khac Nhu, invites visitors to his gardened art galleries. I couldn’t imagine anyone stumbling upon this art venue. It’s halfway between the Phu My Bridge and Diamond Island. Location is instrumental to business success, so how had his shop ticked for over 10 years? The tours. Apparently those groups of tourists who religiously follow their guide know something we expat residents don’t know about Ho Chi Minh City. They also have the advantage of being boated directly to Ly Khac Nhu’s riverside garden.

I go there by road, on a rainy day drenched in swear words. After an hour-long drive, I curl under my umbrella into the first wooden house I saw, where the amount of mot-hai-ba-yo-ing suggests a homage to the recently deceased general Vo Nguyen Giap might be going on. I’m politely shooed away, but in full detective mode. Two doors down, a wide open gate and the number 35 invites me into a soggy garden. This is it.

The Gates of Purgatory

Trunks axe into animal shapes and ceramic sculptures with facial expressions are everywhere. The houses with trees all around could well be the examples of traditional Vietnamese architecture, the sort I’ve been led to expect by the person who first told me about this hidden place.
A man arrives minutes after I do. With his raincoat still on, he doesn’t seem at all surprised to see a stranger walking around his patio, unannounced, looking at the artwork. He switches the lights on and answers a few questions, but he tires quickly and disappears, and sends over a young woman to repeat the same answers, but not to expand on the details.

I still don’t know why a pond that was singled out as being ‘northern style’ was characteristically northern. It’s a green pond with lotus plants in ceramic vases. Afterwards, I make enquiries, but am none the wiser.

The pond patters away under the raindrops. Under wooden columns and straw clay walls, I peer at paintings. This northern-style porch shelters an open air gallery of unremarkable artworks, mostly lacquer or ceramic pieces. The house stops looking rustic once you go inside. Bright fluorescent lights shine on white walls, washed by terrible leaks that stream rain down to puddles on the floor. The leaks drip over many artworks. Fortunately, Vietnamese lacquer is resilient — it’s used in furniture precisely because it can protect wood from water damage.

Surrounded by a number of amateur or otherwise nondescript paintings, my gaze suddenly lands on a large lacquer of a fierce figure in a distinctively rough style. It’s indeed a Le Kinh Tai, and the price tag of VND210 million reflects the artist’s reputation.

A No-Frills Tour

The next house in the precinct is designed in Hue style, except for the antique wooden doors, which owner Ly Khac Nhu brought in from China as a symbol of his heritage. The tiled roof on this small building is better able to minimise the leaks than the palm leaves of the northern style house. But the humidity is there to stay.

The galleries inside have some splendid furniture, from Chinese cabinets with mother of pearl intarsia, to three-legged art deco chairs. But none of it is for sale. The paintings are the only items that the solitary girl looks eager to part with, at prices starting in the millions of VND.
Unfortunately, there is no information on the works, and sometimes the name of the artist can’t be found. The wide range of quality, subject matter and style and the unfathomable age of some paintings (the bad conservation probably makes some artworks look much older than they are) make the whole place a bit suspect. In another country, this would be a car boot sale.

A third house in the complex is a Tay Nguyen style house with a sloping thatched roof and a lake all to itself. It’s an appropriate home to over 20 sculptures made by different ethnic minorities, the personal collection of Mr. Nhu.

By the river, bamboo curtains shade the solid chairs and tables where the paying guests who arrived by boat enjoy tea or coffee and a spectacular view. The rest of us are not offered such pleasantries, so I scurry along with my umbrella to the lacquer studio.

The owner of this house — who’s not Mr. Nhu, and doesn’t have his taste in art — pats silver leaf onto lacquer boards. It’s a mini-factory of tourist souvenirs: small, portable lacquer paintings of any image a teenager might produce.

The artists’ village is a good idea that is poorly developed. The venue is wonderful, the journey by road long and some of the artwork, quite awful. If you decide to go, take your own refreshments because the nearest source is not exactly within walking distance.

                                                                                         By Cristina Nualart

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The address is 35 Thich Mat The, Thanh My Loi, Q2, Ho Chi Minh City. But don’t trust Google Maps

The Slow Train to Lang Son

Set on the border amidst dramatic limestone karsts, Lang Son is often relegated to the status of border town. It’s anything but. Julie Vola retraces some well-worn train tracks to the outer reaches of northern Vietnam

Saturday, 5.30am, I am in Gia Lam train station. I follow the controllers and porters pushing my bike in the darkness of the night. We need four people to lift the bike onto the train.

5.50am and Anh is late — the train leaves in 10 minutes. The controller knows I have two train tickets, we try to communicate, I call her and they talk, she jumps on someone’s motorbike, the controller goes to her, they are running. I am already on the last wagon, the train is going to leave. They jump in, as the train starts moving.

6am. We sit down in a booth, the seats in our coach are hard wood. It’s still dark outside and very cold. The windows covered in a wire mesh are closed. I am hoping to find a seat without the wire mesh-covered windows, but the train is already pretty full and there aren’t any options for the moment. Anh starts pulling out some bread, condensed milk and popcorn to share for our breakfast. In my bag I only have a clean pair of underwear, three lenses, two cameras, a notebook and some money. I buy two bottles of water. Looking out the window through the mesh, the sun rises slowly as we leave Hanoi’s suburbs.

In April 1895 my great-great-grandfather Vézin was awarded the contract from the French administration to build a railroad from Phu Lang Thuong (56km from Hanoi) to Lang Son. His daughter married the son of an engineer, whose surname was Vola. My grandfather was born and raised in Hanoi until he returned to France to study medicine. He came back in 1951 as a chief surgeon and served three years at Quang Tri Hospital, 67km north of Hue. After he passed away my family rediscovered photo albums from the colonial era.

Sitting on this train I am retracing the steps, or more aptly, the tracks of my great-great-grandfather. During my time in Vietnam I’ve talked about him a lot. Too much. Yet I still feel nostalgic. There is an odd fascination with the train to Lang Son, the legacy of my ancestors.

The Border

The train ride is photographic eye candy: the light, the contrast, the people. After breakfast I pull the camera out of my bag. Our neighbours, who are already looking at me with stupefaction, are starting to ask questions. Anh is a great companion and she answers them all for me. I decide to take a stroll to other wagons to find a mesh-free window to take pictures of the scenery we are travelling through. We stop at every station and more people and goods fill the train. It’s cold, people sleep, talk, eat and occupy themselves. Time goes by slowly and we relax.
There is a certain sadness to the countryside we are passing through. The colours of the winter landscapes are muted with earthy dark green and brown intermixed with shades of grey. There are a few patches of brightness, some vegetable gardens along the tracks or some colourful jackets that catch my eye, but everywhere the gloom remains.

Once we arrive in the border village of Dong Dang, just 10km north of Lang Son, we are overwhelmed by all the porters and the goods being loaded on the train for China. The province of Lang Son is the city gateway to Trung Quoc or the Middle Country, as Vietnam refers to their northern neighbour. Anh’s family lives in Dong Dang. So we stop by to visit them and I get my first taste of the delicious honey roasted pork that Lang Son is famed for — thit lon quay. Since we are so close to the border we pay a quick visit. Anh negotiates with the armed guards — I am able to take photos. There are a few electric carts for people with luggage, but most people crossing the border by foot pull their suitcase behind them. I have a photo of the border gate at the time of Vézin and I was hoping to see it there. From the distance we thought maybe there was something to see on the Chinese side, but I guess we went to the wrong border gate. There are about five or six border gates in Lang Son Province.

The Citadel

By the time we arrive in Lang Son, it is well into the afternoon. We meet up with Xuan, an English teaching assistant, and the three of us head to the Mac Dynasty Citadel before the light disappears. It’s Saturday and the place is full of groups finishing their picnics, leaving their trash lying in their wake. They sing and laugh as loud as they are drinking. The main area is surrounded by four karstic limestone hills, which offer a great view of Lang Son. On the right side you can access what remains of the old citadel.

Nguyen Dinh Long, who has been working here for seven years as a security guard, tells me the citadel was built in the 16th century by a king from the Mac Dynasty to establish his power in the region over the Le Dynasty. It was destroyed over time by war and conflict, but he tells me most of the place was still standing when the French left. In 1962 the citadel was established as a national vestige to help protect it. Only two walls remain. While the north gate was renovated in 2010, the south gate has been reclaimed by nature.

After that the priority for me is to get hold of a pair of motorbike gloves I spotted earlier. They have a hole next to the index finger so you can put your motorbike handle bar inside. They’re waterproof and lined with warm synthetic fur, perfect for the way back to Hanoi. Next winter someone will have to introduce these to the capital.

Xuan has to leave and drops us at Bac Son, famed for its Lang Son specialties: pho chua (sweet and sour pho), roasted pork and roasted duck. It’s around 5.30pm and I am exhausted.

The Lake and the Cave

Sunday morning. Maybe because it’s so cold in the room, we wake up a bit late and have a very slow start. We go back to Bac Son, buy some pho chua and then head to the cafe next to the New Dynasty Restaurant situated on a small island in the lake. With a great view of the lake and the surrounding karstic hills, the spot is the perfect visual complement to our breakfast.

I am busy preparing the food for a photo shoot while Anh is already eating hers. Pho chua is a complex dish with many ingredients — vegetables finely chopped, pork marinated in oyster sauce, pho noodles, roasted peanuts and onions, aromatic herbs and sesame seeds. But the best part is the cold soup, made sour with vinegar, sugar, tomatoes, ginger, garlic and herbs. It’s a fine balance between dry and wet, Vietnamese and Chinese. It’s perfect and I wonder where I can find it in Hanoi.

I take a small tour around the lake — it’s my favourite spot in the city — but I linger too long and when I am back at the cafe it’s already late. We only have time to check out Tam Thanh Cave.

It’s the bigger of the two caves to visit and is busy; people are gathering around the lotus flower basin trying to catch a drop of lucky water from the ceiling. Anh is waiting for her turn, and when she finally gets to hold out her hand the drop of water just happens.

Back to Hanoi

It’s time to get on the road back to Hanoi, 160km due south. With nobody else on the road, we get on my bike, put on some music and share the headphones. About 15km from Lang Son and for around the next 45km, we go through a beautiful landscape of rice paddies and karstic mountains. It slows us down as I have to stop to capture the scenery with my camera. The rest of the road trip is tiring, especially the last 50km that slowly replaces the idyllic natural landscape with one more befitting of an urbanised industrial nation. I am glad to arrive back in the capital.

There is a great potential to see beauty in Lang Son, you just need to go in the right season — the weather while I am there is overcast and the area is covered in a low mist. The city is often dismissed as a border town and does not have a reputation that attracts tourists. Lonely Planet writes that most visitors just pass through to cross the border to China. And while Lang Son was mostly destroyed in 1979 during the Sino-Vietnamese war; the city of old is visible at the market. The pursuit of economic prosperity has begun to mend the wounds between this forgotten border town and its neighbours to the north.

As for my ancestors, it’s the train that matters, the tracks that they built to connect Hanoi with the border. Lang Son has its own very separate history, rich with stories of dynasties, citadels, economic development and war. It’s a history that, despite undergoing so much destruction, somehow remains very much alive.

                                                               By Julie Vola