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By Andrew Forbes

Both David [Henley] and I had visited Hanoi quite a few times in the past, but on this occasion we had a specific brief to photograph the city and its people in depth, and this would give us the opportunity both to rediscover familiar but favourite haunts, and to visit some more out-of-the-way locations for the first time.

The Old Quarter where we were staying certainly falls into the first category, and knowing something of the people and their habits, we rose early and headed down to Ho Hoan Kiem, the small but lovely lake that separates the Old City from the former French Quarter which has become downtown Hanoi. Ho Hoan Kiem means ‘Lake of the Restored Sword', and it lies not just at the heart of Hanoi, but also at the heart of Viet people everywhere. Until the 15th century, the lake was called simply Luc Thuy or ‘Green Water' because of its colour. At the time of the Ming occupation (1407–28), General Le Loi, while fishing in the lake, was given a magical sword by a divine turtle that lived in the waters, and with the help of this weapon succeeded in expelling the Chinese invaders. Later, as the Emperor Le Thai To, the general sailed to the centre of the lake, where the turtle rose to the surface and reclaimed the sword. From this time, the former ‘Green Waters' were given the honorific title Ho Hoan Kiem or ‘Lake of the Restored Sword'. In the mid-19th century, a small pagoda called Thap Rua or ‘Turtle Tower' was built on an islet in the centre of the lake to commemorate this supernatural event, and the structure has since become something of an emblem for Hanoi. According to Huu Ngoc, the editor of Vietnamese Studies, it is ‘not unlike how the image of the Eiffel Tower reminds one of Paris, or the Statue of Liberty of New York'. Certainly, each morning at six o'clock, Radio Hanoi begins its programmes with the song:

Wherever we find ourselves at the four points of the compass

Our hearts are turned to Hanoi

The blue waters of the Lake of the Restored Sword

Which mirror the slanted reflection of the Turtle Tower

At this early hour many of the citizens of Hoan Kiem District, which includes the Old Quarter, go to Ho Hoan Kiem, either to practice Tai Chi, the slow-motion Chinese martial art designed to promote health and longevity, or to jog and otherwise exercise by the shores of the lake. We wandered down the west side of the lake, past a tiny but revered temple dedicated to Le Thai To, the great liberator who expelled the Chinese in 1427, and an elegantly restored colonial building which currently houses the Hanoi branch of ANZ Bank, to an area of shady willow trees where young women practice aerobics. In the afternoons and evenings, this area is popular with older men, many of whom gather here to read the daily papers and to play chess, crouching over their chessboards and glasses of green tea with enthusiasm and intensity. From here, the nearby Turtle Tower can look positively ethereal, shrouded in morning mist and framed by branches of weeping willows. There is no access to the tiny island, and perhaps this is just as well, as close up Hanoi's iconic pagoda is unremarkable, dismissed by Huu Ngoc as ‘a square-based coarse little structure… featuring hybrid architectural styles'. As it is, seen from the shore it retains a certain magic, especially now the authorities have taken down the five-pointed red star that until recently surmounted it.

At its southern end, Ho Hoan Kiem meets Trang Tien and the northern fringe of the former French Quarter, but we turned back north to stroll up the eastern shore of the lake. This area was formerly associated with the Trinh Lords, whose country palace here was torn down by the Le Emperor in 1786 and replaced, in the 19th century, by the renowned Bao An Pagoda, an extensive temple complex comprising 36 buildings, with drum and bell towers, bridges and pavilions. The French in turn tore this temple down in 1892, and today only the Hoa Phong Tower, a six-metre high pagoda with four interconnected entrances believed to bring auspicious winds to the capital, survives by the lakeshore. A short distance further north another architectural disaster – the Central Post Office, conceived in socialist style and erected during the bleak years before doi moi – dominates the eastern skyline. Just beyond this undistinguished building, its stained concrete walls already cracked and worn, a octagonal gazebo – in fact an old French bandstand – recently repainted pastel yellow and roofed with ochre tiles, distinguishes the small strip of Indira Gandhi Park that lies between Le Lai and Le Thach streets.

This pattern of contrasts repeats itself at the northeastern edge of the lake, only more starkly so. The socialist-style Martyrs' Monument, a group of three concrete warriors – a standing woman with a sword to the left, a man striding boldly forward in the centre carrying an RPG7 rocket launcher, and another male figure crouching to the right clutching a rifle – was in dubious taste and poor repair a decade ago, but has now simply become ridiculous. The rocket launcher held by the central warrior has lost its concrete warhead, leaving three metal prongs exposed and pointing skywards, so the soldier seems to be carrying a gigantic plug, more a deranged electrician than a socialist hero.

In sharp contrast, immediately to the west of the Martyrs' Monument, stands Den Ngoc Son, or ‘Jade Mountain Temple', one of the loveliest and most revered religious complexes in the capital. Established by the scholarly mandarin Nguyen Van Sieu (1799–1872) appropriate symbols of learning and literature distinguish the temple complex. A stylised stone ink slab rests atop the arched gate at the entrance; nearby a tapering stone pillar representing a traditional Chinese brush pen rises through five levels. On its side, three Chinese ideograms proclaim ta thanh thien, or ‘writing on a clear sky'. Beyond the entrance, a red-painted, gracefully arched wooden bridge leads across the still green waters to a small island in the north of the lake. This is the celebrated The Huc or ‘Rising Sun' Bridge, where groups of Vietnamese children often huddle hoping to catch a glimpse of one of the lake's legendary turtles.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the island housed a pleasure pavilion for the Trinh Lords. In the 19th century, under the tutelage of Nguyen Van Sieu, it became a Buddhist temple and a shrine for the Spirits of the Soil, of Medicine and of Literature, as well as a shrine for venerating Tran Hung Dao, the hero-general who defeated the Mongols in the 13th century. Today Den Ngoc Son is an exquisite gem at the very heart of Ho Hoan Kiem. A huge Mahayana Buddhist banner – its red central square framed by consecutive green, yellow, blue, and white borders, then a final flourish of serrated scarlet trim – flutters from a tall flagpole in the temple grounds. The temple buildings, which are beautifully preserved and maintained, date from the early Nguyen Dynasty. Decorated with upswept eaves and elaborate carved dragons, the predominant colours are red, gold, mustard yellow and black. We entered the antechamber, where a stuffed turtle reminiscent of the ‘Restored Sword' legend is on display. This huge beast, which died in 1968, reportedly weighing more than 200 kilos and around two metres long, apparently belongs to a species of soft-shelled turtle rejoicing in the scientific name Rafetus leloii after the wielder of the magic sword. How many of its kin still survive in the lake is a moot point, but one is said to have been photographed in 2000, surfacing near Thap Rua. The citizens of Hanoi take the appearance of one of their number, an increasingly rare event, as a most auspicious sign.

We left the turtle in his glass cabinet and passed through into the main shrine hall. Here, beside a rack of symbolic ancient weapons, Vietnamese worshippers place sticks of incense, three a piece (for the Buddha, the Order of Monks, and the Holy Scriptures) in front of statues on the main altar representing Van Xuong, the God of Literature; La To, Patron Saint of Physicians; and Quan Vu, Patron Saint of Martial Arts. Dominating the altar, and glaring fiercely at all and sundry, stands a likeness of Tran Hung Dao, the temple's main deity. While David discreetly began to take photographs, I looked up through the incense-laden air to the sculpted rafters. A black cat was grooming itself, tail hanging casually over the roof beam. It stared down briefly at the inquisitive foreign intruders, yawned and stretched, then went back to its languid preening.

In one brief stroll around Ho Hoan Kiem we had visited two temples to martial heroes, Le Thai To and Tran Hung Dao, both scourges of the Chinese invader. The cult of the deified warrior has been a perennially popular theme in Vietnam, and one that is making quite a comeback in recent years. When American professor George Kahin visited Hanoi Cathedral in 1972, his government hosts asked if he would not like to see something of Vietnam's own indigenous religion, as opposed to an imported faith. On replying in the affirmative, Kahin was taken to see the shrine of Tran Hung Dao at Den Ngoc Son. Later he visited a number of other shrines across Hanoi where Vietnamese revere the spirits of martial heroes such as the Trung Sisters, Le Loi and Nguyen Trai, all of whom, like Tran Hung Dao, fought against the Chinese – and no other foe. Yet this was in communist North Vietnam, at the height of the Second Indochina War, when relations between Hanoi and Beijing were, at least in theory, ‘as close as the lips and the teeth', and the United States was engaged in massive bombing of the country. It seems axiomatic, then, that Kahin – a Southeast Asia specialist who died at Stanford in 2000 – would scarcely be surprised to learn that a new cult of the revered warrior is slowly but inexorably emerging, as Ho Chi Minh takes his place in the nation's pantheon of deified heroes.

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Text by Andrew Forbes; Photos by David Henley & Pictures From History - © CPA Media