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HANOI |
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| The Vietnamese nation was born among the lagoons and marshes of the
Red River Delta around 4000 years ago and for most of its independent
existence has been ruled from HANOI , Vietnam's small, elegant capital
lying in the heart of the northern delta. Given the political and
historical importance of Hanoi and its burgeoning population of one
million, it's a surprisingly low-key city, with the character of a
provincial town - quite unlike brash, young Ho Chi Minh City. It still
retains buildings from the eleventh-century court of its founding father
King Ly Thai To, most notably the Temple of Literature , and some of the
streets in the Old Quarter still trade in the same speciality goods they
dealt in 500 years ago. In 1887, the French turned Hanoi into the centre
of government for the entire Union of Indochina, replacing ancient
monuments with grand colonial residences, many of which survive today.
Hanoi finally became the capital of independent Vietnam in 1954, with Ho
Chi Minh its first president: Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum is now the city's
biggest crowd-puller. The city sustained serious damage in the American
War, particularly the infamous Christmas Bombing campaign of 1972, much
of it lucidly chronicled in the Army Museum . Until recently, political
isolation together with lack of resources preserved what was essentially
the city of the 1950s. However, since the advent of tourism in 1993, the
city has seen an explosion in traveller cafés, mini-hotels and
cybercafés. Indeed, Hang Bac, one of the Old Quarter's main drags which
is home to a large number of traveller hang-outs, is starting to
resemble a little piece of Bangkok's Khao San Road in Hanoi. The big
question now is how much of central Hanoi will survive the onslaught of
modernization. |
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