The turtle of Hoan Kiem Lake sounds terribly lonely. Such experts as there are on this most elusivecreature, Vietnam's only slightly less fabulous version of the Loch Ness Monster, contend furiously over its likely age and its species - even its sex is unknown - but they do seem to agree on its size. Its shell is thought to measure a metre and a half long by just over a metre wide, which makes its extremely rare sightings in a body of water that stretches no more than 600 metres from shore to shore, in the middle of Hanoi, all the more mysterious.
Legend has it that the turtle first appeared in the 15th century, when it arose from the waters of the lake to reclaim from King LeLoi, out boating with his courtiers, a magic swordlent him by the gods toexpel a rampaging Chinesearmy. Professor Ha Dinh Duc, recently retired from Hanoi National University and probably the foremost authority on the turtle, thinks the real animal could indeed be that old: the adult of a hatchling the king himself may have released into Hoan Kiem some 600 years ago (Galapagos turtles live almost half as long). He also insists this awesomely long-lived beast is the last of its kind - that when it does finally die, it will die truly alone.
Hanoians revere the legendary denizen of Hoan Kiem, in part because of its putative survival through so many centuries of their country's history and in part because of its role in a tale of Vietnamese victory overa great, invading power. What many of them do not believe - given that its snout is only apparently glimpsed above the water every decade or so and that it has never been caught - is that the turtle exists.
"Oh, that is a myth," said Nguyen, who had joined me with her friend Vu on the lakeside bench where I was daydreaming that the turtle might at any moment pop up before me. Nguyen wanted to practise her English; she had been knocked back on her first application for a student visa to the US, where she had hoped to study management to help to run the family textile factory in Nam Dinh, 100km from Hanoi. She had never done this before, she said - approached a foreigner on a bench - before asking if I would like to have lunch with her and Vu in a "very special restaurant".
I declined - I had only just eaten, I said - and, bidding goodbye to the charming Nguyen, I made instead for the Old City, through the noose of fearful traffic encircling the lake and stopped on the way at Hang Be Market. Many of Hanoi's restaurants obtain their supplies here; the bowls of warm blood, aerated vats in which enormous fish lazily swim away their last minutes, trays of twitching prawns and piles of twine-bound crabs, frogs and - relatively diminutive - turtles are an excellent introduction to the menus of the capital city.
Culinarily petrified westerners are well catered for in Hanoi, but it is best to avoid the second-rate establishments that reel them in. For a casual meal, at least, pull up a stool at a street stall among the Vietnamese. The unexcited expressions of your fellow diners as they consume some of the most stimulating food in the world - with its sharp refrains of coriander, chilli and fish sauce - can only make you jealous that they get to eat it every day. Even the presence of the odd, well-fed rat scuttling between the tables could be taken, in your transport of culinary delight, as a sign of exoticism.
Just to the north of the market, the 36 streets of the Old City each denote a particular guild whose members have plied their wares or services there for centuries. Tourist shops have made inroads but cobblers still line Cobbler Street, as do tinkers Tin Street, and the close, cluttered quarter remains a compelling reminder of pre-colonial, pre-industrial Hanoi. The old dwellings in the area are called nha ong (tube houses), very long and very narrow structures built to give each vendor a slice of precious street frontage. There is an exquisitely restored example, the work of the local people's committee, at 87 Ma May Street; it is a must-see, not least as a source of high quality handicrafts - little carved stone caskets make tempting gifts - and as a cool refuge from the cacophonous streets.
Such refuges are essential because noise is a Vietnamese speciality: TVs are everywhere, at a volume to disturb the deaf; construction work is an unrequested 7am reveille in numerous hotels (I once woke to find the rest of the rooms on my floor being demolished with sledgehammers); and the only decibel challenge to the snarl ofthe moped throngs is their drivers' unrestrained horn-honking. Thankfully, the Vietnamese also do temples and museums very well, and visits to these are an ideal way to pace your navigation of the city.
The Temple of Literature, built for the education of mandarins by King Ly Nhan Tong in the 11th century is among the most ancient monuments in the country. The traffic noise somehow fades to a murmur the moment you enter the first of the series of long, interlinked courtyards, interspersed with carp ponds, that make up the serene space; you can easily imagine the aspiring bureaucrats engaged here in the writing of literary compositions and poetry that formed part of their training (as perhaps it should for their modern equivalents).
Of the museums, almost all are devoted to war - unsurprisingly given that, in the past century alone, Vietnamese forces expelled armies from France, Japan, America and China. The Ho Chi Minh Museum is an impressive example of the curatorial craft, regardless of what you think of its star. However, Ho's mausoleum, next door (unfortunately closed on the day I visited) presents in its macabre way perhaps more of a draw.
It is hard to say whether the Vietnamese or the Russians would be more proud of the preservation of Ho's corpse. For it was the Soviets who dispatched their chief embalmer to Vietnam, with two planeloads of equipment, as the president lay dying, and Russian scientists still service his body to this day.
You could easily miss the B-52 Museum: most people do, which is all the more reason not to. Not only are you likely to be the sole visitor at this site in the suburbs of Hanoi, 15 minutes by xe om - motorscooter taxi - from the centre, but there also do not appear to be any staff. This is, in fact, more a sort of war yard than a museum but that is part of its peculiar appeal. The Vietnamese or, rather, Russian, matériel from the "American war" still stands proudly, the dust probably last sluiced off not too long ago. The downed B-52s, on the other hand, have been left to rust where they lie (although their missile wounds look horribly fresh).
And occupying every inch of space not taken up by the antiques of the enemy armies is something entirely incongruous: a low, peaceful forest of bonsai.
