Luna and the Temple of the Sacred Turtle: A dip into bizarre Hanoi
It’s one of the world’s fastest emerging tourist destinations, a thundering hive of history, hospitality and home-brew beer, but as I found, there’s an altogether stranger side to Hanoi lying at its heart.
Hanoi is a freight train. Or, at least, it hits you like one. My time living in the comfort of “small town” Ha Tinh is no preparation. For one, it’s maddeningly cold. Well, ‘cold’ is 18 Celsius, the polar opposite of the British summer where 18 would feel about ready to melt cast iron. For another thing, it’s rammed. There aren’t many more people here than London, but as we descend into the web of the Old Quarter, there is no better word than “throng”.
It's an assault of neon lights, Tiger beer, thrusted menus and a mix of languages I had found to be a rarity in Vietnam. Yet, in a strange turn of events, I find my first stop in the city to be a peaceful one.
The claustrophobic streets of Hanoi’s Old Quarter are a common introduction to the city for tourists © Matthew Walsh / Finding Earth
It's the first full day in the capital and I start with a tourist speciality: the free hostel walking tour. Luna, the guide, can’t be pushing more than five-feet tall but she is packed to the brim with knowledge and warmth. She muscles the group through Old Quarter, her voice cast around by a little pocket amplifier, until we reach the shoreline of Hoan Kiem.
It looks out of place, bordered by a gargantuan intersection where takes place the customary Hanoi traffic melee, banks, a large, brutalist post office, and, across the other side, the city’s unmistakable French Quarter.
As Luna continues with her tour, it appears that it was the French who made this lake look so out of place. Once a large natural pond, the nineteenth Century empire, with its love of parkland and boulevard, dredged up most of this city centre marvel to make way.
It isn’t French colonial architecture or traffic scrambles that catch the eye here though, but rather something out in the middle of the water. A temple.
“The temple of the sacred turtles,” Luna says with a characteristic grin. She’s joking. Surely she is. It’s the kind of thing you expect from Neverending Story, and it seems the rest of the group feel the same from the little snorts of laughter that her statement births. My interest is piqued when she doesn’t go back on her words.
The candy red bridge over Hoan Kiem © Matthew Walsh / Finding Earth
We round the edge of the lake, targeted towards a candy red bridge reaching out to the temple island. A 30,000 Dong fee later (it sounds like a lot, it’s about $1), and the Chinese-letter-lined bridge leads us into the temple courtyard. Like much in Vietnam, it is modest. Low trees block much of the view of the cityscape behind and, like much in Vietnam, it flies the yellow star high and proud, but this time accompanied by the colourful concentric squares of the Folk flag.
Hoan Kiem’s temple entrance from the red bridge © Matthew Walsh / Finding Earth
The temple itself is an interesting departure from my usual experience of religious sites. “People leave offerings of things they like,” says Luna responding to a question about why there are stacks of new Saigon lager cans and trees made of Tru Tea around the altar. Another question flies her way. “We use Chinese writing because it looks more ancient,” I admire her honesty, and I was wondering this myself, given the home pride of Vietnam, why their temples are adorned with the symbols of their neighbour.
It's an intriguing sight, the temple, its unorthodox offerings, busts of ancient Vietnamese generals and foreign symbols, but nothing seems to grab the interest of the tourists here more than the small building to the temple’s left side.
The overwhelming and eclectic mix of tributes poured before the temple’s heart © Matthew Walsh / Finding Earth
It’s unassuming, simple and without the intricate roofing of the temple. Like most things, it’s what’s on the inside that counts. Luna was right. She actually wasn’t joking. Before us stood two colossal turtles. Swine-snouted, murky grey-green, yellow eyed and very much ancient.
The two stood, fixed in time forever in environmentally controlled glass cases, each a six-foot square, being serenaded by bizarre 80s-style pop rock guitar riffs through speakers in the room’s corners. One turtle stands in almost immaculate condition, dead a little more than a decade and taxidermized with modern techniques. His compatriot less so. Darkened and wrinkled, he was a product of a mid-twentieth century attempt at preservation. They look mythical , and Luna assures us just so. The legend tells of an ancient king asking for aid to defeat invaders (a depressingly common theme in Vietnamese history), only to be brought forth a magical sword by one of the lake’s monster turtles. Once he had driven back the invaders, the turtles demanded back the sword and this Vietnamese “King Arthur” gladly obliged. Since then, the lake and its otherworldly yet helpful ladies of the lake have been seen as sacred in Hanoi.
Now though, it seems there are none left at all, besides these two, stuck in still-life. Lake dredging by the colonial French certainly did the species no good and in times of hunger during the nineteenth and twentieth Centuries, slow-moving, giant reptiles in a small city centre lake were a no-brainer and the words ‘fish’ and ‘barrel’ come to mind as Luna tells the heart-breaking conclusion to the sacred turtles’ story.
At least they are remembered well.
The bizarre taxidermy of one of Hoan Kiem’s last giant turtles, a memorial to a lost species © Matthew Walsh / Finding Earth
