Part 1 of Day 4 of North Vietnam Trip, Hanoi on January 11, 2018
Fourth day of our Vietnam tour as we were leaving Hanoi and heading for Hue, which had been the capital of Vietnam after Hanoi until 1945. But since our flight was at noon, we decided to take a brief morning tour to Thăng Long Imperial Citadel before heading to the airport.
端门
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By all reasonable means, we should have visited Thang Long Citadel during our first day in Hanoi. However, the Citadel was closed on Mondays, so we squeezed it into today's itinerary by visiting it right after it opened at 8am.
The area was the core of the Dai La Citadel between 7th and 9th centuries AD when the region was ruled directly by China. Thang Long Citadel was first built during the Lý Dynasty (1010) and subsequently expanded by the Trần, Lê and finally the Nguyễn Dynasty. It remained the seat of the Vietnamese court until 1810, when the Nguyen Dynasty chose to move the capital to Huế. The ruins roughly coincide with the Hanoi Citadel today. During the Vietnam War, headquarters of North Vietnamese government and arm were also located here.
A combination of information board and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Citadel_of_Th%C4%83ng_Long
South Gate was probably the most intact (if not the only) surviving structure of the Citadel. There were still archeological activities going on underneath it.
Click to display excerpts of information board about Doan Mon
It was during the planning of Dong Kinh (Eastern Capital) by the Le Dynasty (1428-1789) that Doan Mon was recreated to serve as the main gate of Thang Long Forbidden Citadel. Basically, Doan Mon was built in the style of a palace gate with five doors. The middle door, above which there was a stone slab inscribed with the Chinese Characters 端门 was to be used only by the king. The next two doors on either side were for the military and civil mandarins and the remaining two doors to the father ends were for ceremonial squads. Doan Mon was topped by a five-door pavilion known as Ngu Mon. According to the regulations of Le Dynasty, the space in front of Doan Mon was used by the mandarins and guards of honor as a place to stand in waiting, practice calls and rehearse manners before proceeding to the main palace Kinh Thien to conduct some of the most important ceremonies of Great Viet.
Doan Mon (South Gate) was the main entrance of the Forbidden Citadel of Thang Long over the course of a thousand-year old history. The earliest reference to the gate was found in the Sung Thien Dien Linh stele erected in 1121 under the reign of King Ly Nhan Tong. The stele is currently housed in Long Doi Pagoda.
This stele also offers official historical account that Doan Mon was fronted by a large court where many important activities of the Ly Dynasty were held, including the Quang Chieu Lantern Festival which bore some of the most typical features of Buddhism. The festival took place on many occasions in Thang Long.
Due to the vicissitudes of history, the structures of Doan Mon under the Ly and Tran dynasties have been totally destroyed. The extant gate that we see today was only a 17th century structure, built during the Restored Le period on the grounds of the 15th century Doan Mon built under the Early Le. Archaeologists are in the continued process of looking for vestiges of the original Doan Mon under the Ly – Tran dynasties.
After his accession to the throne in 1802, Nguyen Anh chose to build the national capital city in Phu Xuan (Hue) and Thang Long was reduced to the status of northern capital with 11 units known as tran. Although Thang Long Citadel of the Le dynasty (1427-1789) was demolished for the construction of Hanoi Citadel in 1805, Doan Mon was retained and repaired. The main gate continued to be associated with Long Thien Palace and the Northern capital of the Nguyen Dynasty. During the early years of the Nguyen Dynasty, Doan Mon was witness to important ceremonies like the reception of the king when he was on an inspection trip to the north, the transference of royal edicts and letters, the reception of foreign envoys to the country as well as praying ceremonies on important days.
It was also at the Ngu Mon Pavilion that in 1821 Emperor Minh Menh reviewed a military parade of 15,000 troops. According to records of the Nguyen dynasty, when Governor-General of the Northern Citadel Le Chat happened to sit right in the middle of the Ngu Mon Pavilion during the first military parade of the year, he was charged with lese-majeste, which was a serious offence according to the law of Nguyen dynasty. This is yet another proof of the crucial importance of Doan Mon Gate, Ngu Mon Pavilion and Long Thien Palace in the overall structure of Hanoi Citadel of the Nguyen Dynasty.
Following the historic victory of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the armistice Geneve Accord was signed to bring the First Indochina War to an end. On the morning of 10 October 1954, the Vietnamese army entered Hanoi and liberated the capital city. At 15h00 of the same day, lee flag salutation ceremony was solemnly held by the Politico-Military Commission of Hanoi at the Cot Co Stadium in front of Doan Mon. The event was attended by major military units like Regiment of the Capital (Brigade 308), Regiment 57 (Brigade 304) and tens of thousands of people in Hanoi. This event marked an immensely significant turning point as it opened up a new and glorious chapter in the land of aged-old culture of Thang Long – Dong Do- Ha Noi commonly known as the Ho Chi Minh Era.
At the end of 1954, the Ministry of National Defense decided to place all of its nerve-center agencies in the former Hanoi Citadel (now part of Thang Long Citadel). A Military Sport Center was also built near the Cot Co Stadium. Since then the site has been witness to different political, cultural and sporting events with the presence of most of the highest-ranking leaders of the Party, the government and the army, like President Ho Chi Minh, General Secretary Truang Chinh, First Secretary Le Duan, Commander-in-Chief General Vo Nguyen Giap, General Van Tien Dung, General Le Trong Tan among others.
端门
The official information boards described this stadium as the solemn place where North Vietnam declared its independence. Photos of military parades in the following years looked a lot less solemn and more like, motorcycle stunts.
There were still exhibits of retired military aircrafts and tanks by its side, not the most impressing models though.
Apart from Doan Mon, we visited a nearby archeological museum.
Terracotta, 11 to 12 century.
Ceramic, for King's use.
The rest of the Citadel were mostly made of buildings in the Vietnam War era.
Presumably some office building in the Ho Chi Minh Era.
An artwork from modern Vietnamese artists.
Must be some good old relic. The manufacture's plate was still written in Russian.
We also visited Building D67 and its bunker, which served as the nerve-center of the North during the Vietnam War. Unfortunately, there were signs of "no photography" hanging all around, so there's not much to show.
Click to display excerpts of information board about Building D67
This building was constructed in 1967 at the height of the Vietnam War. It housed the General Headquarters of the People’s Army of Vietnam and contained meeting rooms for the Politburo, the Vietnamese Communist Party’s policy-making committee. General Vo Nguyen Giap, Minister of Defense and Vietnams’ most famous modern military figure, and General Van Tien Dung, Chief of the General Staff, both had their offices here.
Building D67 was erected on the northern part of the Kinh Thien Palace foundation. The building is modest in size and style. From the outside it looks like an ordinary single-story house with a flat roof, but the details of its construction betray its military importance. The walls are 60cm thick and soundproofed. There are two entrance doors, the outside one made of steel 1cm thick. A layer of sand on the roof protected the building from shrapnel penetration.
Incorporated in its construction is a deep bunker, accessible both form the building and from the former French artillery headquarters.
The Vietnamese government has recognized this building and its bunker as part of the Vietnam’s Outstanding Revolutionary Heritage.
Click to display excerpts of information board about Bunker
During the Vietnamese War Hanoi experienced intensive bombing, starting in June 1966 and peaking during the US military’s “Linebacker II” (18-29 December 1972) raids shortly before the Paris Peace Accord were signed, making the end of America’s involvement in the war (27 January 1973). Most Hanoi residents were evacuated to the countryside during bombing raids.
Hanoi’s citizens took refuge in the network of air-raid shelters built throughout the city. President Ho Chi Minh used a bunker next to his simple stilt house beyond Ba Dinh Square.
The Army dug a system of bunkers beneath the Citadel. The most important section was constructed in 1967 under Building D67 and linking with the Dragon House. In this D67 Bunker (also called the Central Military Commission Bunker) the Politburo, Central Military Commission and the Army commanders met to make key decisions about the conduct of the Vietnam War.
The bunker is 9 meters deep and reinforced to withstand bombing. There are three entry and exit stairs, accessible through steel doors, one leading to the former Artillery Headquarters and two to Building D67. Many of the original artefacts remain in place, such as tables, desks and chairs, and it is possible to see where the various leaders sat. Original maps and charts are still pinned to the wall.
At the same time, I was just thinking, it must be that the building's built in the year 1967 that it's called D67. Didn't they have any more imagination in naming building back then?
Back then there's no Sanya Flight Information Region, so Vietnamese planes could fly as close as they like to the Chinese island of Hainan.
At last, it's Princess' Pagoda, which was built when capital of Vietnam had already been moved to Hue though.
Click to display excerpts of information board about Princess' Pagoda
The Princess' Pagoda was built during the Nguyen Dynasty probably as accommodation for ladies in waiting and concubines when the emperor was visiting Hanoi. At the end of the 19th century it was seriously damaged and reconstructed by the French authorities.
The Pagoda has three levels and is built of stuccoed brick. The second level consists of a three-bay pavilion. Each level has a tube tile roof with up-turned eaves decorated with dragon heads. Each element of the upper levels has eight roofsides - a distinguished number in Vietnamese numerology.
In 1998, excavations around the Pagoda revealed architectural relics dating from the 9th century to the beginning of the 20th century, with Ly, Tran and Le dynasty relics being most abundant. At a depth of 3.2m, stone and brick foundations for timber columns were found, dating from the Ly and Tran periods. The Tran foundation stones were carved in a lotus petal shape. There were also a large number of fine artefacts of imperial porcelain dating from the early Le Dynasty. The remains of a stone wharf were also found, reminding us that Princess' Pagoda once stood on the banks of the Ngoc Ha River which flowed to the west of the Citadel.
To reach here we had to go through a series of steep and narrow stairs though.
There was still an archeological site of Thang Long Citadel 400 meters away across the street that we could visit on the same ticket. But we determined it's about time we head for the airport for our flight to Hue, so we skipped it and called an Uber back to hotel.
正北门. Princess' Pagoda seemed to be the farthest North building general visitors can reach in the Citadel, all the area farther North was marked "forbidden" in OpenStreetMap. I took this photo on the Uber ride back to hotel.
After picking up our luggage at hotel, it was another short Uber ride to the Airport minivan station by Hoan Kiem Lake, where minivans to airport departed on a hourly schedule during the day. We scouted out the location and timetable during day 1, so we arrived minutes before the 10am departure and made it to the airport.
END