Old Hanoi

Hoang Hoa Tham street, where Brendon and I live, has had major road works halfway along it ever since we arrived. It causes us quite a bit of inconvenience as it’s a major arterial road and we have to travel a couple of kilometres out of our way whenever we want to get into the city. For the first 6 months or so there was a narrow one-way path that motorbikes could travel along, that we called “The Squeeze” as in peak hour hundreds of bikes would try to get through at once.  Eventually even The Squeeze was demolished and the road works continued. I assumed the aim was to open up the city to the southern side of West Lake, which is an admirable plan as it’s virtually impossible to get to the southern side of West Lake unless you know how to get through a maze of back alleyways. Pity that to do this they had to demolish dozens of houses.

I was hopeful that the road would be completed before we left, so a couple of months ago we were dismayed to see work suddenly halted. Perhaps the money had run out? A dodgy construction firm had bankrupted itself and disappeared? I had no idea until I read about it on the front page of Vietnam News recently:

“Construction of the contentious new road linking Van Cao Street and West Lake has been halted following the unearthing of 1,000-old Ly-Tran and Le dynasty artifacts on Hoang Hoa Tham Street. Archeologists said the new road, which engineers were aiming to complete in time for celebrations of the 1,000^th anniversary of Thang Long-Hanoi, ploughed through parts of the old citadel wall which contained priceless artifacts dating back to the dynasties of Nguyen (1802-1945), Le (1428-1788), Tran (1225-1400) and Ly (1010-1225).”

The article goes on to say that the Hanoi Cultural Department admits “if we dig up any land underneath our feet, we’ll find layers of cultural remains”.  Meanwhile the Vietnamese Historical Science Association gently criticizes the government by noting “if Hanoi had an archaeological plan, the tragedy that has taken place along Hoang Hoa Tham street would never have happened.” Apparently the Institute of Archaeology drew up a detailed map of the city’s ancient sites in 2002, however, the project was never officially approved.

Incidents such as these are a reminder of the ancient city we are living in. It was 1010 A.D when King Ly Thai To, the founder of the Ly dynasty, transferred the old capital at Hoa Lu to Thang Long (Ascending Dragon), now called Hanoi.  Hanoi has been holding celebrations all year and the city is getting a major makeover in time for the main celebration in October.  I’m not entirely sure what the government has planned for 10/10/2010, but I imagine it will involve fireworks and whatever it is, I’m certain it will include major gridlock/traffic jams!

By the way, the migrant worker construction crews camped out on Hoang Hoa Tham street are now well and truly back at work! I may yet see the new road finished before I leave.

Advertisement