Asian Craft

In Hanoi there are many relics of the French occupation of Vietnam (called "Indochina" at the time), the French colonised this region (Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos) on and off from 1862 to 1954 and made the city it's capital. In the picture above you can see St. Joseph Cathedral in the city centre, it's got a rather unusual render which makes it look like mouldy concrete (or maybe it is mouldy?) anyway, Catholic proselytising was rife in the region during this period, and even though atheism and ancestor worship are the main belief systems of the country (82%), around 8% of the population remain Christian. The French influence is not only visible in the Churches and the colonial architecture some of the street names bear the hallmark of Gallic empiric ambitions, on Pasteur Street there's even a craft beer brewery, it's just behind the Cathedral and clearly I was keen to sample Asian craft!

I wasn't expecting too much from the local brews but boy, was I pleasantly surprised! In the Pasteur Street taproom I sampled a couple of beers, the Pasteur Street Pale Ale and the Jasmine IPA, both were excellent, tasty examples of modern brewing with American hops as good as any you'd find in most places in the UK. The craft beer was expensive in comparison to the local mass-produced lager which was around £1 a pint, but the quality so much better and still excellent value (£2-3) compared to prices in the UK (£6-7). This particular brewery has a large footprint in Vietnam, having 10 taprooms in Saigon and Hanoi, I made a mental note to look out for them on my travels.

Even the local wine had a French vibe to it, we ventured to try a bottle of Cabernet (Chateau Dalat) at one of the many rooftop bars and, again, I was pleasantly surprised at the quality and value, perfectly decent red (perhaps a little thin) but at £7 a bottle (in a restaurant) you couldn't really argue. Most meals in good quality restaurants came out at around £10 per person or less, street food was ridiculously cheap and a big bowl of meat, sauce and noodles in a neighbourhood café was usually less than a fiver!

Of course Buddhism is big in the country and there are many temples dotted around, it's a little disconcerting though as one of the main Buddhist symbols is a rotated swastika, below is a picture of an example of this from a temple on an island in a city lake (note the symbol on the chest of this statue)

Lakes and waterways are a large feature of the city, in the rainy season they get a ton of rain (clue's in the name!) and although it was dry the whole time we were there, reminders of the tropical climate are everywhere! Below is a typical waterside vista..

The other main architectural style for larger Government buildings is quite "soviet" in character, unsurprising really as Russia was a big backer of Ho Chi Minh during the American war, he's a demi-god here and his image is everywhere, on the money, on buildings and in shops, I snapped the frontage of an anonymous government building in the picture below..