Dumplings and mopeds; Hanoi marks 1,000 years

The narrow lanes and alleys of Hanoi's old center were not designed to cope with modern congestion but that should not discourage you from visiting this exceptional south-east Asian city.

Hanoi is celebrating 1,000 years since its foundation in 1010 and to mark the occasion Vietnam is organizing a huge festival appropriate for a Communist governed country.

Competitions to design the best propaganda poster or write the most eloquent essay on working class culture are part of events in the run-up to the anniversary. One hundred bronze drums are also in the making for 10.10.10, the day they will first be used.

According to legend, it was in the year 1010 that King Ly Thai Tho arrived at the Red River to found the city. The king saw a dragon rise from the water and named the city Thang Long: the rising dragon.

At a bend in the river ─ Hanoi in Vietnamese ─ a white horse appeared to the king and it was on this spot that he decided to build the citadel. The name Hanoi survived but the citadel has disappeared long ago.

Today, if you visit the old heart of Hanoi it is possible to meet the descendants of the tradesmen who originally settled outside the citadel. You can also expect to encounter a culinary adventure and enjoy a very interesting day out.

The most important side streets in Hanoi have the word Hang in their name, which means product or merchandise in Vietnamese. Salt Alley, Shoe Lane or Silk Alley indicate the products that have been sold in those streets for hundred of years.

In Pharmacy Street you can find sacks and large glass jars full of dried berries, leaves or mushrooms.

A young woman encourages the curious to enter her shop and points to a sack brim full of small sticks. It turns out the sticks are liquorice which Vietnamese pharmacists use to make bitter medicine more palatable.

Christian Oster reaches for a glass jar containing red berries. Hamburg-born Oster has been living in Hanoi for six years and offers tours of the city's less well beaten paths.

He speaks Vietnamese and knows that a jar with the label Ky Thu contains boxthorn, or Wolfberry as it is commonly known. “It has lots of vitamins and has been regarded by the Vietnamese as an elixir for hundreds of years,” says Oster.

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