A tale of three cities

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A tale of three cities

Hanoi, Vientiane and Phnom Penh have a shared past but intriguingly different personalities. Gary Walsh provides 48-hour guides to the trio of Indochina capitals.

By Gary Walsh

When the French colonists fled from Indochina in the 1950s they left more than a region in revolutionary foment. In their wake was a legacy of architecture, culture and cuisine that shapes the character of three nations to this day.

The capitals of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia share this heritage but have distinct personalities that shine brightly even in a short visit. You have 48 hours in each city - live life to the full.

Hanoi, day 1

We'll start early, about 6am, with a lap of Hoan Kiem Lake in the centre of the city. The dawn start offers two significant plusses: you can see Hanoi waking up and taking its exercise by the lakeside, and most of the intolerable hawkers are absent so early in the day.

On our slow lakeside circumnavigation we will see people performing tai chi to the refrain of a boom box, singing karaoke al fresco, playing hard-fought games of badminton or chess, jogging or walking sedately around the water, which in winter always
has a soft veil of mist on its surface. We will also see canoodling couples sitting on park benches. After breakfast at one of the many cafes on the lake's shore - a crusty filled baguette at Thuy Ta to the north-west will do the trick - we will cross the footbridge to the calm sanctuary of Ngoc Son Temple, which opens at 8am.

The rest of the morning will be spent in homage to Vietnam's revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh. Ho lies in state in a squat, grey, Soviet-style mausoleum a couple of kilometres from the centre of Hanoi, despite his stated desire to be cremated with his remains distributed equally in north, central and south Vietnam.

Viewing Ho's embalmed body, which is usually sent to Moscow for its annual upkeep between September and December, is a poignant experience. First you need to deposit bags and cameras at the reception centre and join the queue of reverential Vietnamese before being escorted by soldiers into the dim, silent mausoleum. Uncle Ho's black-clad waxy figure, still with his signature wispy beard, lies under glass.

Nearby we will visit other Ho monuments - the simple stilt house behind the Presidential Palace in which he lived and the museum which tells, somewhat shambolically, the story of his life. A quick look, too, at the One Pillar Pagoda, a tiny, heavily restored 900-year-old edifice just three square metres in size that looks like an overblown bird house and has become, incomprehensibly, one of Hanoi's most treasured symbols.

For lunch we will go to Koto (61 Ven Mieu), a not-for-profit restaurant established by Vietnamese-Australian Jimmy Pham to provide employment for street children. It has good sandwiches and cakes.

Nearby is the beautiful Temple of Literature. Vietnam's first university was established here almost 1000 years ago to educate princes and the sons of imperial mandarins, although the National Academy building was destroyed by the French in 1947 and replaced by a museum.

Within the succession of elegant courtyards are the 82 stone stelae that record the results of triennial examinations between the 15th and 18th centuries and there are also imposing wooden entrance gates, halls and pavilions that hint at Hanoi's past
imperial splendour.

After our dose of culture we will return to the lake shore for a sweet treat at Fanny (48 Le Thai To), Hanoi's best ice-cream parlour. We have the choice of an elaborate confection in the air-conditioned interior or taking away a cone or cup and tucking in beside the lake. As well as traditional tastes, we might be seduced by local flavours such as sticky rice, green tea and tamarind.

Another perambulation beside the lake will take us to the Kim Dong Theatre and a performance by the Thang Long Water Puppet Troupe. This traditional Vietnamese entertainment is on the cheesy side but has a rustic charm as most of the fables told are of rural life and the skill of the practitioners is undeniable.

After the show we will travel to Le Tonkin restaurant (14 Ngo Van So) for excellent Vietnamese food in the lovely surrounds of a restored French colonial villa. Those of us with energy to spare can end the night at the mildly naughty Apocalypse Now nightclub (5c Hoa Ma, unless it has been closed down or forced to move - again - for disturbing social order). It is a pale imitation of its Ho Chi Minh City equivalent but quite racy for the much more sedate capital.

Hanoi, day 2

This morning will be given over to a walk through the wonderful Old Quarter, Hanoi's most evocative district. Traditionally the streets here were devoted to specific trades - Hang Duong (Sugar Street), Hang Dau (Oil Street), Hang Ma (Paper Offerings Street) - and even today they tend to specialise. Hang Ma still sells paper replicas of cars, credit cards, TVs, mobile phones and other consumer goods to be burned in offering to the dead - the idea is that the dearly departed with then be able to use these objects in the afterlife.

This is an area to wander without a plan or a map. There are wonderful art shops, places that sell old propaganda posters, factories making tombstones, flower and vegetable markets, pagodas, temples, museums and even a mosque. Remnants of the old city wall can be seen at the end of some of the streets, which fan out from the northern end of Hoan Kiem Lake.

We'll make our way to St Joseph's Cathedral after a casual lunch at Little Hanoi (21 Hang Gai), a nice place for a restorative beer and a tuna mayonnaise baguette. En route to the cathedral we will pass the beautiful facade of Ly Quoc Su Pagoda. St Joseph's distressed exterior gives way to a high-vaulted interior with a delicate altar screen and impressive stained-glass windows.

Walking back towards the lake, we'll divert into Bao Khanh and Hang Hanh, which has the look and flavour of a Parisian Left Bank street, and stop in one of the many appealing bars for a quiet drink. At night the street is much less peaceful than by day.

This afternoon we will explore some of Hanoi's museums. The choice will depend on our interests - the Museum of Vietnamese Revolution, the Museum of Military History (if you like war planes and weaponry), the National Fine Arts Museum, the Museum of Ethnology (which focuses on ethnic minorities), the Hoa Lo Prison Museum (the old "Hanoi Hilton").

After that we will drop into one of the city's bia hois for a cheap and watery draft beer straight from the barrel and a plate or two of spring rolls before heading to the Brother's Cafe (26 Nguyen Thai Hoc), created by the founder of the Khai Silk empire in the courtyard of a restored 250-year-old temple. And then we'll return to the Bao Khanh/Hang Hanh area for a 333 (beer) or three.

Vientiane, day 1

This is one of the world's sleepiest capital cities and to honour its character we will take our sightseeing at a leisurely place. First will be Vientiane's most memorable and venerated site, the golden Pha That Luang. If we have been fortunate to arrive on a clear morning, the gilded stupas and 45-metre spire will positively glow, and the sight of orange-clad monks walking silently around the sanctuary will remain an indelible image.

We'll head back into town to Haw Pha Kaew, a former royal temple turned into a museum that now houses - rather dustily and poorly displayed - an impressive collection of sculptures and other religious treasures. The original 16th-century temple was home to the famous Emerald Buddha, which was taken to Bangkok in 1779 after a battle between Siamese and Lao forces. It is now Thailand's most revered symbol.

For lunch, a light meal at one of the Mekong-side shacks along Fa Ngum, the long promenade that parallels the river. The food is OK - snacks such as spring rolls and salads - but the setting is great, although the hawkers (most of them from Vietnam) can be a bit pesky. We'll be back at sunset for a chilled Beerlao.

This afternoon we will venture to Wat Sok Pa Luang, a temple renowned for its herbal sauna and massages for a cheap bodily indulgence before a visit to Wat Si Saket, Vientiane's finest temple, which must have one of the world's largest collections of
Buddha images. More than 2000 sit in niches set into the walls of the courtyard and hundreds of others are displayed below them, freestanding or on shelves.

The walls and ceiling of the ordination hall are lavishly decorated - the walls with fading murals and the ceiling with floral designs said to have been inspired by the Palace of Versailles. Scattered inside are many more Buddha images. There is a lively and friendly group of monks and novices here, many of whom love to practice their English with foreigners.

After watching the sun set over the Mekong - and listening to the honky-tonk sounds of lusty Thailand from across the water - we'll dine outdoors at colourful Khob Chai Deu (54 Setthathilat), where there is good Lao and Thai food, cold beer and an interesting group of fellow diners and drinkers that usually runs the gamut from weary expats and chatty backpackers to a handful of local girls apparently keen to supplement their incomes by becoming new best friends with lonely travellers.

Vientiane, day 2

Paris has the Arc du Triomphe and Vientiane has the Patuxai, a strange 1960s monument inspired by the Arc and built with US cement said to have been destined for a new airport. At the top there is a great view of the pancake-flat city in all directions, including south across the Mekong to Thailand and north to the beautiful Lao mountains, and inside are souvenir stalls flogging T-shirts, badges, postcards and the usual tat.

After our visit we will head to the Talat Sao (which means morning market, although it runs all day) to browse among the eclectic selection of goods - the massive gold jewellery section is astonishing; a casual glance would have you think Laos is one
of the richest lands on earth.

For lunch we'll grab something at the market before delving into Laos' recent past at the National History Museum, which concentrates on the French colonial, resistance and post-revolutionary eras. It is ham-fisted propaganda on the whole but interesting nonetheless to see the photographs and memorabilia of a chaotic time in the country's history. And where else will you see a chest expander used by a national leader, in this case Kaysone Phomvihane, the first PM after the 1975 revolution, proudly displayed in a glass case? There is also interest in shots of Paul Keating during the opening of the Australian-financed bridge between Laos and Thailand just outside the capital.

We will spend the rest of the afternoon and evening strolling Vientiane's peaceful streets, browsing in the shops (we'll look out for Lao silk and the stunning and pricey work of Carol Cassidy and her local weavers at Lao Textiles on Ban Mixay in particular) and enjoying its remarkable laid-back nature before dinner and a few drinks in a former French villa at Kua Lao (111 Samsenthai).

Phnom Penh, day 1

Take a deep breath and step into the dark horrors of the Pol Pot era. The cold hand of the Khmer Rouge is inescapable in Phnom Penh, where memories of Year Zero and its atrocities are fresh. A visit to the killing fields and Tuol Sleng prison is essential to make some sense of this puzzling city and its people.

We begin 15 kilometres from the city at the killing fields of Choeng Ek, where as many as 17,000 people were executed between 1975 and 1978. Now the countryside is anonymously semi-rural and the air is filled with the happy cries of children from a nearby school but you still crunch on half-exposed human remains as you walk around the site and you notice pieces of cloth used to blindfold victims before they were killed.

Most poignant of all is the glass-sided memorial stupa erected in 1988 that holds the skulls of about 8000 victims neatly arranged by age and gender. You are shown the chankiri tree against which babies were bludgeoned to death (others were tossed into the air and bayoneted to save on bullets) and razor-sharp pieces of palm tree used to slash throats.

A strangler fig is slowly consuming one of the trees below which people were executed, an oddly appropriate image in this place of death and immense sadness. But children wander the site asking for money and posing for photos and concrete benches on which to rest are sponsored by Angkor Beer.

Returning to Phnom Penh, we must immediately visit former prison S-21, now the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Tuol Sleng was a high school before it was turned into the place where supposed enemies of the revolution were interrogated, tortured and killed. As many as 12,500 people died at Tuol Sleng, including 14 killed as Vietnamese liberation forces entered Phnom Penh. These final victims are buried in the forecourt of the museum.

We'll walk through the torture rooms, look at the walls of harrowing monochrome pictures of the victims of S-21, visit the bare cells where they were housed and the shower cubicles used by women after being raped and, perhaps most chillingly, look into the eyes of the smiling prison guards, most of them young cadres who would themselves be executed as the Khmer Rouge turned on itself.

In need of some respite from the horror and time for introspection, we'll go to Sisowath Quay on the banks of the Tonle Sap River, an arm of the Mekong, and sit in one of the big cane planter's chairs at the Garden Bar, order a beer and a meal (decent European food) and watch the passing parade.

Then we'll head for the heights, the 27-metre high summit of Phnom Penh's only hill and Wat Phnom, a frequently rebuilt pagoda that, in one form or another, has been here since the late 14th century. For a bit of (heavy) light entertainment there are elephants to ride at the base of the hill near the steep staircase that passes various shrines and stupas en route to the top.

We will follow with a walk along the lively riverside before a pre-dinner drink at the Foreign Correspondents Club, whose second-floor bar overlooking the Tonle Sap has the best location in town for a cool sundowner.

Dinner is an adventure at Happy Herb's Pizza (345 Sisowath Quay), one of many places in town where the pizza comes with a special additive designed to relax the spirits. You can even order a pizza without marijuana topping.

Those who declined the "happy" component of the meal might trot along to the Cambo Fun Park and its dodgy amusement park rides to watch the action - bumper cars on the edge of disintegration, a ferris wheel that looks likely to fling its passengers into the stratosphere at any moment. Those who asked for a "very happy" topping will just want to sleep.

Phnom Penh, day 2

First up is a visit to the Royal Palace. King Sihanouk lives here when he is in Cambodia but parts of the historic palace complex are always open to visitors. The most striking structure is the century-old Silver Pagoda, named for its 5329 silver floor tiles, each of which weighs more than a kilogram. The contents of the pagoda are similarly rich, including a life-size gold buddha weighing 90 kilograms and encrusted with 9000 diamonds, the largest of which is 25 carats and rests on the image's forehead. Another weighing 20 carats is embedded in the buddha's chest.

And we won't miss the wall murals on the perimeter of the main compound that tell the story of the Ramayana - similar to those at the Grand Palace in Bangkok. The Silver Pagoda also has its own Emerald Buddha, made of jade like its Thai counterpart.

Afterwards we will travel next door to the National Museum, where those treasures of Khmer history that survived the Khmer Rouge are on display. What remains are mainly stone carvings and bronzes dating from the sixth to the 14th century that illustrate how Hinduism and Buddhism have been pervasive influences on Cambodian culture - all Shivas, eight-armed Vishnus and Brahmas in one period, myriad buddhas in myriad poses the next.

For lunch we will drop into the FCC again. The food is reasonable; the setting and atmosphere unforgettable. Then we will drive to the Russian Market, where we can browse sweatily through a warren of stalls selling everything from pirated CDs and DVDs to silk scarves and motorcycle parts.

We might enjoy the later part of the afternoon on a boat ride on the river - there are plenty of boat men with whom to negotiate a price or organised sunset cruises to consider - followed by a drink in one of the numerous Sisowath Quay bars.

To dine, it is across the Japanese bridge to one of the enormous local restaurants beside the Mekong. We will try the Hang Neak, sitting in the open air on the wooden boardwalk, slapping away the occasional mosquito while pondering which fish to eat and joking with the Angkor, Anchor and Tiger Beer girls who vie for our custom. Good food and homely entertainment from a succession of slapstick comedians and torch singers and an overwhelmingly local clientele.

If we are up for a late night play, we'll drop into Martini Pub, a disco-cum-outdoor cinema-cum-den of iniquity that attracts a mix of backpackers, expats, hookers and assorted desperadoes. Quite the laugh.

Rooms with a past

Each of the three Indochina capitals has a grand hotel from the colonial era that has been gloriously refurbished. If you have the money, these are the places to stay.

Sofitel Metropole, Hanoi

Here you have a choice of rooms in the century-old Metropole or the 10-year-old Opera Wing. Choose the former. The old wing has wide hallways, creaking wooden floors, antique fittings and atmosphere to burn. The new wing is nondescript luxury that doesn't speak of Hanoi.

Beaulieu is probably the best classical French restaurant in the city, while Spices Garden offers exceptional - if pricey - Vietnamese fare. And the bar is a great place for a beer. The Metropole is just a block from Hoan Kiem Lake and a 10-minute walk to the Old Quarter. Or you can take one of the hotel's cyclos.

15 Ngo Quyen Street. Rooms are priced from $US99 plus taxes. See accorhotels-asia.com

Settha Palace Hotel, Vientiane

This small hotel (just 43 rooms) sits several blocks back from the Mekong in a quiet corner of Vientiane, one of the world's quietest capital cities. Consequently it is a peaceful little place, even at weekends when well-heeled expats bring in their families for lunch around the pool.

The guest rooms are discretely decorated in French colonial style and feature beautiful rosewood floors. The bar is very pleasant, if rarely busy and the restaurant serves classical French cuisine that is prohibitively expensive for Vientiane.

6 Thanon Pangkham. Rooms are priced from $US88 plus taxes. See setthapalace.com

Raffles Hotel Le Royal, Phnom Penh

Big, art deco-inspired guestrooms are the hallmark of this hotel, reopened in 1997 in a 1929 original. Le Royal spreads over a full city block in the heart of Phnom Penh close to Wat Phnom and the river.

The cool and classy Elephant Bar ranks with the Foreign Correspondents Club as the place in town for a drink at sundown. Restaurant Le Royal serves upmarket Khmer food, and there are Chinese and international restaurants as well.

92 Rukhak Vithei Daun Penh. Rooms are priced from $US143 plus taxes. See raffles.com

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